As economic uncertainty deepens, the rush for gold continueswith prices for the precious metal topping $4,300 for the first time this week.
The going price for New York spot closed at a record $4,326 per troy ounce on Thursday. Futures also traded as high at more than $4,344 per troy ounce Thursday, before falling below the $4,300 mark Friday morning. Still, gold is up significantly over the last week, marking one of its best weeks to date.
Gold sales can rise sharply when anxious investors seek a safe haven for their money. For the U.S., the latest gains arrive amid the now weekslong government shutdown and ongoing trade wars abroadwith President Donald Trump most recently threatening to place much higher tariffs on China, before appearing to walk back those potential new levies as unsustainable. Still, his barrage of other import taxes has already strained economies worldwide. Meanwhile, the prospect of lower interest rates is also making gold a more attractive investment.
Why are gold prices going up?
Gold futures are up nearly 60% since the start of 2025trading at about $4,268 per troy ounce, the standard for measuring precious metals, as of around 11:45 a.m. Friday. Thats up from around $2,670 at the beginning of January.
Silver has seen an even bigger percentage jump year to date. Silver futures are up about 70%, trading at over $50 per troy ounce Friday morning.
A lot of the rise boils down to uncertainty. Interest in buying metals like gold typically spikes when investors become anxious.
Much of this year’s economic turmoil has spanned from Trumps trade wars. Since the start of 2025, steep new tariffs the president has imposed on goods coming into the U.S. from around the world have strained businesses and consumers alikepushing costs higher and helping to weaken the job market. As a result, hiring has plunged while inflation has inched back up. And more and more consumers are expressing pessimism about the road ahead.
The U.S. government shutdown adds to those anxieties. Key economic data has been delayedand scores of federal employees are already feeling the effects of furloughs and working without pay as long as the shutdown lasts, which has no immediate end in sight. The Trump administration also moved to use the shutdown to conduct mass firings, although a judge temporarily blocked such action.
Separately, analysts have pointed to continued weakness of the U.S. dollar and renewed rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. Last month, the Fed cut its key interest rate by a quarter-pointand projected it would do so twice more this year.
Investments in gold have also been driven by other factors over time. Over recent years, there’s been strong gold demand from central banks around the worldparticularly amid heightened geopolitical tensions, such as the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
And on Wall Street this week, several regional banks saw sharp losses amid scrunity over quality of loans, although recovery seemed to be steadying the market on Friday. Meanwhile, investors appeared to be distancing themselves from riskier assets like cryptocurrencywith bitcoin, for example, down 2.67%.
Will rising gold prices make jewelry more expensive?
Many jewelry merchants and dealers have increasingly reported surges in customers looking to check the value of gold they ownsometimes opting to melt or sell family heirlooms to cash in on the precious metal’s rising price.
At the same time, those in the market for gold jewelry may be feeling sticker shock if they cant afford certain products anymoreparticularly if it’s something impacted by both rising material costs and tariffs.
Larger retailers like Pandora and Signet have acknowledged these headwinds in recent earnings calls.
Is gold worth the investment?
Advocates of investing in gold call it a safe havenarguing that the commodity can serve to diversify and balance your investment portfolio, as well as mitigate possible risks down the road as a hedge against rising inflation. Some also take comfort in buying something tangible that has the potential to increase in value over time.
Still, experts caution against putting all your eggs in one basket. And not everyone agrees gold is a good investment. Critics say gold isnt always the inflation hedge many claimand that there are more efficient ways to protect against potential loss of capital, such as derivative-based investments.
The Commodity Futures Trade Commission has also previously warned people to be wary of investing in gold. Precious metals can be highly volatile, and prices rise as demand goes upmeaning when economic anxiety or instability is high, the people who typically profit from precious metals are the sellers,” the commission noted.
Gold demand escalates mercury poisoning warnings
The frenzy for gold has also resulted in health and environmental consequences with officials pointing to riing demand for mercury, a toxic metal that is key in illegal gold mining worldwide.
Mercury is widely used to separate gold during artisanal or small-scale mining. But it pollutes water, accumulates in fish, makes its way into food and builds up in peoples bodies, leading to neurological and developmental harm. Even small-scale exposure can carry serious risks putting in danger workers who rely on the industry, as well as residents in affected areas more broadly.
The Associated Press has reported about the effects of mercury poisoning tied to gold mining in countries like Senegal, Mexico and Peru, among other parts of the world.
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP Business Writer
A blood test for more than 50 types of cancer could significantly boost early detection and speed up diagnosis, according to a new study.
Made by U.S. pharmaceutical company Grail, the Galleri test aims to find fragments of DNA in a persons blood that can indicate the presence of a cancerous tumor. Among the cancers that the test can detect, many have no current screening programs.
The PATHFINDER 2 study included more than 36,000 people aged 50 and older who had no cancer symptoms. In participants who were followed for more than a year, the test caught some 40.4% of cancer cases. For those who got a positive result on the Galleri test, 61.6% of them went on to be diagnosed with canceran improvement over previous trials of the test.
The results were presented on Saturday at the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Berlin, and have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Boosting cancer diagnosis
In the study, the Galleri test, when combined with already existing screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers, yielded a more than seven-fold increase in the cancer detection rate, according to Grails president Josh Ofman in a press release.
Galleri also detected many cancers which dont have standard screening tests, including notoriously hard to diagnose forms of the disease, such as ovarian and pancreatic cancer.
More than half (53.5%) of the cancers detected by the test were stage I or II, according to Grail. And the test was also able to predict the origin of the cancer accurately 92% of the time, according to the study.
Promising results
Grail says the blood test could save lives through early detection. The companys president of biopharma, Sir Harpal Kumar, told the BBC that the results were compelling.
“The vast majority of people who die from cancer do so because we find their cancers too late, he said. But other experts cautioned that more research is needed before the test is ready for primetime, Sky News and the BBC reported, with one expert telling the BBC more work would be required to “avoid overdiagnosing cancers that may have caused harm.”
The test is currently being trialed in England in 140,000 people, with results expected next year, according to the BBC.
The Australian government has begun a public education campaign with tips on how to wean children off social media ahead of a world-first national 16-year age limit taking effect in December.
Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Friday that information on her agency’s website, esafety.gov.au, explained the new laws and how to navigate them.
Starting Dec. 10, platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube could be fined up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) if they dont take reasonable steps to prevent Australians younger than 16 from holding accounts.
Messages raising awareness will also be shared starting Sunday across digital channels, television, radio and billboards.
We want children to have childhoods. We want parents to have peace of mind and we want young peopleyoung Australiansto have three more years to learn who they are before platforms assume who they are, Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters, referring to the current de facto 13-year age limit for social media accounts based on U.S. privacy legislation.
How are Australians reacting to the ban?
The Australian age restrictions have already proved polarizing, with some experts warning the changes will harm as well as protect children. More than 140 Australian and international academics signed an open letter to the government last year opposing a social media age limit as too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.
Despite that warning, the laws passed with resounding support last year. The platforms had a year to figure out how to comply without foolproof technology available to verify ages.
Inman Grant said the social media age restriction would be a very monumental event for a lot of young people.
Teens given checklists to prepare
Her agency offered checklists and conversation starters about ways to make the transition, such as following an online influencer through a website rather than a social media account, she said.
How do we start weaning them from social media now so it isnt a shock on Dec. 10? How do we help them download their archives and their memories and how do we make sure that theyre in touch with friends and are aware of mental health support if theyre feeling down when theyre not tethered to their phones over the holiday period? she added.
The agency’s teen “get ready” checklist includes suggestions such as “map your digital world” and to take practical steps like finding other ways to follow their favorite influencers online or scheduling regular phone calls with their friends. The entire list is as follows:
Understand what’s changing and why
Workout which accounts you’ll lose
Map your digital world
Explore other ways to connect and belong
Build your community
Protect your digital memories
Avoid last-minute stress
Find support
Will other countries follow Australia’s lead?
Australias move is being watched closely by countries that share concerns about social media impacts on young children.
Denmarks Ambassador to Australia Ingrid Dahl-Madsen said her government would use its current presidency of the Council of the European Union to push the agenda of protecting children from social media harms.
This is something that is a global challenge and we are all looking at how we can manage it best and we are looking to Australia and we will be looking at what Australia does, Dahl-Madsen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in Melbourne on Monday.
Its so important that Australia and Demark and the EUwe share lessons, we compare experiences and we can push forward hopefully practical progress on this, she added. It was about “protecting our children in this digital world that is increasingly complicated.”
The Danish government last week proposed legislating an age limit of 15. But Dahl-Madsen said Denmark would consider letting parents exempt their children who were 13-14. Australia has no similar exemption.
By Rod McGuirk, Associated Press
Meta is rolling out a new Facebook feature that the company says will help users share more photosbut which could also be used to help train its AI.
The opt-in feature allows Facebooks AI to access your phone’s camera roll in order to find photos it finds “shareworthy,” and to suggest edits using its AI tools. Users can then decide if they want to share the images or not.
“With your permission and the help of AI, our new feature enables Facebook to automatically surface hidden gems those memorable moments that get lost among screenshots, receipts, and random snaps and edit them to save or share,” Meta said in its announcement explaining the new feature on Friday. The platform will also suggest fun edits for users to share.
The new feature has been rolled out in the US and Canada, and Meta aims to roll it out in additional countries soon.
What are users opting into?
Metas latest feature announcement says that for users who opt in, the feature makes photo sharing suggestions that “are private to you,” and that nothing will be shared unless you agree. Meta also said Facebook won’t “use media from your camera roll to improve AI at Metaunless you use its AI to edit or upload the photos.
Fast Company reached out to Meta for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Meta already gathers Facebook user data to train its AI. In a 2023 announcement, Meta said it could use any user data shared on Facebook or Instagram to train its AI.
“Generative AI models take a large amount of data to effectively train, so a combination of sources are used for training, including information thats publicly available online, licensed data and information from Metas products and services,” the company said at the time. “Publicly shared posts from Instagram and Facebook including photos and text were part of the data used to train the generative AI models underlying the features.”
Metas terms also state that “your interactions with AI features can be used to train AI models. Examples include messages to AI chats, questions you ask and images you ask Meta AI to imagine for you.”
This is also not the first time Meta has asked users permission to look at their camera rolls. In June, Facebook began asking users for access to their phones camera roll to automatically suggest AI-edited versions of their photos, including images they had not posted for public viewing. Users who wanted to use the feature were prompted to opt-in to “cloud processing,” allowing Facebook access to their camera roll, as well as opting in to Meta’s Terms of Service, which includes agreeing to allow its AI to “retain and use that information to provide more personalized Outputs.” At the time, Meta told The Verge that it was not currently using those photos to train its AI models.
Fast Company has previously written about how hard Meta has made it for Instagram users to opt out of AI training. Users who want to opt out have to answer a series of questions and explain why they don’t want the app to use their data. Requests are then subject to a review process, which suggests the company can decide whether to honor the request. Meta noted in its Friday announcement that users can manage or disable the new AI photo feature at any time in Facebook’s camera roll settings.
Your pantry, your portfolio, even your flight plans all made headlines this week.
The FDA turned everyones favorite spice into a hazard warning, while the worlds wealthiest got a new credit card that skips the whole Social Security number thing. Washingtons still stuck in neutralthough a few lucky borrowers are finally seeing their student loans disappearand airports are feeling the fallout. Meanwhile, Bitcoins on a downward spiral, golds having a moment, and the housing markets math still doesnt add up no matter how many times you punch the calculator.
Retailers, at least, seem to be thriving in chaos. Walmart doubled down on AI, cutting a deal with OpenAI so shoppers can chat their way through checkout, then followed up with plans to blanket its supply chain in smart sensors. Over in the cultural corner, major news outlets refused to play ball with the Pentagons new press rules, and the Boy Scoutsnow Scouting Americarolled out merit badges in AI and cybersecurity.
If that sounds like a lot, it is. The throughline? Whether its your cinnamon or your shopping list, everything familiar is getting rewired in real time. Here’s a look at what made headlines this week.
FDA widens ground cinnamon warning over elevated lead
The FDA expanded its list of ground cinnamon products to avoid, citing testing that found elevated lead levels and urging consumers to discard affected items. Sixteen products now sit on the list, spanning multiple distributors and retailers with specific lots and best-by dates. No illnesses are confirmed, but the agency warns long-term exposure can harm childrens development, and the list has grown through multiple updates since July 2024.
A premium no-SSN card takes aim at AmEx Platinums turf
Fintech startup Karta unveiled a $300-annual-fee premium card for affluent non-residents with U.S. assetsno Social Security number required. Perks mirror marquee travel cards (lounges, events, protections), and the product is managed via WhatsApp with AI-assisted service. Backed by $5.4 million in seed funding and 22 banking partners, Karta is targeting customers hit by steep foreign card fees and the wind-down of AmExs International Dollar Card.
IBR student-loan forgiveness resumes for eligible borrowers
Notices are landing in inboxes for borrowers on the Income-Based Repayment student loan plans whove hit 20- or 25-year payment thresholds. The move restarts discharges paused in July amid systems updates and litigation fallout. Its not a new programjust the promised IBR relief catching upso borrowers should keep paying until they receive official confirmation.
Scouting America adds AI and cybersecurity merit badges
Scouting America introduced new badges covering machine learning basics, prompt communication, deepfake awareness, and cybersecurity concepts this week. The goal is to marry traditional be prepared ethos with digital-age fluency. Its also a retention play as membership has fallen from historic peaks, with newer badges designed to meet kids where they liveonline.
Flight delays mount as shutdown enters week three
A mix of bad weather and shutdown-related staffing strain produced tens of thousands of flight delays across the long weekend. Trade groups say flying remains safe, but chokepoints at Northeast hubs added to traveler frustration. With Congress still gridlocked, operational unpredictability remains the near-term baseline.
Bitcoin swoons while gold shines
After notching an all-time high earlier this month, Bitcoin slid to a four-month low this week as investors rotated toward gold. Macro jittersfrom tariffs talk to the federal shutdownpressed risk appetite. The move highlights cryptos evolving safe-haven narrative: sometimes it benefits from stress, sometimes the old haven still wins.
Zillow: Unrealistic rate cuts needed for affordability
Back-of-the-envelope modeling suggests the average 30-year mortgage would need to drop to ~4.43% to make a median home affordable to a median-income buyer (assuming 20% down). In several coastal markets, even 0% rates wouldnt fix the math given taxes, insurance, and upkeep. Zillows takeaway: dont bank on ratesor pricesbailing out budgets soon.
Walmart to enable ChatGPT checkout with OpenAI
Walmart announced an agentic commerce tie-up so shoppers can purchase via natural language directly in ChatGPT. The integration leans on OpenAIs Instant Checkout and Agentic Commerce Protocol, pitching fewer clicks and more personalization. Investors liked the direction of travel, framing it as an on-ramp to AI-assisted shopping at mass scale.
Major outlets reject Pentagon press rules
Major news outlets including The New York Times, AP, and Fox News have said they wont sign the Defense Departments new required policy governing access and information requests, leading them to leave the Penagon this week.
Newsrooms argue the rules impact routine reporting and set a troubling precedent; the government says theyre common-sense procedures. The standoff raises practical questions about credentialing and transparency.
Walmart rolls out ambient IoT sensors across supply chain
In a parallel modernization push, Walmart plans millions of battery-free sensors on pallets to track inventory across 4,600 stores and 40+ distribution centers, expanding nationwide in 2026. The data will feed Walmarts AI systems to improve accuracy, cold-chain compliance, and on-shelf availability. Its a scale bet that visibility equals veloctyand profit.
Youve probably heard of House of Highlightseven if youre not a sports fan, its hard to miss, whether on YouTube or scrolling through your social feeds.
What started as a college dorm Instagram account has grown over 11 years into the #1 sports media brand on the platform, boasting 100 million followers and billions of monthly views.
Today, House of Highlights is a multi-platform sports media powerhouse, producing creator-led content and original series that rival traditional TV. Drew Muller, vice president and general manager at House of Highlights, spoke with Yasmin Gagne and Joshua Christensen on the Most Innovative Companies podcast about growth strategies, creator partnerships, and how the company balances viral moments with long-form storytelling.
How did House of Highlights start?
[The genesis of the project came from] a guy named Omar Raja in his college dorm room. The idea was: “I’m not seeing the highlights that I want on the platforms where I’m spending time.” Seems like kind of table stakes now that you see the proliferation of highlights basically everywhere you look on social media. But back then it really was a novel idea.
And the Bleacher Report leadership at the time [. . .] led the acquisition of bringing in this Instagram account into the sports world and saying, “this account is doing something interestingit’s speaking with young people, it’s overperforming in ways that seem to not map to what typical sports companies are doing.”
[It was ultimately a credit to Bleacher Report] who let House of Highlights incubate as a startup within the larger company, allowing it space to grow and preserve its unique voice.
From there, the idea was: let’s figure out if we can make this into a multi-platform media company that can stand on its own and be incremental to what Bleacher Report was already doing. So how do we make this differentiated and give fans a reason to want to follow both accounts?
How do you make sure House of Highlights keeps its own voice and identity?
A lot of it maps down to a steadfast commitment to voice and clarity of who we are and who we’re not. A lot of it is due to the organizational structure where House of Highlights is able to maintain operational and strategy independence. We have our own go-to-market strategy, we have our own assets and content strategy and logos and identities and even fonts.
But it does take a day-in and day-out focus to balance the two, because we do eat from the same pool of sports rights and sometimes resources.
You moved from Instagram highlights to hour-long programming. What were the conversations like around developing long-form content?
When we first started to make original content, it was almost out of necessity creator-led. We were a small scrappy team, and in many instances we couldn’t afford to pay huge athletes. There were creators that were starting to blow up on Instagram and YouTube, but were nowhere near the scale we’re talking about today. We were able to form big partnerships with creators that are now household names [like] Supreme Dreams, and Mark Phillips. All of it tied back to sports, youth culture, and putting an entertaining lens on what it is to be a sports fan or to experience sports with your friends in a group chat.
The most value that we’ve gotten from building habitual long-form viewership is making sure that an hour or two-hour-long video has a clear path to short form [because] we have massive amounts of short-form expertise and scale, and people are expecting that from us.
How has House of Highlights approach to creator deals evolved?
[When looking at the creators growth chart, we want to be] where they’re starting to take off, but before they get to the point where they’re a household name and they’re the cream of the crop, not to say we don’t still want to work with them at that point, but typically that’s when they’re getting overpaid by some of the legacy companies.
[We] built a lot of the formats that have been replicated by many of the big leagues and some of the big media companies. [Creators] know they’re not just showing up for an appearance fee or to check a box. We’re trying to build special content together and special franchises and IP that can scale.
House of Highlights, as weve discussed, is publishing across multiple platforms. How do you approach content programming across those platforms that all reward different types of content and cadence?
[On YouTube], you’re going to see full game recaps for folks that maybe aren’t in the cable bundle and aren’t watching two- to three-hour gamesthey typically come to House of Highlights YouTube for a 10- to 15-minute recap of that game.
On TikTok, because of how the For You Page operates, you can publish more, and those videos will find their homes without taking up all of someone’s feed. On Instagram, if someone follows House of Highlights and we’re publishing a hundred times a day, it will feel like that in your feed.
Under-34 sports fans are watching less and less live cable sports events[so how] can we build an appointment viewing experience for that fandom? From an advertising perspective, obviously that is super valuable, and it’s increasingly hard to reach that audience at scale.
Whats next for House of Highlights?
We’ve got three events left in our Creator League season. We’ve got a basketball knockout five on five, and then a championship series. That’ll carry us through the end of November. Based on the numbers that we’re seeing, we’re excited about what the championship could look like.
And then honestly, the growth of our Fans versus Haters series and where that overarching brand can go in terms of debate style content for a younger audience.
[At the end of the day, a lot of it] comes down to our focus on YouTube and how we’re making House of Highlights a broadcast channel.
Its human nature to wait until the last minute rather than plan aheadperhaps especially when it comes to retirement planning. Theres always plenty of other excellent uses for your money, until suddenly youre staring at an underfunded 401(k) with only a few years left before you’ll need it.
This is why president George W. Bush passed legislation in 2001 that (among other things) allowed for catch-up contributions among workers who were 50 or older. This gave older workers a chance to beef up their 401(k) accounts while they were typically at the peak of their earning years and let them continue to take advantage of making pre-tax contributions.
Other than increasing the amount of money 50+ workers can contribute, the basics of catch-up contributions have remained virtually the same for the past two decadesuntil now. As of calendar year 2027, the SECURE 2.0 Act eliminates the catch-up contribution tax break for 50+ workers earning $145,000 or more.
Heres what you need to know about how this change may affect your retirement planning.
Current contribution and catch-up limits
As of 2025, workers may contribute up to $23,500 pre-tax to their 401(k) or other defined contribution workplace retirement plan. Workers over the age of 50 may put aside an additional $7,500 in catch-up contributions, for a total of $31,000, pre-tax. And any workers between the ages of 60 and 63 may make an $11,250 super catch-up contribution, for a total contribution limit of $34,750 in pre-tax dollars.
The ability to make these contributions pre-tax means 50+ workers get to reduce their tax burden for the current year by over $30,000, a huge tax benefit.
Same catch-up contributions, different tax breaks
But after December 31, 2026, the IRS will require you to make catch-up contributions with after-tax money if you earned $145,000 or more from your current employer in the previous year. In other words, if you’re over 50 and earn more than $145k in 2026, youll have to put in any 2027 catch-up contributions as after-tax Roth contributions.
This change does not affect regular contributions at all. Even if you are a high earning 50-something, every dollar of your regular contributions will be pre-tax (unless you choose otherwise). It is only the catch-up contributions that must be categorized as Roth contributions for high earning individuals.
Roth aint so bad, once you get used to it
Theres a very good reason why Uncle Sam made 401(k) plans tax-deferred: were much more likely to contribute money to our futures if we can get a tax break today. But the thing about this kind of upfront tax-break is that taxes will come due eventually. You will have to pay regular income taxes on 401(k) withdrawals in retirement.
Roth contributions, on the other hand, are made with money that has already been taxed. While that makes things a bit more expensive today, it can be a boon for your future self because the money grows and can be withdrawn tax-free in retirement.
(This is why I personally recommend having at least some money set aside in a Roth account. Investing in a Roth retirement account means you have a tax-free source of cash that wont affect your Social Security benefits or other taxable income if you need access to a big chunk of money. For example, if you have a health issue in retirement, you can pull money from your Roth account without affecting the tax-balanced fixed income youre living on.)
In addition, Roth 401(k) plans dont require you to take required minimum distributions (RMDs) as of age 73, unlike traditional 401(k)s. That means you can let your money continue to grow in your Roth 401(k) past your 73rd birthday.
While potentially losing the tax break on catch-up contributions is not ideal, especially if youve been counting on it, there are some real benefits to having money in a Roth account for retirement.
How many workers will this really affect?
There is still time before the new rules go into effect, but it does raise an interesting question: just how widespread an issue will this be?
To start, only about 8.37% of individual workers earned $145,000 or more in 2024. As of 2025, there are an estimated 124.37 million Americans over the age of 50. If we assume 8.37% of 124.37 million 50+ Americans are earning $145k or more, that leaves us with 10,410,154 affected workers.
However, not everyone contributes to a 401(k) plan or other defined contribution plan. According to 2025 research by Gallup, only 66% of Americans over age 50 have money invested in a 401(k) plan, 403(b) plan, or IRA, either on their own, or jointly with a spouse.
If we assume that only 66% of workers earning over $145,000 are investing in a defined benefit plan, that leaves us with 6,870,701 potentially affected individuals.
That said, even if youre not among the 6.8 million workers who might face this problem, you still may want to consider making Roth contributions. If your 401(k) plan doesnt offer Roth contributions as an option, you can always open a Roth IRA on your own to take advantage of the same benefits.
Whether youre under the age of 50 or earning less than $145,000, or both, you can still benefit from the upsides of a Roth.
Preparing for good problems
The upcoming changes to catch-up contribution rules can feel like having the rug pulled out from under you, but theres still time to get ready for the shift. Its also a good idea to remember that if youre required to make Roth 401(k) catch-up contributions, its because youre otherwise in pretty great financial shape. Thats because you:
Could afford to max out your 401(k) annual contribution that was more than $23,500 for the year
Earned at least $145,000 in 2026
And still had money left over that you could contribute to your retirement account.
Though it may affect your tax strategy now, the new rules will also give you access to a Roth account that will grow tax-free and will be available for tax-fre withdrawals without any RMDs.
The change also brings the benefits of Roth 401(k) plans into the spotlight, and may encourage more plan participants to make Roth contributions, even if the new rules dont affect them.
All in all, the new rules may be a pain in the neck to plan for, but theyre mostly a net benefit.
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In early October, a post on X by FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller caught my attention:
Speaking with a home builder last night (Chattanooga, TN): High-demand in the low-end of the market (<$300k), as people are looking to upgrade from renting. Can't build enough. Almost no demand in middle market ($300k-700k), as it tends to be the upgrade market and the buyers— Craig Fuller (@FreightAlley) October 4, 2025
While Fullers narrative rings true in some pockets of the country, it isnt the case everywhere. The dynamics he describesstrong demand at the low end, softness in the middlereflect certain regional realities, but not necessarily whats unfolding across the broader Southeast housing market.
According to my reporting and research, theres currently a lot of variation by price tier. Several Southeast homebuilders have told me theyve actually seen greater softening in the entry-level segment over the past yearthe very segment many builders have been chasing. Some rolled out smaller floor plans or trimmed square footage to entice priced-out homebuyers, but those efforts are now meeting slower demand. Meanwhile, the higher tiers have held up better.
Part of that cooling stems from simple oversupply and stretched affordability. Builders across the Southeast ramped up production of smaller, sub-$350,000 homes in 2023 and early 2024. But elevated insurance premiums, rising property taxes, and household budget fatigue have since taken a toll, especially in Florida and parts of Georgia.
This month, I launched the ResiClub Terminala new platform that includes analysis by home-price tier: lower-tier (5th to 35th percentile), middle-tier (35th to 65th percentile), and upper-tier (65th to 95th percentile) homes, all broken out by market. That tiered data confirms what Southeast builders are reporting: The lower end of the market has shown the greatest weakness over the past year across much of the region.
Lower-tier home price year-over-year change
Upper-tier home price year-over-year change
Within the ResiClub Terminal, ResiClub PRO members can click on individual markets to see this data down to a local level. For example:
Lower-tier home prices are down 7.5% year over year in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Upper-tier home prices are down 0.9% year over year in DeKalb County, Georgia.
When you zoom out and look at this on a nationally aggregated basis, the upper-tier, middle-tier, and lower-tier stats are all pretty close.
Upper tier: -0.1%
Middle tier: +0.2%
Lower tier: +0.6%
The fact that current housing market dynamics by price tier are nearly identical on a ntionally aggregated basisdespite significant underlying variationis a reminder that its important for housing stakeholders to have accurate, localized information.
I like chatting with my friendswho doesnt?but I dont always know where to find them. There are simply too many apps.
Some of my friends text, others use WhatsApp, while others yet insist on using Discord or the DM feature in whatever random social network they prefer. Its a mess, and it can mean keeping several tabs open all day just to keep the conversations flowing. It makes you wish some application could combine all of your conversations into one place.
This is a dream that used to be reality. Applications like Trillian, Pidgin, and Adium all combined instant messaging services like AIM, MSN, and ICQ in one handy interface. Over time, though, messaging services got more protective of their APIs, and these sorts of all-in-one portals slowly stopped working.
The dream, it seems, is dead.
Or is it?
This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!
Messaging, minus the mess
Time to meetor maybe just rememberan exceptional app that takes all of your messages and puts them in a single streamlined interface for easy, ongoing access.
The app is called Beeper. It can connect to all the major messaging platforms: Google Messages, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Google Chat, Facebook Messenger, Signal, LinkedIn, X, Discord, and Slack.
Its one application for all of your conversations no matter where they might be happening.
Installing Beeper is quicka minute or two, tops, but adding in all of your messaging services could take longer, depending on how many different things youre connecting.
Now, if Beeper rings a bell, theres probably a reason. You may recall a controversy around Beeper a few years back involving Apple. The application was initially launched as a way for Android users to send blue bubble messages to Apple usersa feature Apple then worked diligently to shut down. (These days, Beeper can connect to iMessage only via its desktop Mac version.)
In the time since then, the programs been acquired by Automattic, the same company behind WordPress and Tumblr, and given both new resources and a new reason for existing.
If you have an Android phone, you can use it to manage your text messages alongside messages from other applications (something that, as an iPhone user myself, makes switching to Android a tempting option).
And no matter what type of phone youre using, combining several little-used messaging apps into one that you keep openon your phone and/or computeris in and of itself worthwhile.
I hardly ever open LinkedIn or Facebook, for instance, and yet I never miss any messages on either platform with Beeper in the mix.
Beeper unites all your chat apps and makes them feel like a single streamlined communication system.
Ive personally been using Beeper for years, and I love that it creates a single inbox for all of my ongoing conversations across any applications. Before this tool, I would constantly see a notification, intend to respond, and then never get around to it because the message came in via an application I dont check often. That doesnt happen anymore. I honestly believe Beeper makes me better at keeping in touch.
I also like that you can archive messages, allowing you to create a sort of inbox zero for text messages. If I see something I intend to respond to later, I simply leave it un-archived in my inboxthe same as I do with emailsthen power through my messages whenever I have a minute.
There are a bunch of other nice features beyond that. On the desktop computer front, Beepers keyboard shortcutsincluding a built-in command barmean I can jump between conversations without ever touching my mouse.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Beeper is just a well-put-together piece of software that solves a common problem. It takes a little bit of fidgeting to get going at first, but the results are 100% worth it.
Beeper runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, ChromeOS, macOS, Windows, and Linuxso basically, everything.
The service offers a free version that supports up to five accounts on different messaging services, which is probably plenty for most people. If you need to connect to more than that, youll have to spring for a paid subscription, starting at $10 a month (or $100 a year).
Many of Beepers integrations run in the cloud, meaning an encrypted copy of your messages does get stored by the company. The privacy policy is pretty solid, though, and there are no ads or data monetization built into the application. Its funded entirely by subscribers.
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I was thrilled this week when Apple issued a press release announcing that its original film, F1 The Movie, starring Brad Pitt, would make its streaming debut on the companys video service December 12. But it wasnt the news about the movie that excited me. Rather, it was a small line at the end of the press release that quietly announced something else: Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity.
The + branding on Apple TV+ always bugged me. Whenever I looked at it, I thought, Apple TV plus what? Apple News offers a free base version and a paid version that gets you more content, called Apple News+, which makes sense. But theres never been a free version of Apples video streaming service, so what was the + signifying? The + branding had also grown increasingly tiresome over the years, as nearly every streaming service added the mathematical operator onto its name.
Mercifully, Apple has now decided to subtract the plus. Heres the why, and how the company could go further toward to ending brandings most tiresome scourge.
The company didnt invent the +, but it embraced it like no other
Until this week, Apple had been leaning hard into the + branding for yearsnearly as hard as it did to the much more iconic i branding in the early 2000s.
Apple debuted its first + branding all the way back in October 2011 with its AppleCare+ extended warranty program, which covered accidental damage to a users iPhone. It used an alphabetic version of the nomenclature with the iPhone 6 Plus model in 2014. But it wasnt until 2019 that Apple began to go hog wild on +.
That year, Apple debuted the Apple News+ news subscription service and the Apple TV+ video streaming service. A year later, in 2020, Apple debuted the Apple Fitness+ workout streaming service, and a year after that, the company added its latest + service, iCloud+.
Yet Apple wasnt the first tech or media company to tack + onto a product. The earliest I can remember is NBC Universals and News Corps Hulu Plus back in 2010, and then, several months before Apple debuted AppleCare+ in 2011, Google came out with its now-defunct social network Google+. The next major company to embrace the “+” was Disney, with ESPN+ in 2018.
However, the + really went viral in the final months of 2019. In September of that year, BET launched BET+. Two months later, Apple TV+ and the streaming giant Disney+ arrived. In the years that followed, we got more: Discovery+, Paramount+, AMC+, the short-lived CNN+, and more.
But it was Apple, with its no fewer than five + products, that was the clear cross-bearersorry, plus-bearerfor the techno-media industries.
Apple explains why it killed off the Apple TV +
Apples announcement to drop the + from Apple TV+ this week came out of the blue. However, shortly after the abrupt name change, the company explained its reasoning.
In an appearance on The Town podcast (via 9to5Mac), Apples senior vice president of Services, Eddy Cue, who oversees products including Apple Music, Apple News, and the newly named Apple TV, spoke about the subtraction of the +. Cue revealed that the company originally named its streaming service “Apple TV+” simply because Apple had used the “+” mark in its other subscription services, such as Apple News+ and iCloud+.
“But we do that when we have a free service and then theres a paid version,” Cue acknowledged, noting the distinction between Apple TV and the company’s other paid services.
“We stayed consistent because of it,” Cue continued, admitting, “but we all called it Apple TV, and we said, given where we are today [with the service’s brand awareness], its a great time to [ditch the “+”], so lets just do it.
Apple shows no signs of entirely abandoning the +
My colleague, Grace Snelling, spoke to several branding experts the wake of the Apple TV service rebrand. They all seem to agree that Apple made the right move in dropping the +.
As Snelling noted, in the early days of the streaming wars that began in 2019, the “+” addendum attached to a name served as an easy identifier, indicating that the product being sold was a streaming service. However, now that the symbol has become ubiquitous, it has lost some of its branding power. As Cue pointed out, the Apple TV streaming service brand is now strong enough that the “+” is no longer needed.
Yet while Apple has now subtracted the + from Apple TV, the company remains firmly on the + side of the equation. Four of its products still carry the mathematical moniker: Apple News+, iCloud+, Apple Fitness+, and AppleCare+. Here, the + makes more sense than it ever did on Apple TV, since it signifies additional features. Cue’s comments suggest that Apple has no intention of eliminating the “+” from the rest of this product lineup.
Still, it’s worth noting that the removal of “+” from Apple TV’s name isnt the first time in 2025 that Apple has eliminated the symbol from one of its products. In September, Apple replaced the iPhone Plus model in its smartphone lineup with the new iPhone Air.
