Most American companies saw red after Trump’s announcement—Goodyear saw green.

Yesterday, U.S. stock markets, and stock markets around the world, dramatically fell during the first trading session after President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday tariffs on nearly every country in the world. As noted by PBS, the S&P 500 plummeted 4.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 6%.

China also announced controls on exports of rare-earth metals, key ingredients in electronics and military applications.

China announced additional tariffs of 34% on U.S. goods on Friday, the most serious escalation in a trade war with President Donald Trump that has fed fears of a recession and triggered a global stock market rout.

Fast Company’s Max Ufberg and Jared Newman cut through the hype to spotlight the AI tools that deliver real value—and how to use them wisely.

AI tools are everywhere, changing the way we work, communicate, and even create. But which tools are actually useful? And how can users integrate them in a way that’s both practical and ethical?

Host, writer, and speaker Baratunde Thurston on how AI can challenge us to ask better questions of humanity and how to think about the moral purpose of technology.

“We don’t just follow orders or system prompts,” says Baratunde Thurston, host of Life with Machines—a YouTube podcast exploring the human side of AI. “We can change our own programming,” he continued. “We can choose a higher goal.”  

The new phenomenon known as vibecoding lets you describe an app and have AI build it to your specifications. The results astounded me.

For years, I’ve had a secret ambition tucked away somewhere near the back of my brain. It was to write a simple note-taking app—one that wouldn’t be overwhelmed with features and that would reflect my own mental filing system. In part, this yen stemmed from my dissatisfaction with existing notetakers. But I also saw the project as an adventure in software development that could only make me a smarter technology user.

President Trump talks about ‘groceries’ as if it’s a foreign concept. That should have been a giant red flag.

Among other things, Donald Trump is a logophile. He loves words. For instance, he adores the word “tariffs” so much, he’s called it a “beautiful word,” his “favorite word,” and “music to [his] ears.” It’s his “cellar door,” apparently. On Wednesday, while announcing the broad, seemingly indiscriminate application of that wonderful word during a much-hyped speech in the White House Rose Garden, Trump lingered on another word he loves: “groceries.”

A shaky factory floor abruptly shut down Ring Pop’s plant at a pivotal time. Now it’s set to make a sweet comeback.

When the  Ring Pop factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, unexpectedly shut down last summer because of a shaky floor, it abruptly halted production of tens of millions of the iconic oversized candy bauble lollipops that come attached to a cheap plastic ring meant to be worn on a finger.

Bran Ferren’s company Applied Minds is one of the most unusual (and innovative) defense contractors you’ve probably never heard of.

The way Bran Ferren sees it, the future of warfare depends as much on creativity as it does on raw firepower.

Expert Lisa Greene-Lewis shares the most important tax breaks parents should know about before filing.

With tax season fast approaching, it’s the perfect time for parents to take advantage of valuable tax deductions and credits that can reduce their tax bill or increase their refund.

These mistakes can make the job hunt drag on—especially in such a challenging job market.

If you have been on the job market recently, you know how challenging it can be. Lots of tech companies, for example, are pulling back on hiring. Federal workers are being laid off by the thousands. And some types of jobs are simply not as available as they once were. Particularly in short supply are those prized white-collar positions paying $94,000 or more.

Corcoran—one of the longest-running sharks on ‘Shark Tank’ with an estimated net worth of approximately $100 million—knows how to build wealth.

Barbara Corcoran is one of Shark Tank’s longest-running sharks, with an estimated net worth of approximately $100 million. But she’s also one of 10 kids from a working-class family. By age 23, she’d held more than 20 jobs. By 52, she sold her real estate company for $66 million. 

In 2022, 64% of Helsinki’s energy for heating still came from coal. Now, after closing its last coal plant, that’s dropped to zero.

A few years ago, if you turned on the heat in an apartment in Helsinki, the energy typically came from coal. But the city’s power company shut down one coal plant in 2023, and the remaining one closed this week—four years earlier than a target set by the national government.

Burlap & Barrel built a business on foreign spices. Trump’s tariffs are about to hit its bottom line.

When President Donald Trump announced his sweeping tariffs against America’s trading partners around the world, Ethan Frisch and Ori Zohar were paying close attention.

Generative technology offers speed and scale, but media accuracy may end up being a casualty as AI hallucinations remain a persistent problem.

The nonstop cavalcade of announcements in the AI world has created a kind of reality distortion field. There is so much buzz, and even more money, circulating in the industry that it feels almost sacrilegious to doubt that AI will make good on its promises to change the world. Deep research can do 1% of all knowledge work! Soon the internet will be designed for agents! Infinite Ghibli!

Respect, dignity, and trust, as well as hate, indifference, and disdain all play out in small moments of communication, which over time make up our worldview.

Andy Merolla is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Jeffrey Hall is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kanas.

Unlike regular power failures, which on average last about two hours while equipment is repaired, a PSPS lasts until weather conditions improve, which could be days.

Are you prepared for when the power goes out? To prevent massive wildfires in drought-prone, high-wind areas, electrical companies have begun preemptively shutting off electricity. These planned shutdowns are called public safety power shutoffs, abbreviated to PSPS, and they’re increasingly common. So far this year, we’ve seen them in Texas, New Mexico, and California.

An ill-timed April Fools’ Day joke from a tool review website had customers up in arms, as stock markets crash and the economy looks increasingly dire.

Chalk it up to bad timing: Some Home Depot customers are furious after a recent April Fools’ Day prank from a tool review website suggested that the home improvement giant would start charging parking fees due to inflation.

What the president is actually imposing with tariffs is based on far more complicated math.

President Donald Trump promised tariffs that would raise U.S. import taxes high enough to mirror what others assess as trade penalties on American goods.

The new model scores significantly better than its competition in everything from hard math to long-context understanding.

Google released its new Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental AI model late last month, and it’s quickly stacked up top marks on a number of coding, math, and reasoning benchmark tests—making it a contender for the world’s best model right now.

And if Trump gets rid of the EV tax credit, there will be even less incentive for domestic EV manufacturing.

The Trump administration’s 25% tariffs on imported cars and auto parts is expected to disrupt the auto industry and raise car prices by thousands of dollars. Electric vehicles are at particular risk.