SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " Buyer " 406 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Apple Surveys iPhone Duo Buyers About Crease and Camera
Apple is sending email surveys to some iPhone Duo buyers to get feedback on display size, crease, under-display camera, and other features. The first question asks why the buyer chose the iPhone Duo now, with answers like "I wanted to try Apple's first foldable," "It was an impulse purchase," and "I expect smartphone prices to increase".
How Changing Reimbursement Realities Are Rewriting Behavioral Health M&A
The growth-at-all-costs days are over in behavioral health. Buyers now want operators with density, sustainable reimbursement models and a deep continuum
How Changing Reimbursement Realities Are Rewriting Behavioral Health M&A
The growth-at-all-costs days are over in behavioral health. Buyers now want operators with density, sustainable reimbursement models and a deep continuum
Apple's new $299 device comes with a warning for buyers
Apple's new household gadget has impressive features, but its $299 price doesn't tell the whole story.
Astrion drew more interest than AstraGin at NuLiv Science's Bangkok booth
At Vitafoods Asia 2026 in Bangkok, NuLiv Science's collagen booster Astrion outdrew AstraGin as regional buyers focused on beauty and anti-aging.
Apple iMac M6 review: Faster, more expensive and deeply in need of a refresh
Most buyers would be better off with a Mac mini and a bigger external display.
New York City digital health startups raised $1.9 billion in Q3, up 36%
New York City digital health startups raised $1.9B in Q3 2026, up 36%. Here's how that compares with Rock Health's national count and what buyers face.
Who needs picks when your offense is lacking?
The Denver Broncos should be buyers at the trade deadline
Duly’s private equity backer looks for an exit: report
Ares Management is seeking a buyer for its stake in Illinois’ largest independent physician group after almost a decade.
OpenAI: ChatGPT Search Is About 20% of Google’s, 250 Million People Speak With ChatGPT, and Chat Is Merging With Work
OpenAI says ChatGPT growth is accelerating. The company added 200 million users over just the past two months, jumping from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly active users in 60 days. Its search volume, it says, is approximately 20% of Google’s. Its users create 1.5 billion images with it per week. And its voice mode, between dictation and speaking with ChatGPT, now has 250 million combined weekly active users. ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry told me this during a brief fireside chat at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York City on Monday night. “The growth is just going big,” he said. During our conversation, Fry also revealed plans to merge ChatGPT’s Chat and Work modes (so that confusing toggle up top will soon go away), agreed with feedback that ChatGPT-created restaurant signage looks too uniform, and addressed the cost to serve its personal assistant Dots. Here’s a look at our full conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length. We also cover image generation, interactive interfaces, advertising, education, and public unease about AI: Alex Kantrowitz: OpenAI has analyzed ChatGPT’s search volume and compared it with Google’s. What did you find? Adam Fry: ChatGPT has been growing quite quickly. ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google. It’s a pretty amazing statistic when you think about it, mainly because we started just about a year and a half ago. It’s hard to remember this, but ChatGPT at a time didn’t have any up-to-date information. You’d ask a question, it would say something like, “It’s past my training date,” and nobody had any idea what that meant. You’re saying ChatGPT’s search volume is one-fifth of Google’s. Bing’s share of the search market is around 5%. Does that make you multiple times larger than Bing? To say that more directly, ChatGPT has gone from one billion to 1.2 in just the last two months. That’s roughly 100 million users in 30 days, and another 100 million in another 30 days. The growth is just going big, and we’re staying very focused on how fast ChatGPT is growing. What counts as a search? I might have 20 prompts back and forth in a ChatGPT conversation. Does each one count as a query? Story continues below… A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR Move upmarket without a rebuild Moving upmarket means saying yes to what enterprise buyers ask for first: SSO, directory sync, and audit logs. WorkOS gives you all three, so your team keeps building the product instead of the checklist. Get enterprise-ready. Continued from above…. Adam Fry: What people came to ChatGPT for to start, if you go back about two years, is really writing help and coding help. Those wouldn’t be things that you really search for. What we’ve seen over the last year is people have grown into all these other topics. Things like you’re looking up a person or people or a place or a thing, and it requires up-to-date information. That’s a key element. Another big part is finance questions or health questions, where you really want to make sure it’s up-to-date information that’s quite factual, and we’ll do a web search for those questions. It’s basically anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for, but is now deciding to go to ChatGPT for. Does each conversation with a search embedded count as one search, or does every question that requires a web search count? Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that’s a search. You used to work at Google. How would you say the nature of search is changing? One of the things that people really love about ChatGPT is this personalization and this understanding of the broader journey. If you look in the past, people would go for a Q&A box, and you’d ask a one-off question, like how tall is the Eiffel Tower. But there’s so much context in our lives around, “Maybe I’m taking a trip to Paris.” It’s actually helpful for ChatGPT to respond, “Here’s how tall the Eiffel Tower is, but I know you’re going on a trip to Paris.” It’s that ability for people to actually maintain context over time that has led them to start using ChatGPT in this way. You’ve also announced 250 million weekly active users of voice input, including dictation and conversations with voice mode. We are at 250 million weekly active users. What’s amazing about this is, if you look at those 250 million, what we’re seeing is it’s actually also incremental to the product. It’s no longer just a novelty. People aren’t just trying out voice. We’re seeing them use voice input day to day in their daily life, and it’s grown so quickly. Those 250 million users are using voice input, and that could just be a quick question or a long conversation. We’re seeing both behaviors. We’re seeing people just not want to type. You just hold it and start talking to it, or it turns into a longer conversation where people just sit with it. The big reason for this is the frontier capabilities of our models that we’ve shipped. We shipped what we call GPT Live 1, and then we shipped GPT Live 1.1. The big change with this is that it’s much more natural to speak with. It’s something we call backchanneling and interruptibility. Mhhhm… What you just did there is what the model does, because it’s really good at having a bidirectional conversation. That push to the frontier—we were the first to really release this at scale—has made it so much more natural for people to chat. That’s still only about 20% of the user base. From the outside, that looks small. Why is it exciting from the inside? It’s very exciting for a few reasons. We see from the data that when people start using voice, they stay around using voice. One of the things, transparently, we can do a better job of is bringing more people into discovering it. We see that the number of people who discover it could be a lot higher. But once they do, it’s a really new way for people to interact with AI. We’ve made a lot of improvements to it too, where we’re just going to see the number go up. You have background mode, so now by default, if you close the app, it’ll show, “Hey, the conversation’s still going.” If you want to walk around the house or you’re putting away the groceries, you can still have a chat. That kind of continuity has also changed how much people use it. Dots launched on September 29 and is about a month old. How’s it doing? It’s doing great. We talk to people about their Dot, and the first thing that everyone says is, “I love my Dot.” One of the reasons we’re seeing this is the proactivity, its ability to reach out to you and figure out things. The biggest use case I see all the time is, “Did I forget something today that I was supposed to do?” You can just say to your Dot, “Remind me of things at the end of the day that I may have forgotten. Somebody emailed me or messaged me,” and it’ll do that. This Dot changes the paradigm of the relationship with AI, where it’s actually helping you and giving you time back. You’re more conservative with permissions than some competitors. I tried to give my Dot my credit card, and it wouldn’t take it. With the creator of OpenClaw in-house, why are Dots’ permissions more limited? This is a space where we want to be very thoughtful and conservative because it’s a new space where you’re entrusting your Dot to take care of things on behalf of you that matter and are meaningful. We’ve just talked about how you go to this 1.2 billion user growth and asking questions. Now we’re asking people, “Can you ask ChatGPT or your Dot to help get things done?” But when you ask it to help get things done, it’s a whole new level of trust. We’ve built up a tremendous amount of trust in giving the right answers to your questions, and we want to make sure that when we build this new product, it has a high degree of trust. It’s a long game. We think this is going to be a new market for a very long time, and we want to make sure that we’re being this trusted player in the market to start. I initially thought Dots would be available on my $20 plan, then realized I had to spend $100 a month to get it. I upgraded, but I’d like to downgrade at some point…. We hope to keep earning your business and make the value good enough. It’s a really good point. ChatGPT’s goal more broadly, which I think is unique for us in the market, is we are focused on bringing intelligence to everyone safely across the entire world. For Dots in particular, there’s no difference. We don’t have anything to share tonight about the date of when Dots will go to a broader set of users. But you can rest assured we’re working very hard, and there are a couple things we have to get right. Over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The first one is, right now we wanted to make sure that your Dot is actually really helpful. We started with some of our best models, but over time we’re going to work on more efficient, agentic models that are able and capable of doing things for you. The second thing is around proactivity. We’re still dialing in: How much do I message you to help you get things done? We can always play around with that to understand how much usage should a user use to have a successful Dot. We’re going to work on both, and our goal and ambition is to bring it out to all users. How much background computing does a Dot require? I’ve read estimates that serving a $100 subscriber might cost OpenAI $3,000 in compute, and mine seems to read every email that arrives. How often is it checking connected data sources? Right now, Dots are on the compute-heavier side, and this is one of the things we want to make sure that we can dial back over time. But the goal is to give you the best product. This is our premium, always-on personal assistant. Once we nail that, we’ll figure out how to dial back the compute needs. The thing we’re seeing also from our models, as we train frontier models, is just how—I can’t even keep up with how quickly we have a new model, and each new model is more efficient. If you looked at 6.1 Sol when it came out relative to Astra, much more efficient. I’m very excited about the next set of models we have coming too that’ll be even more efficient that we can use. Elon Musk said the cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue. Is efficiency the key to winning against competitors, or is there more to it? There are a couple of factors that go into it. One is the cost side, but the other is the revenue side. On ChatGPT and on our consumer business, we’ve been extremely proud of our ability to diversify different revenue streams in a way that’s growing really fast. To give you another stat, we announced several months back that we had passed 50 million subscriptions, and the number has grown considerably since then. On ads, within 200 days, we reached more than a billion in ARR, and that business is growing extremely quickly. We also have credits. Rather than paying for subscriptions, users can buy more credits. Between credits, subscriptions, and ads, I’m confident that the value of a Dot is going to be able to pay for itself. Elon has subscriptions too. This is clearly an expensive product to serve. One thing we continue to bet on at OpenAI and ChatGPT more broadly is that the models will continue to get much better and much cheaper, way faster than any of us think. If you look back at the historicals on it, it continues to be true. From what I’ve seen, I see no slowing down of that. What is Meta doing right with Muse? It has spent a lot of time atop the App Store charts. There are a couple of things they’ve done well. The first is people have been craving simplicity in their products. One of the things we have stated publicly as well is, at times AI products can be too complex. We’ve announced we’re merging ChatGPT’s Chat and Work. We’re making it much more simple in the products. You don’t have as many toggles or sliders between efforts and different model pickers. One of the things they’ve done well is this simplicity. You just go in and you can ask a question. You don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing. That’s one thing that seems to have resonated with users, which we also believe in. Second, there’s something really nice about being able to access your agent across many different channels. We just announced and launched Dots on iMessage. Whether you talk to your Dot on email or iMessage or within the ChatGPT app, the ubiquity in getting your assistant out there is going to be key. Those are two things that, if I had to be nice to our competitors, I would say were two big ones. So Alexandr Wang’s meme-tweeting strategy isn’t something you’re going to emulate? I have a different tweeting style. ChatGPT still asks me to choose between Chat and Work, even though some people call this technology AGI. Will that distinction go away? Couldn’t agree more. We have to solve this. Asking users to choose — we’ve heard repeatedly from all of our users it’s too much to understand. When should you go to Chat? When should you go to Work? It’s solvable. There’s real research to solve to make sure the models can understand what your intent is. Are you asking for a fast, quick reply? Are you asking me to go do a long agentic task? We’re going to solve it, and the plan is to bring Chat and Work together. So one interface will work out whether I’m asking for a conversation or a task. When? Coming soon. You told me the majority of ChatGPT’s 1.2 billion users are using image functionality. What are they doing? Today, 1.5 billion images are created per week. It’s hard to even wrap my head around that number. They’re doing a wide range of things. One of the most interesting things they’ve started to do is really use it for productivity use cases. The first thing it started with—I don’t know if you saw the ’80s trend, but it was quite fun. You could take a photo of yourself and say, “Put me and my family in ’80s outfits.” I did this for my family, and it was a really fun poster. But what we’re also seeing is businesses for their menus, or posters for birthdays. People are using it almost in a productivity-like fashion to create visual diagrams of what they would like to see. We’ve actually brought the latency down on images as well, so it’s gotten a lot faster. It went from a very high number of seconds to getting much faster. As it comes down even further, the number of images people are creating and the number of use cases is going to grow a lot. My feature request: When a restaurant makes a menu or sign, prompt it for more specificity so it doesn’t look like every other AI-generated restaurant sign. Or offer a shuffle button for a different style. I agree with the feedback, and we’ll take it to the team. I’m seeing ChatGPT generate little interactive interfaces within its answers. What’s the direction for Intelligent UI, and how are people using it? I am extremely excited about Intelligent UI. If you go back a couple years, these chat apps were all text, and now that’s changing. They’re going to be visuals. Intelligent UI and our first attempt at this with GPT-6 Intelligent UI is really just the beginning. As you go to the extreme, what you can imagine is, let’s say you’re using voice mode, and you just say, “Show me how offside works.” Immediately it should show you a visual diagram, and you say, “No, I don’t quite understand it.” It should just repopulate. That’s where the future of this technology goes. It’s almost like you’re talking to a canvas that will update and change. People are finding it helpful for a lot of things. My favorite one is—it’s hard to admit that I had no idea how hearts work. The last biology course I took was in high school. I just asked it, “How does the heart work?” and it instantly gave me a beautiful interactive diagram of where blood flows and how it goes through. I’m really, really bullish on this for learning in particular. You’ve described useful applications in finance, health, and learning, and ChatGPT has 1.2 billion users. If people are getting so much value, why is public polling on AI so negative? The reality with AI is it is going to change the nature of how work gets done. For a lot of people, that is something that can feel scary at times, and we’ve all felt that. But I remain confident that when people actually use the product and they use AI, it very quickly changes how they perceive it. We’re at 1.2 billion, but there are still a lot of people who haven’t used it. The more people use it, get familiar with it, how it can actually help you in your life, it’s going to feel a lot less scary. Big Technology is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thanks!! Subscribe
Xbox's New 25 Years Bundle Retails For $569.99, And Here's The Full List Of Games
It's mainly intended as a freebie for PC buyers though
Here’s where Trump’s housing agenda stands before midterms
America’s housing market is paralyzed, with buyers pulling back and builders growing more pessimistic ahead of the midterms.
Official Zelda Switch 2 Console Restocks Have a Release Date
Nintendo and specific retailers confirm when restocks of the popular Zelda-themed Switch 2 console will happen, giving buyers a chance to plan ahead.
Business Owners Have a Window. Most Aren't Ready to Use It. by Tully Ryan
I spend my working life on both sides of a business sale. As an M&A advisor based in Wilmington, I help lower middle market owners across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia sell what they've built. As the founder and CEO of IQExit, I work with the bankers, wealth advisors, CPAs and attorneys who sit beside those owners for years before a sale ever comes up. From both seats, I keep seeing the same thing. The market is ready for our owners. Too many of our owners aren't ready for the market. Start with our own backyard. Wilmington's metro area added more than 12,000 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, a 2.6% jump that ranked seventh in the country. It also posted the highest job growth rate of any metro in North Carolina. I see the same pattern in the growth markets I work in across the Southeast. New residents mean new customers and new workers. They also mean new buyers: people who moved here from corporate jobs and want to own something, private equity groups looking for add-ons in HVAC, electrical, landscaping and other trade services, and younger entrepreneurs who would rather buy a running business than start one from scratch. The ownership numbers are hard to ignore. About half of North Carolina's small businesses have an owner who is 55 or older, and roughly 85% of those owners have no succession plan, according to the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center. Nationally, more than half of Baby Boomer business owners have no documented transition plan. That isn't a crisis yet. It's a timing problem. A lot of businesses will change hands over the next decade, and the prepared ones will get the better buyers and the better terms. Buyers have money and they're using it. But an active market doesn't mean a fast one. The IBBA's latest Market Pulse survey found that Main Street deals took six to 10 months from engagement to close in the second quarter, and lower middle market deals took 11 to 12 months. That clock starts after the owner decides to sell. In my experience, the real preparation has to start years before. Two clocks, two playbooks When I sit down with an owner or their advisor, my first question isn't “What's it worth?” It's “When?” The answer puts the owner in one of two groups. If the owner wants out within 24 months, we're in execution mode. There's no time to rebuild the business. The work is cleaning up what a buyer will test: three years of financials that tie to the tax returns, an add-back schedule you can prove, customer and vendor contracts in writing, a lease that can be assigned, and a price the market will actually pay. The goal is certainty to close. If the exit is two to five years away, the owner has something worth more than time. They have choices. That window is where most value gets built, and most owners waste it by waiting. What kills deals In the lower middle market, deals rarely die over the headline price. They die in diligence, or they get retraded late in the process. I see the same causes again and again. The owner is the business. If every key customer relationship runs through the owner's cell phone, a buyer sees risk and a lender sees more of it. The books don't hold up. Buyers spot weak accounting fast. Statements that get revised mid-process, a revolving door in the bookkeeper's chair, revenue tracked on a side spreadsheet, and margins that slip while sales climb with no clear reason all make a buyer nervous. So does an owner who pushes back when asked for documents. And plenty of private owners run personal expenses through the company. Add-backs are normal. Add-backs you can't document turn into a lower offer. The real estate isn't sorted out. Many owners hold their building in a separate LLC. That's fine, but the lease terms or the property sale should be settled before a buyer shows up, not halfway through diligence. Revenue sits in too few hands. Picture a contractor with 40% of its work coming from one builder, or a service company running on handshake deals. Buyers will still look, but the terms shift toward more seller financing, an earnout, or less cash at closing. Owners and advisors: if your exit is three to five years out • Get a baseline now. Find out where the business really stands today: what a buyer would pay, who that buyer is likely to be, and which gaps would hurt you in diligence. You can't fix what you haven't measured, and the answer is often different from what the owner expects. • Make yourself less necessary. Spend the next few years building a manager or small team that can run daily operations and own customer relationships. Put handshake deals into written contracts. A business that runs without its owner is worth more and is far easier to finance. • Clean the books for three straight years. Buyers and lenders look back at least three years. Separate personal expenses, keep the financials tied to the tax returns, track every add-back as you go, and settle the real estate plan early. A word to CPAs CPAs often see a sale coming before anyone else, and you're usually the most trusted voice an owner has. Year-end meetings are the right time to start this conversation. Here's what I'd ask every CPA to do this season with business owner clients over 55: • Ask the timing question. “Do you see yourself owning this business in five years? If not, who takes it over?” Write down the answer and bring it up again at next year's meeting. • Run a proof of cash and review revenue recognition. Make sure the cash in the bank ties to the revenue on the books. Pay close attention to contractors with work in progress and to companies selling memberships or service plans. These issues are easy to fix with years of lead time and painful to fix a month before closing. • Pair the tax return with an exit readiness review. Invite clients to complete IQExit's Exit Readiness Intelligence (ERI) process as part of year-end planning. It gives you and the client a shared picture of readiness gaps and an indicative value range, and the results come back to you as the advisor. That turns a tax meeting into a planning relationship, and it puts you in position to bring in tax and M&A help early, when choices like purchase price allocation can still save the client real money. Changing the conversation For bankers, wealth advisors and attorneys, the hard part is raising the subject without seeming to nudge a client toward the door. I understand that. Nobody wants to tell a 60-year-old owner it's time to sell. So don't. Ask a different question: “If a buyer called tomorrow, what would they find?” That's a planning question, not a pitch, and it's useful whether the exit is two years out or 15. It's the question we built IQExit to help advisors answer. Whether you're in Wilmington, Raleigh, Charleston, Richmond or anywhere else, owners have a real opening right now. The buyers are out there and so is the capital. The owners who come out ahead will be the ones who start getting ready before they're ready to sell.
New York Giants Get New Maxx Crosby Trade Report
The New York Giants enter their bye week at 4-2-1 as leaders of the NFC East. Despite losing their starting quarterback Jaxson Dart and star pass rusher Brian Burns to season-ending injuries, the Giants have rallied and positioned themselves to be buyers at the trade deadline.While the expectation is that New York will aim for […] The post New York Giants Get New Maxx Crosby Trade Report appeared first on HEAVY.
Historic Balboa Theater in Newport Beach sold and to be restored, buyer’s rep said
The theater opened in 1928 as the Ritz Theater and the screen has been dark since 1991.
Meet the next behavioral health tech buyers
Many companies that seized investor interest during the pandemic-era health tech investment boon are looking to add growth or find a home.
Survivor Sweat marketplace offers Circa contestants life after elimination
Survivor Sweat is an online marketplace where participants in Circa football contests can list all or a portion of their entries for sale, and where buyers can purchase them.
A key hurdle for homebuyers may stick around through 2027
The Mortgage Bankers Association forecasts 30-year fixed mortgage rates staying above 7% through 2027, creating major hurdles for first-time home buyers.
New Jersey buyer bets on Cleveland with $3.2 million deal for industrial site near downtown
The site was sold by its longtime owner, Weston, to a group that say it hopes the deal is only its first in Northeast Ohio, where it's looking to buy more.
Xbox is offering 25 free Xbox games for eligible Windows 11 PC buyers
In another new way to celebrate the Xbox brand turning 25, Microsoft will soon be offering eligible PC buyers a chance to claim 25 free Xbox games.
Health care needs buyers willing to say no
"The industry’s major players have little appetite for change," writes Anthony T. Lo Sasso.
Xbox Is Giving Away 25 Free Games To 'Eligible' PC Buyers Until The End Of 2026
Claim a collection of 25 fan-favorite games at no additional cost
XREAL Aura is coming in November with a special $200-off launch discount
Xreal Aura is set to redefine XR headsets with the full Android XR capabilities, apps, and games, plus a launch discount for early buyers.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities to Sell Fenway Life Science Property at 421 Park Drive in Boston
BOSTON— Alexandria Real Estate Equities has agreed to sell its development property at 421 Park Drive in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood to an institutional buyer, a transaction expected to generate significant […]
FHLBank Topeka awards $4M in tribal housing grants
Federal Home Loan Bank Topeka awarded a total of $4 million in grants to 14 tribes and tribal housing entities for home repairs, housing construction, infrastructure and homebuyer assistance. The 2026 awards, announced Oct. 20, come through the bank’s Native American Housing Initiatives Grants Program, which supports affordable housing and community development in Colorado, Kansas, […]
Zelda 40th Anniversary Nintendo Switch 2 restock signals good news for launch day buyers
📅 The Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 releases on Thursday, October 27 🚨 Our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker @mattswider on X will send out an alert when stock appears 😲 Nintendo Store held a surprise restock yesterday, which is good news for other retailers 🙏 It suggests other retailers may be holding back launch day stock, too Walmart: Zelda Switch 2 console Best Buy: Zelda Switch 2 console GameStop: Zelda Switch 2 console Target: Zelda Switch 2 console Nintendo: Zelda Switch 2 console 🚨 We’re tracking Zelda Switch 2 stock updates. If you’d like to know when more stock arrives, follow Matt Swider on X and turn on notifications. You can also become a free or paid subscriber to The Shortcut to help support our work. 🚨 🚨 Want the Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2? Drop your email for restock alerts before it sells out. ⤵️ Subscribe We predicted that a Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 restock would happen on launch day, October 29, and we’re now even more confident after the Nintendo Store’s surprise restock yesterday. Our followers were the first to know that the Zelda Switch 2 was back in stock at the Nintendo Store, and the console even promised to arrive on launch day if you managed to secure one. [ Matt Swider (The Shortcut)@mattswider ](https://x.com/mattswider/status/2114758291322757239?s=20) Zelda Switch 2 console in stock at the Nintendo Store nintendo.com/us/store/produ… 4:37 PM · Oct 26, 2026 · 67K Views 18 Replies · 4 Reposts · 75 Likes It strongly suggests that other retailers such as Walmart, Target, GameStop, Amazon and Best Buy will have more units – albeit in limited quantities – on launch day for those who currently don’t have a pre-order. Retailers often hold back stock for launch day buyers who haven’t pre-ordered. Cancellations can also occur in the run up to release, meaning more stock is made available that was previously snapped up. Zelda Switch 2 restock – why Walmart will have stock Walmart historically holds back extra stock for launch day, and we’re expecting the same to happen on October 29. As the largest retailer in the US, it usually has the biggest stock allocation, and Thursday and Friday mornings is when the retailer tends to offer restocks online. As we mentioned previously, Nintendo was also a retailer to watch – and it went live with a restock earlier than we thought. It had previously promised the Zelda 40th anniversary Switch 2 would be “replenished”, and it offered a limited amount of stock for those who were lucky enough to snag one. (Hint: Followers of Matt Swider on X and our restock tracker were first in line.) We’re expecting other retailers like Target, GameStop and Amazon to get a new wave consoles on launch day, and we’ll notify you if and when any Zelda Switch 2 restocks appear. Why you should follow our Zelda Switch 2 restock tracker Remember when you couldn’t find a PS5 for nearly two years? Not our followers. We helped over 400,000 people buy Sony’s console when it was in and out of stock, and we’ve since made it our goal to help our subscribers bag hard-to-find times. We’ve done the same with the PS5 30th anniversary edition, Nintendo Switch 2, and many more in-demand products. With up-to-the-second US store inventory checks, The Shortcut and Matt Swider on X offers exclusive Zelda 40th anniversary Switch restock updates. You’ll also receive an instant notification on X (if set to on) as soon as new stock arrives. Up next: Zelda 40th Anniversary Switch 2 Pro Controller restock looks increasingly likely at Nintendo Store Subscribe Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
Reese Witherspoon Is Buying Back Her Company. Here’s the Lesson for Founders
When you sell a business, the right buyer must understand what made it successful—not just what they can do with it.
The Supply Side: Walmart buyers discuss tips for supplier success
Getting a 30-minute meeting with a Walmart buyer is not an easy feat. But for those who do, being prepared to pitch a product can mean the difference between getting...
Confessions of a reluctant iPhone Duo buyer
If there's anything more idiotic than spending $2,000 on an iPhone Duo, it's getting up at 4:00 AM to go buy it. I did both of those things, and am so relieved to say I'm glad.
Xbox Seeks Partner to Support Arkane Lyon as It Finishes Marvel's Blade, Extends Search for Buyer
Microsoft has said it's exploring the possibility of a company coming in to support Arkane Lyon as it works to finish development of Marvel's Blade, and that it's extending the deadline to find a buyer for the studio.
Potential buyer of Weiss and West Suburban hospitals has mixed track record
Insight Chicago owes tens of millions of dollars to the state, and its Bronzeville hospital has been cited for numerous safety issues.
Gen Z has buyer’s remorse on Trump
Experts in the youth vote explain a dramatic swing toward Democrats — and its limits.
Business is booming for Giacinta’s at the Bridge
BRIDGEPORT – Since welcoming Giacinta’s Gelato & Caffe to their new location in the multipurpose Bridge at Bridgeport Exempted Village School District, the place has been a go-to spot for students and community members looking for that morning pick-me-up. Owner Audrey Brahler made some time between morning rushes of buyers to talk about the success […]
Volkswagen Bet On Xpeng To Save Its China Business, But Buyers Aren't Showing Up
Volkswagen once dominated China’s automotive market, but the rise of domestic electric vehicle manufacturers has turned its fortunes upside down. Hoping to regain lost ground, the German automaker partnered with Chinese EV specialist Xpeng in ... Read more
1 player Eagles must target at 2026 NFL trade deadline
If the Philadelphia Eagles make any more trades before the 2026 trade deadline , it should almost certainly be as sellers, not buyers. Now sure, could Roseman find a bargain on the margins and make a move, like if a team is willing to take a conditional seventh-round pick for a player at a position of need – safety, anyone? -instead of releasing […] The post 1 player Eagles must target at 2026 NFL trade deadline appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Apple's $2,000 foldable iPhone reportedly cracks within hours as owners report display failures
Some early iPhone Duo buyers have reported cracked inner displays within hours of receiving Apple's $1,999 foldable smartphone. One owner claims the screen broke after fewer than 20 folds, although the extent and cause of the reported failures remain unknown.
Scalpers offer Apple iPhone Duo buyers hundreds extra outside Beijing launch
Apple's global launch of the foldable iPhone Duo brought scalpers to the Beijing flagship store looking to pay big for the already pricey devices.
As devastating Xbox "reset" continues, Dishonored studio Arkane Lyon reportedly only has until November to find a new buyer before it's closed
Microsoft previously said it was reviewing "potential strategic options" regarding the much-loved developer.
Arkane Devs Say Blade Is Nearly Finished But If It Can't Find A Buyer Soon, The Studio Will Close
Union reps say it'd be a 'monumental waste' for Blade to remain unfinished
Report: Arkane Studios has until November 13 to find a buyer
Arkane Studios, which Xbox announced plans to divest in July, faces a November 13 deadline in the consultation process surrounding its proposed closure, with “several forms of takeover”…
Catapult Books is being sold and its L.A. authors are mourning
Catapult Books has sold its assets to an undisclosed buyer, leaving the future of 16 scheduled titles uncertain as staff negotiate a severance package.
University Hospitals Urgent Care in Medina sells for $3 million
The sale was between two third-party owners and will not affect operations at the site, the buyer's broker reports.
Greenwich Entertainment Buys Philip Byron’s ‘Spin Wars’
EXCLUSIVE: Spin Wars, a documentary about the billion-dollar boutique fitness revolution, has landed a buyer. Greenwich Entertainment has acquired the North American distribution rights to the doc, wh...
Jaguars Urged to Trade for $12M CB at Deadline
One of the biggest takeaways from the Jacksonville Jaguars‘ loss to the Houston Texans in Week 6 is that the team has a serious need at cornerback. As the Jaguars sit at 4-2 during the bye week, they will likely be considering trades to make them buyers. Perhaps the best name the Jaguars could add […] The post Jaguars Urged to Trade for $12M CB at Deadline appeared first on HEAVY.
Toyota RAV4 review: boringly good, buyers can't get enough
I drove the 2026 Toyota RAV4. It's the perfect antidote to high gas prices and looks like everything else on the road. Good luck finding one to buy.
49ers, Jaguars Floated Trade Idea Involving $14.6 Million Player
The San Francisco 49ers appear to be one of the buyers ahead of the Nov. 10 trade deadline. So far this 2026 NFL season, the Niners have established themselves as a Super Bowl contender. Despite the impressive start to the campaign, San Francisco does have areas of concern such as the wide receiver position. During […] The post 49ers, Jaguars Floated Trade Idea Involving $14.6 Million Player appeared first on HEAVY.
Nvidia's RTX Spark Event in San Francisco Attracts Long Lines, But Few Buyers
Dozens lined up to check out the first RTX Spark laptops on launch day, but actual purchases were few and far between, with curious Nvidia fans citing the machines' high cost.
What Makes Your Cannabis Business Buyable Right Now?
It’s a fraught question for many operators: How attractive is my business to potential buyers in the current market? M&A experts offer 5 characteristics buyers are seeking for entrepreneurs considering or curious about their businesses’ potential in an exit. Plus, 5 ways to make your business more attractive to buyers.
US Rep proposes bill to give video game buyers "ownership," not "a license"
There are still significant hurdles ahead, both technical and legislative.
New SBA lending rules create hurdles for aspiring business owners
Some worry the updated rules to the Small Business Administration's 7(a) loan program would make it harder for some would-be buyers to obtain financing, putting business acquisitions further out of reach.
Microsoft's latest Windows 11 perk will give new PC buyers 25 free Xbox games worth over $500
Gears of War: Reloaded and more Xbox free games will be given to PC players as part of Windows 11's latest promotion.
Fall River mill building purchased by local family-owned business
A historic Fall River mill is now under new ownership, and the buyers aren’t a major developer. Instead, it’s a family-owned business with roots in the city.
Browns Demoted Star on NFL Trade Deadline ‘Hot Seat’
The Cleveland Browns could be active at the NFL trade deadline, maybe as both a buyer and a seller ... depending on Jerry Jeudy. The post Browns Demoted Star on NFL Trade Deadline ‘Hot Seat’ appeared first on HEAVY.
Apple TV 4K 2022 vs. 2026 Buyer's Guide: All Differences Compared
Apple announced the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K earlier this week, introducing the A19 chip, built-in microphones for hands-free Siri, four-speaker HomePod surround sound, and an updated Siri Remote. It replaces the third-generation model introduced in 2022, bringing a number of internal changes while retaining the same basic design and most of the same entertainment features. The new model costs $299 and comes with 128GB of storage.
The 'renewable' iPhone Duo display layer may help buyers justify the price
The iPhone Duo starts at $1999 for the 256GB model and rises to an eye-watering $3199 for the 2TB version...
Medical Alley opens studio for health innovation
Plus: Crisp & Green acquires two salad chains and Rocket55 finds a buyer.
Battle Over the Pierre Ends in Defeat for the Buyer Pushed by Lutnick
Motasem Khashoggi, who hails from a prominent Saudi family, missed a Tuesday deadline to deliver a $100 million deposit to purchase the Manhattan landmark.
iPhone Duo Compromises: Everything You Have to Give Up
Apple's $1,999 iPhone Duo asks buyers to pay more for a folding screen while accepting almost 40 compromises compared with the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, spanning camera capabilities, everyday usability, and ownership costs. At equivalent storage capacities, the iPhone Duo costs $800 more than the iPhone 18 Pro and $700 more than the Pro Max.
Google’s new ‘Shop devices’ tab sells Pixel and Samsung Galaxy devices side by side
Google has launched a new “Shop devices” portal that lets interested buyers pick up a Samsung Galaxy smartphone from the...
HomePod Mini vs. HomePod Mini 2 Buyer's Guide: All Differences Compared
Apple yesterday announced the HomePod mini 2, introducing the compact smart speaker's first major hardware update in six years. The new model retains the original's spherical design, but adds an S10 chip, faster wireless connectivity, Sound Glow lighting, new Mac and home theater capabilities, and support for Siri AI in a future software update. The HomePod mini 2 costs $149 in the United States, $20 more than its predecessor's last Apple price of $129.
A robotics business is set to be bought with shares priced about 50% above the buyer's Oct. 12 close.
The deal also includes up to $10 million in equity financing; both transactions remain subject to closing conditions, with closings expected by October's end.
RCLF Funding for Businesses & First-Time Homebuyers
Dani Dials sits down with LaWanda Jones from Renaissance Community Loan Fund (RCLF) to talk about helping entrepreneurs and first-time homebuyers access financing.
The Vogue Business SS27 Global Buyer Report
Buyers share their top trends, collections and takeaways from the Spring/Summer 2027 season.
Michael Jordan jersey sets $14 million record for basketball memorabilia
Pennsylvania-based Hunt Auctions announced the private treaty sale Monday and identified the buyer as Miami real estate executive Ron Firman.
HomeView's Wall Model: Pay More, Get Less Speaker
Apple offers two versions of the HomeView, one that can be mounted on the wall and one that's a standalone model with a speaker base. The wall-mounted version and the speaker version are both priced at $299, with no discount for the base-free model. Wall mounting is the more expensive option because most buyers will need hardware that's sold separately and is currently priced starting at $60. There are three options for mounting the HomeView on the wall.
Will Rockies Have Buyer’s Remorse With This Veteran Outfielder?
The Colorado Rockies entered the 2026 Trade Deadline as clear sellers with plenty of ammunition to offload. Two likely veterans to be dealt were outfielders Jake McCarthy and Mickey Moniak, who had put together very solid seasons with Colorado up to that point. But Colorado elected to keep both players, citing that they did not …
Voters in Portland (Oregon) get ads meant for Portland (Maine)
The ad buyer admitted the mistake and refunded the money to the political group that ordered it.
GOP ad buyer mixes up Portlands, spends money meant to help Maine Sen. Susan Collins in Oregon
An outside group mistakenly spent nearly $25,000 to boost Collins in Portland, Oregon, rather than Portland, Maine. The buyer admitted to the error and refunded the PAC.
Islandia condo project advances with zoning change
Kelly Real Estate received a zoning change to build a $10 million condominium development for buyers 55 and over in Islandia.
Coravin Symposium gives sommeliers the business advice they need
Business events in the wine industry are thin on the ground, so when Coravin announced it was to host a day dedicated to providing commercial insights and support for sommeliers the expectations were high. Thankfully those hopes were well and truly met at a highly successful inaugural event held at London’s Savoy Hotel last week. The Buyer’s Richard Siddle was there to not only analyse what was said, but helped chair the opening session on how data is now central to how wine lists are being pulled together - which was typical of the commercially focused issues covered during this much needed and well received day. Here he shares his key takeaways from what will hopefully become an annual fixture in any leading sommelier’s diary.
Charleston restaurant outfitter said it was moving. Where’d it go?
North Charleston-based Berlin’s Restaurant Supply outfitted commercial kitchens for 4 decades. It quietly closed up shop in 2026, two years after it was acquired by a private equity buyer.
GameStop is hoping PS5 Pro buyers are desperate enough to pay $500 over MSRP
A shortage has driven resale prices through the roof.
Apple Stores Will Add Your Name to iPhone Duo's Startup Screen
Apple has something special planned for customers who purchase an iPhone Duo in an Apple Store. Employees will be able to customize the Duo so it displays the name of the buyer at the "Hello" screen when it turns on for the first time. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple retail stores in the United States will have a personalization system for adding the buyer's name to an iPhone Duo, with English and Spanish language options.
iPhone Duo buyers to get a special surprise at U.S. Apple Stores, Gurman says
iPhone Duo buyers who purchase their device at an Apple Store in the US will be treated to a nice little surprise when they turn it on for the first time.
Business News: Movado Selling Ebel To F.P. Journe And Chanel In Deal Heralding Comeback Of Once Mighty Swiss Brand
Consortium of buyers, including François-Paul Journe and French luxury group Chanel, buys 95% stake in Ebel for $66.5 million.
Gears of War: E-Day sells 230K copies
Gears of War: E-Day has sold 230K copies since its advance-access launch on October 1 and full release on October 6. Steam accounts for 168K of those, with Xbox (console and PC) selling 62K. But there’s more to this story, as Xbox makes up the bulk of revenue. E-Day is the best-reviewed Gears game in nearly two decades (and the best one ever made, in my opinion). The Coalition has made a banger here (it’s currently in my top 10 of the year). Despite E-Day’s undeniable quality, this is a soft result. And it’s down to the business model, really. E-Day has made $37M so far, thanks to the Premium upgrade On Xbox, Game Pass is cannibalising much of the premium revenue. Our estimates show that 1.7M folks accessed E-Day via their subscription rather than a copy. But Xbox is having it both ways – or having it halfway, at least – via its Premium Edition Game Pass upgrade. Game Pass subscribers could pay $30 (or their local equivalent) for up to five days of early access starting October 1. Our estimates show that of the 1.7M who accessed E-Day through Game Pass, 722K paid for the upgrade. Between the review embargo lifting on October 1 and the full release, E-Day managed to shift another 250K early-access upgrades – no doubt helped by the campaign’s rave reviews. So despite selling far fewer copies on Steam, Xbox accounts for almost three-quarters of the revenue (roughly $26M of the $37M, versus about $11M on Steam). So “230K copies” undersells the paying audience. Including the 722K upgrades, nearly 950K people actually paid something for E-Day. The $30 upgrade is a halfstep from cannibalisation, but will Xbox go all the way? While E-Day is a sublime game, these are soft numbers for a flagship when Xbox badly needs revenue wins. E-Day sold 62K copies on Xbox against 722K Premium upgrades, so for every one copy sold on Xbox, nearly 12 Game Pass upgrades were sold. The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox. Normally you can’t see what a Game Pass player would have paid, because the game’s just there in the subscription. But the $30 early-access upgrade estimate shows that 722K people demonstrated they’ll spend real money on this game. In a world without day-one Game Pass, many of these folks would have bought E-Day at $70. They paid $30 for five days early access to something they don’t own. Xbox is, in effect, charging its most valuable customers the least, based on a hangover from a tried-and-exhausted strategy from a previous administration. Those 722K willing-to-pay players generated about $21.7M via the upgrade. If three quarters of this group – mostly US and European audiences – bought E-Day outright, that’s nearly $40M. Of course, Game Pass does bring in meaningful recurring revenue, and E-Day is adding value for hundreds of thousands of subscribers. However, Game Pass is no longer growing, so Xbox is at a crossroads. Xbox is reportedly looking to do a Netflix and bolt on an ad-supported tier to pad it further. But that will just set a new floor, and leadership keeps telling us the priority now is revenue growth, which is subscriber-speak for ARPU. Xbox has already pulled Call of Duty from day-one Game Pass after day-one inclusion hammered its sales, with new CoD titles now arriving on the service around a year late. We know that some Microsoft executives believe the service devalues games outright, and rumours (which Microsoft has dismissed so far, to be fair) suggest that day-one releases could be taken off Game Pass. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe When a game this well-reviewed does this softly on its home platform, the model – not the game – gets brought into question. What else E-Day’s early adopters have played (including this month so far) Looking at E-Day‘s players on Xbox, most have played the franchise before (86% have played Gears 5, 76% Gears 4), and every game on the crossover list is either a shooter or a title from an Xbox-owned studio (though Game Pass is inflating those numbers, of course, more on that later): As for what else Xbox’s E-Day players have played this month, the top three are Fortnite (16%), Roblox (7%), and Call of Duty (6%). Another 5% played Minecraft Dungeons II, which is also on Game Pass and launched a couple of days before Gears‘ advance-access date. Many Game Pass players are happy to check out most big new additions. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Over on Steam, the top crossover games are also mostly shooters (slightly more PC-coded ones), including Space Marine 2, which was itself heavily inspired by Gears: Looking at what E-Day‘s Steam players are into this month shows who they are – as subscriptions don’t skew the data. The top three are Wardogs (13%), Deadlock (12%), and CS2 (10%), so you’ve got the restless shooter crowd checking out the new hotness. A little further down are Helldivers 2 and Space Marine 2, your co-op PVE shooter players who’ll feel right at home in Horde mode. Game Pass is skewing the playtime distribution on Xbox Looking at the playtime distribution in our platform, E-Day players on Steam are – relatively speaking – playing for longer: 54% of E-Day players on Xbox have played for five hours or less (versus 32% on Steam) 19% of Xbox players played for over 15 hours (versus 33% on Steam) 14% of Xbox players played for over 20 hours (22% on Steam) The absolute number of people playing for over 15, 20, and 50 hours is, of course, bigger on Xbox, thanks to the sheer volume of folks who came in through Game Pass (upgraders included). None of that is cause for alarm. Game Pass is the reason Xbox playtime skews lower, as when a game is free to try, people try it and bounce without putting in even an hour (17% under an hour on Xbox versus 6% on Steam). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe The subscription brings in tourists alongside the committed, dragging down the average even when the game is excellent (but also perhaps winning over the uninitiated). It’s standard across every subscription-included title, on PS Plus too. Forza Horizon 6, for instance, had 11% of its Xbox players bounce under an hour, versus just 2% on Steam. So, Xbox’s crossroads So there we have it. Gears of War: E-Day is an incredible game whose revenues have been stifled by subscription inclusion and exclusivity. It’s the best-reviewed entry in the series in fifteen-odd years, but it still turned into one of the year’s softer flagship launches, not because players didn’t want it, but because Xbox’s own storefront gave its most willing buyers a reason not to pay. Which leaves Xbox at a crossroads. Will it keep making Gears games when the financial returns are this thin and the margins this low? And if it does, does the next one arrive off Game Pass at day one – the way CoD now does, or even on PlayStation? I think it should. Alright, back to E-Day for me! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
Event aims to connect small business with government, defense contracts
The government and defense contracting forum in Rochester offers small businesses connections with buyers like Lockheed Martin and Micron Technology.
Real estate investors are snapping up Sheetz properties
Buyers are counting on the initial 15-year leases with five five-year renewal options up to 40 total years generating steady returns for decades.
Is Academy Sports and Outdoors (ASO) Still Cheap On Earnings?
Academy Sports and Outdoors has delivered solid gains for long term shareholders, which puts a spotlight on whether the current share price at US$52.76 is still well supported by its earnings power. With that kind of track record in the rear-view mirror, the key issue now is what those profits are worth today. A 33.9% return over the past 5 years means long term holders have been rewarded. Fresh buyers need to ask whether the present valuation still lines up with the earnings that underpin...
Opinion: ‘Responsible AI’ will be proven on Chicago’s factory floors
Chicago’s AI advantage is its buyers. If artificial intelligence can work in our plants, hospitals and insurance giants, it can work anywhere.
KMOX Business Expert: Adjustable rate mortgages may only give home buyers short-term relief
| 104.1 FM KMOX
Aware Recovery Care sold, renamed Renew Health + Recovery
Aware Recovery Care has been sold to a buyer led by CEO Roy Sasenaraine and renamed Renew Health + Recovery as the company restructures.
For sale: The entire former Siena Heights University campus in Adrian
It could be sold in its entirety to one buyer, or to multiple buyers.
After 34 years and 150,000 movies, Scarecrow Video’s longtime buyer retires
Mark Steiner was critical to shaping Scarecrow's video collection, expanding the store's inventory from 1,000 titles in 1992 to more than 156,000 titles today.
Anxiety over fuel prices points to ‘looming EV comeback’ in U.S.
Just when it seemed American car buyers had left electric vehicles for dead, there are new signs of life in that corner of the auto market.
iPhone 13 Pro vs. iPhone 18 Pro Buyer's Guide: Is It Worth Upgrading?
Apple released the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max in September 2026, five years after the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. The 2021 models introduced ProMotion displays, macro photography, a 3x Telephoto camera, and substantially longer battery life than their predecessors. They remain capable phones and support iOS 27, but owners now have five generations of upgrades to consider.
49ers Handed Intriguing Take on Vita Vea After Defeating Broncos
The San Francisco 49ers sit at 4-0 through four weeks, and the trade deadline is on Nov. 10, but if the team keeps playing like this, it’s clear they’ll be buyers looking to improve.Wide receiver and the defensive line are two areas of concern for the Niners given the injuries and lack of depth. On […] The post 49ers Handed Intriguing Take on Vita Vea After Defeating Broncos appeared first on HEAVY.
As Music Instrument Buyers Go Upscale, Fender Overhauls Online Experience
Fender is revamping its online presence amid a shifting market for musical instruments moving toward premium offerings, vintage sounds, and online sales and information.
Used Ryzen 7 5800X3D Gets Buyer Locked Out of Valorant Due to Previous Owner's Cheating
Buying a used Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU has apparently locked its new owner out of Valorant. Reddit user After-Cartoonist-196 posted on r/PCBaumeister that they bought the chip through the German classifieds site Kleinanzeigen and have owned it since September 21. The CPU apparently works fine....
Gamer Buys Used Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Gets Locked Out of Valorant Because Previous Owner Cheated
A buyer of a Ryzen 7 5800X3D found it banned by Riot's Vanguard anti-cheat, impacting their entire system and highlighting risks in the second-hand PC market.
Trimble still evaluating possible transport tech business sale
Trimble continues to weigh a possible sale of its transportation technology business after potential buyers approached the company with acquisition interest.
Sec. 338(h)(10) elections in business acquisitions
A Sec. 338(h)(10) election can allow parties to a business acquisition to treat a statutory stock purchase as a deemed asset sale for income tax purposes, potentially benefiting both the buyer and the seller. This article discusses the election’s mechanics, eligibility rules, and tax consequences, as well as practical deal considerations.
Debt service and the Pentagon. Private equity and the politics of the US housing market. The return of black lung disease & the Franco-Prussian War in color.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. RALPH BALSON. 1890—1964. Oil and enamel, signed. Source: Gavekal This going to hurt - the two 7s in the US: diesel and mortgage rates Source: Gavekal In the US housing market, costs are soaring and the role of corporate, private equity-backed buyers is high on the mid-term election agenda. HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $60. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe It is striking how, since 2020, big banks have dropped out of the political spotlight in the US. For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Rates of the lung disease pneumoconiosis among working US coal miners have risen to levels not seen in nearly 40 years Source: Bloomberg Chinese Clean Technology Exports For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Ralph Balson (1939) Portrait of Grace Crowley Cole, G. O. & Haseman, S. M., (2023) “‘The Substance of Paint’: Class and Materiality in the Work of Ralph Balson”, Open Library of Humanities 9(2). Ralph Balson (1890–1964) was an English plumber and house painter who emigrated to Australia in 1913 and subsequently became a key member of Sydney’s artistic avant-garde. He is credited with having the first solo exhibition of purely abstract painting in Australia in 1941. Despite his role in developing Australian non-objective painting, Balson remained principally a house painter, working on his art practice at weekends. In 1955 he retired on a state pension and became a full-time artist. Balson’s artistic education and methods were critically shaped by his working-class background. He did not travel abroad until 1960 and was an avid auto-didact. His materials, palette, techniques and compositional strategies were likewise informed by his trade. Balson’s profession as a painter-decorator made him conspicuous within the predominantly middle-class Sydney art scene, though his painting partner Grace Crowley considered it an advantage in their pursuit of constructive painting. This paper explores the impact of Balson’s trade on his trajectory towards pure abstraction. While his art was at odds with the predominantly figurative mode of class-conscious art in Australian Modernism, we argue that it is embedded in the experience of class through its creative adaptation of labour into aesthetics. Source: OLH Svetlana Alexievich, The Art of Oral History No. 1 Paris Review Issue 257, Fall 2026 Interviewed by Elena Kostyuchenko INTERVIEWER How were you able to go to Chernobyl? Did you need special papers? ALEXIEVICH It was a time of chaos. They let me right into the zone. … More than anything, there was confusion. Adamovich [Ales Adamovich, the Soviet Belarusian writer], I remember, persuaded Gorbachev to send in the scientists, who showed up without even bringing their shaving kits. They were told that there had been an explosion at a nuclear power plant, but for some reason they thought that they’d be there for only a day or two. The first time I went was several months later, and people kept telling me about things they didn’t understand—how the fishermen couldn’t find worms, because they’d burrowed deep into the earth, how the milk wouldn’t curdle at the cheese factories. The honeybees wouldn’t come out of their hives. The evacuations started, I think, in the first month. The old women hid, they wouldn’t leave. I mentioned radiation to one of them and she said, “I’ve seen that radiation, all right! It’s yellow with green in it. I saw puddles of it in my garden, and I told the other women, and we ran and looked, and she had it in her garden, and the other one, too!” God, it was wild, the way the mind made sense of it. There was a story going around about Gorbachev telling the scientists to show him the radiation. “We can’t, it’s invisible.” “But I want to see it!” I also ran into the soldiers who’d been flown in on helicopters from Afghanistan. I asked them, “What are you doing here with your machine guns?” They said, “We’re collecting the radiation, that’s what.” So you had some of them running around with their guns, others out in the village washing off firewood or burying soil in the soil. These were the kinds of things that exploded our worldview. They made you realize that culture was just a chest filled with old manuscripts. There were no books in there that could help me. Our philosophers turned out to be useless when faced with the unprecedented. Derrida, Baudrillard—philosophy fell silent. What was happening? How would we live with it? That’s when I decided it simply needed to be witnessed. Which is what I did. INTERVIEWER I wanted to ask about how you talk to people. … ALEXIEVICH Yes, we sit and we talk—about what interests me and about life in general. About love, about everything in the world. That way, what comes out is three-dimensional. If you cut straight to the part you need, which is what journalists do, it won’t be interesting, and it won’t be the truth, either. Not the whole truth. INTERVIEWER Do people always open up when you ask questions, or can questions get in the way? ALEXIEVICH You have to ask questions, of course. Your job is to scour away the banality and return people to their true selves, to make them face what they rarely tap into. With every new person, you have to find a new way to do it. When you ask an interesting question or you share what happened to you, you help people really think about what they’re saying and not just repeat whatever they’ve picked up from the newspaper. But not everybody is capable of it, not everyone wants to put themselves through that. Either the chemistry starts to kick in or it doesn’t. A person might be wonderful, but you can tell that the conversation just isn’t going to happen. You can try to push it, but it will be a product of your own intellect, rather than of that mysterious connection. Life doesn’t come from the mind. Some people I can call two years after our last conversation, and they’ll say, “Oh, Svetochka! I think of you all the time,” and we’ll start talking again. With others, that won’t happen. That doesn’t mean they’re not extraordinary people, just that you can’t connect with them. They might have some insight, but you don’t have the right antenna to pick up their signal. Source: The Paris Review Colorized Franco-Prussian war … the ruins of Strasbourg with a French photographer and his mobile dark room. Ralph Balson (1961) Matter Painting If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
🚨 Bordeaux sold to investment fund Park Bench (L'Équipe)
A brighter future for the Girondins?It’s a big day for French football: in addition to the sale agreement signed by Waldemar Kita for FC Nantes, Girondins de Bordeaux have finally found a buyer, acc...
Protecting What You Built: Six Assumptions That Can Derail an Exit from Your Business
Most owners assume the hard part of an exit is finding the buyer.
Better Business Bureau warns of scam targeting The Big E ticket buyers
CROMWELL, Conn. (WTNH) — The Better Business Bureau is warning fairgoers of a scam targeting The Big E ticket buyers after a Litchfield man lost more than $100 trying to get tickets. The BBB said T…
New iPhone buyers demand refunds after $1,199 gizmo changes color just weeks after purchase
Color them surprised.
Grand County Rural Health Network honors 2026 health service award recipients
Grand County Rural Health Network has named Mara Pacyga, Dr. Eliza Buyers and Hannah Wynd recipients of its 2026 Award for Excellence in Health Service, recognizing their leadership and contributions to health care access and...
How to use cybersecurity to increase your business’s value
Strong cybersecurity can also boost business valuations and inspire buyer confidence. Both sides of the transaction should treat cybersecurity as a key factor in building enterprise value.