A group of countries that are part of the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries has agreed to a small boost in oil production, citing a steady global economic outlook.
The group said after a virtual meeting on Sunday that it will raise oil production by 137,000 barrels per day in November, the same amount it announced for October. The group has been raising output slightly in a series of boosts all year, after announcing cuts in 2023 and 2024.
In a statement, the group said the move was due to a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals. It added the production adjustments may be paused or reversed as market conditions evolve.
Saudi Arabia holds significant influence in OPEC+ as the dominant member of the OPEC producers cartel, and Russia is the leading non-OPEC member in the 22-country alliance.
Along with Saudi Arabia and Russia, the group that met Sunday is made up of Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman. Their next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 2.
The AI arms race turned a new page on Monday, as OpenAI and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that the two have agreed to a new partnership to create new data centers powered by AMDs chips. The deal could also see OpenAI take a roughly 10% stake in AMD.
Specifically, the partnership sees OpenAI committing to buying 6 gigawatts of AMD GPU chips, with the initial gigawatt deployment scheduled for the second half of 2026. The deal will ultimately see OpenAI deploy the remaining gigawatts over multiple years and multiple hardware generations.
The deal also sees AMD issuing a warrant for as many as 160 million shares of AMD stock to OpenAI. Those shares are structured to vest in the event that specific milestones are achieved, the company said.
The deal was a hit on Wall Street, as AMD shares hit the stratosphereat the market open on Monday, shares briefly topped $220.44, an increase of more than 34% from pre-trading. As of roughly 11 am ET, however, shares had fallen slightly but were still up more than 27%.
This partnership is a major step in building the compute capacity needed to realize AIs full potential, said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, in a company release. AMDs leadership in high-performance chips will enable us to accelerate progress and bring the benefits of advanced AI to everyone faster.
AMDs leadership echoed the sentiment.
We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI computers at a massive scale, said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO of AMD, in a corresponding release. This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win, enabling the worlds most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem.
The partnerships announcement arrives as the AI arms race continues to heat up. AMD finds itself playing catch-up with Nvidia, which has taken a dominant role in the space, particularly as it comes to developing, manufacturing, and deploying AI chips. But there is a clear hunger in the market for more computing power. As such, Nvidia and AMD could feel pressure from other burgeoning players, such as Google and Amazon, who are working on AI chips of their own. OpenAI also partnered with Broadcom to build in-house chips starting next year.
Notably, OpenAI also recently announced a deal with Nvidia, which called for Nvidia to invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAIbut that deal has not yet been completed.
Verizon just announced that its current CEO, Hans Vestberg, is stepping downand the wireless carrier is pulling another seasoned leader out of retirement to take its helm.
In a press release published on October 6, Verizon announced that former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman will be leading the company, effective immediately. In the meantime, Vestberg (who has held the title since 2018) will stay on as a special adviser at the company until October 4, 2026.
Schulman has served on Verizons board of directors since 2018, and was elected lead independent director in December 2024.
Dan is a seasoned and decisive leader with a unique set of experiences, and a proven record of transformative leadership and operational excellence, Mark Bertolini, Verizons board chair, said in the press release. He is the right leader to chart Verizon’s next phase of increased customer focus and financial growth.
The leadership change comes during a promising moment for Verizon: This July, the company raised its annual profit forecast from $0.15 billion to $2 billion thanks to a favorable U.S. tax reform. Currently, Verizons main focus is on bulking up its internet services to compete with rivals like AT&T and T-Mobile.
Heres what to know about Schulman as he steps in at Verizon.
His most recent job was CEO of PayPal
Schulmans most recent high-profile gig was at PayPal, where he served as president and CEO from 2014 to 2023. During that time, he tripled the companys revenue from $8 billion to $30 billion, all the while advocating for Wall Street leaders to use their financial power for good.
If you look at the state of our country today, its clear that capitalism needs an upgrade, Schulman told attendees at a gala in 2020, per a Fast Company profile at the time. People dont believe that the system is working for them. For democracy to flourish, you need to rise above your own self-interest. But how can you rise above your own self-interest when you are struggling to make ends meet every day?
The solution, he argued, was for business leaders to stand for more than just making money on behalf of shareholders.
He runs a ranch in his off-time
In February 2023, Schulman announced his retirement and officially moved on from PayPal in December of that year. Since then, hes served on various companies boardsincluding Cisco, Lazard, and JUST Capitalpositions that, per his LinkedIn, hes balanced with plenty of off-time at his familys Montana ranch, which is home to more than 500 cattle.
Now, it seems, hes walking back his retirement to take the lead at Verizon.
He has a long history in the C-suite
Before his legendary run at PayPal, Schulman spent decades rising through the executive ranks at various other companies. He held leadership positions at AT&T, Priceline.com, Virgin Mobile USA, and American Express, to name a few.
He has a recognizable uniform
Plenty of CEOs have a go-to outfit. Schulmans is a bit different from the black turtleneck variety: He’s most commonly seen in a pair of light-wash jeans and cowboy boots.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. could deliver a policy win for the Trump administration in just a few months after the Food and Drug Administration enlisted GSK to help it fast-track approval of a decades-old drug to treat an autism-related disorder.
The FDA’s unusual move will allow it to bypass a lengthy label update for generic versions of the drug, leucovorin, or new clinical trials, a tactic academics, lawyers and doctors questioned.
A GSK spokesperson told Reuters it plans to complete the new use application for the branded version of leucovorin as quickly as possible.
Once the British drugmaker does that work, the FDA would normally take about four to six months but could process the request even faster, said Giuseppe Randazzo of the Association for Accessible Medicines, a generic medicines lobby group.
The accelerated process will give doctors additional justification to prescribe the drug for cerebral folate deficiency, a metabolic disorder that can lead to a range of neurological symptoms including some associated with autism, delivering on Kennedy’s promise to President Donald Trump and the Make America Healthy Again movement with which he is aligned.
Without robust evidence, the label change represents at most a hollow bureaucratic victory, said Ameet Sarpatwari, a pharmaceutical policy researcher at Harvard Medical School.
However, the drug, which is used to mitigate toxic effects of certain cancer treatments and sells for $34.14 for a bottle of 30 high-dose pills on Cost Plus Drugs, would more likely be covered for the condition by insurance plans with the label change.
An HHS spokesperson said the evidence clearly supports leucovorin’s ability to address the causes of cerebral folate deficiency and improve patient outcomes.
DEMAND RISES AFTER TRUMP PROMOTES DRUG
Demand for the drug has increased, first after a February CBS story about its use in a nonverbal five-year-old boy, and more recently after Trump promoted its use.
“My nurses have been saying the phone is ringing off the hook,” said Dr. Larry Gray, an expert in developmental and behavioral pediatrics, who sees patients with autism at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
Because the treatment is not approved for autism, the institution’s policy has been to only offer it in clinical trials, which are rare. The drug is FDA-approved, however, so doctors can prescribe it off-label.
Kennedy has declared the rising rates of autism in the U.S., now estimated at 1 in 31 children by age 8, to be an epidemic and had pledged to find some answers behind its cause as well as cures by September.
At a White House event on September 22, Kennedy, Trump and other health officials backed leucovorin as an autism treatment. They also warned against the use of Tylenol by pregnant women, saying studies suggested a link to autism. Health experts and medical groups called that warning dangerous and without sound scientific basis.
RELYING ON OBSCURE RULE
The FDA was able to speed the process by using an obscure rule to reinstate GSK’s approval application and request a label update adding cerebral folate deficiency, based on the agency’s own analysis of 40 patient cases found in a review of literature from 2009 to 2024.
GSK sold the drug as Wellcovorin until 1997. A generic version, which is also called folinic acid and is a form of folate or vitamin B9, is now made by U.K.-based Hikma.
Once GSKs application is approved, U.S. law requires generic drugmakers to match the change.
The more commonly used label update process for generic drugs, which requires consultation with generic drugmakers, typically takes up to a year and a half, according to Skadden lawyer Rachel Turow. It is typically used for cancer drugs after new uses are proven in clinical trials, she and several other lawyers said.
Aaron Kesselheim, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, described the process being used as “very atypical,” and said that without the FDA sharing its data or trials, it is hard to know if the agency is following the normal standard of evidence.
LIMITED AVAILABLE EVIDENCE
Dr. Andy Shih, chief science officer at the advocacy organization Autism Speaks, said the evidence for leucovorin’s use was limited and potentially suggestive of benefit for a small subgroup of autistic children. Larger trials are needed, he said.
The evidence is based on four studies, each of which involved 50 to 60 patients, with three of them done by the same author, said Dr. Karam Radwan, director of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Program at the University of Chicago, who uses the drug in his practice.
“You want to replicate that with a different lab, in a different setting, to make sure we have enough support” for the change, he said.
Three mid-stage trials are underway studying a new, liquid version of leucovorin as an early language impairment treatment for children with autism, according to the government clinical trials site. The earliest data is expected around December.
The trials are being led by one autism researcher in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and Autism Speaks, and involve up to 80 children each.
Larger, more conclusive trials would take years. The FDA’s approach does not require new trials.
This change should be based on scientific evidence, and so far, studies supporting its use are not robust, Radwan said.
Additional reporting by Robin Respaut
Patrick Wingrove, Maggie Fick and Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
Wall Street is hanging near its records on Monday, as technology stocks keep rising.The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 17 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.Advanced Micro Devices soared 32.6% to help lead the market after announcing a deal where OpenAI will use its chips to power artificial-intelligence infrastructure. As part of the deal, OpenAI could own up to 160 million shares of AMD if it hits certain milestones.A frenzy around AI has been one of the main reasons Wall Street has been hitting record after record, though that’s also raising worries that prices have potentially shot too high. Much of the furor around AI in the last couple weeks has come from OpenAI, which has quickly become a $500 billion company, announcing deals with businesses around the world to develop more AI infrastructure.Another chip company, Nvidia, announced a deal last month where it would invest $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a partnership, creating criticism that the AI investment pipeline was beginning to appear like a circle. Nvidia fell 1.5% following the AMD announcement.Outside of tech, Comerica jumped 16.5% after Fifth Third Bancorp agreed to buy its rival in an all-stock deal valued at $10.9 billion. The combination would create the country’s ninth-largest bank. Fifth Third added 1%.Elsewhere on Wall Street, trading remained relatively quiet as the stock market continues to largely ignore the U.S. government’s shutdown. Past closures of the federal government have had minimal effect on the stock market or on the economy, and the bet on Wall Street is that something similar will happen again.Politics are playing a more active role in stock markets abroad, though, as Japanese stocks soared and French stocks slumped following their latest political shake-ups.Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 4.8% after the country’s Liberal Democratic Party chose Sanae Takaichi as its leader and likely Japan’s first woman prime minister. She was an ally of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who pushed for lower interest rates and market-friendly policies.The yen’s value dropped against the U.S. dollar on expectations that Takaichi will boost spending, likely adding to inflationary pressures. That in turn helped push up stocks of Japanese exporters, whose products can become more attractive on the global market because of a cheaper yen.“Obviously, investors like what she has been saying and certainly today judging by the number of stocks that moved and which stocks moved, it seems like pretty much led by foreigners so far,” Neil Newman, head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, said about Takaichi.In Paris, the CAC 40 index slumped 1.2% following the resignation of France’s new prime minister.Sébastien Lecornu resigned a day after he named his government, drawing a backlash across the political spectrum for his choice of ministers. French politics have been in disarray since President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections last year that produced a deeply fragmented legislature.In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.16% from 4.13% late Friday.The shutdown of the U.S. government means fewer economic data releases this week, though markets will have some earnings reports to comb through, including from Delta Air Lines, PepsiCo and Levi Strauss.Despite the shutdown, the Federal Reserve will release minutes from its meeting last month when it cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time this year.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Stan Choe, AP Business Writer
Fifth Third on Monday agreed to buy regional lender Comerica in an all-stock deal valued at $10.9 billion, creating the ninth-largest U.S. lender with a robust presence in the Midwest.
Regional lenders are looking to diversify revenue streams, strengthen balance sheets and expand into faster-growing markets as they recover from an industry-wide crisis in 2023 that shook investor confidence and exposed the risks of bank runs and troubles in commercial real estate.
Analysts have said consolidation is crucial for smaller lenders to compete with the nation’s largest banks, with several banks looking to take advantage of a potentially lighter regulatory environment under the Trump administration.
Comerica shareholders will receive 1.8663 Fifth Third shares for each Comerica share, valuing the deal at $82.88 per share based on Fifth Third’s closing price on October 3.
Shares in Comerica were last up 12% before the bell, while Fifth Third fell 3%.
“Record bank stock prices have also allowed for a greater currency to do deals, and today’s announcement will likely encourage more boardroom discussions about possible tie-ups, both large and small,” said Stephen Biggar, analyst at Argus Research.
The S&P 500 Banks Index has surged nearly 21% this year, outpacing the benchmark S&P 500’s roughly 14% rise.
GROWTH AVENUE
Mergers and acquisitions have become crucial for regional lenders looking for a competitive edge in a highly saturated U.S. banking market.
The latest deal expands Fifth Third’s reach to 17 of the 20 fastest-growing U.S. markets, including parts of the Southeast, Texas and California, and by 2030, more than half of its branches are expected to be located in these regions, it said.
“This combination marks a pivotal moment for Fifth Third as we accelerate our strategy to build density in high-growth markets and deepen our commercial capabilities,” Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence said.
Many lenders are looking to build larger, more diversified franchises with steadier revenue from businesses such as wealth management, payments and treasury services, as interest income gets squeezed by shifting Federal Reserve policy.
Comerica CEO Curt Farmer will assume the role of vice chair in the combined company, while Peter Sefzik, its chief banking officer, will lead Fifth Third’s wealth and asset management business.
The companies expect to have two $1 billion recurring and high return fee businesses Commercial Payments and Wealth and Asset Management, following the deal.
The deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2026, after which Fifth Third shareholders will own about 73% of the combined company.
Manya Saini and Arasu Kannagi Basil, Reuters
American scientists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi from Japan won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for work shedding light on how the immune system spares healthy cells, creating openings for possible new autoimmune disease and cancer treatments.
This year’s prize relates to peripheral immune tolerance, or “how we keep our immune system under control so we can fight all imaginable microbes and still avoid autoimmune disease”, said Marie Wahren-Herlenius, a rheumatology professor at the Karolinska Institute.
Sakaguchi told reporters outside his university laboratory that “I feel it is a tremendous honour,” Kyodo news agency reported.
REGULATORY T CELLS: THE IMMUNE SYSTEM’S ‘SECURITY GUARDS’
The winners for medicine are selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute medical university and receive a prize sum of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million), as well as a gold medal presented by Sweden’s king.
Brunkow is senior programme manager at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, while Ramsdell is scientific adviser at Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco. Sakaguchi is a professor at Osaka University in Japan.
“Their discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” the prize-awarding body said in a statement.
The laureates identified so-called regulatory T cells, which act as the immune system’s security guards that keep immune cells from attacking our own body, it added.
After announcing the winners, the institute’s Thomas Perlmann said specific therapies had yet to win market clearance but more than 200 trials on humans involving regulatory T cells were ongoing.
Among companies in the early race, Sonoma Biotherapeutics , which Ramsdell co-founded, is partly funded and supported by U.S. drugmaker Regeneron to work on therapies against diseases including inflammatory bowel disease.
Also targeting that condition, Quell Therapeutics has partnered with AstraZeneca.
Other biotech firms exploring the approach include Bayer’s BlueRock.
MEDICINE THE FIRST PRIZE OF NOBEL SEASON
The Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and a wealthy businessman. They have been awarded since 1901 for outstanding contributions in science, literature, and peace, with interruptions mainly during the World Wars.
The economics prize was added later and is funded by Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank.
Winners are selected by expert committees from various institutions. All prizes are awarded in Stockholm, except for the Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo a possible legacy of the political union between Sweden and Norway during Nobels lifetime.
Past recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine include renowned scientists such as Alexander Fleming, who shared the 1945 award for discovering penicillin. In recent years, the prize has recognized major breakthroughs, including those that enabled the development of COVID-19 vaccines.
Last year’s medicine prize was awarded to U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA and its key role in how multicellular organisms grow and live, helping explain how cells specialise into different types.
Medicine in accordance with tradition kicks off the annual Nobels, arguably the most prestigious prizes in science, literature, peace and economics, with the remainder set to be announced over the coming days.
More than a century after their inception, the Nobel Prizes remain steeped in tradition. The awards culminate in ceremonies attended by the royal families of Sweden and Norway, followed by lavish banquets held on December 10 the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
($1 = 9.3898 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Niklas Pollard, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Additional reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo and Marie Mannes and Greta Fondahn in Stockholm; Writing by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; editing by Alex Richardson)
Johan Ahlander, Niklas Pollard and Ludwig Burger, Reuters
Republican and Democratic lawmakers at an impasse on reopening the federal government provided few public signs Sunday of meaningful negotiations taking place to end what is about to be a six-day shutdown with President Donald Trump saying that layoffs are occurring.Asked on Sunday night when federal workers would be fired as he has threatened to do, Trump told reporters: “It’s taking place right now and it’s all because of the Democrats.”“The Democrats are causing the loss of a lot of jobs,” Trump added, declining to answer a question about which agencies are subject to the cuts.The possibility of layoffs would escalate an already tense situation in which Washington lawmakers have struggled to find common ground and build mutual trust. Leaders in both parties are betting that public sentiment has swung their way, putting pressure on the other side to cave.Democrats are insisting on renewing subsidies to cover health insurance costs for millions of households, while Trump wants to preserve existing spending levels as he believes that Democrats will have to cave because of the jobs and federal projects being put at risk.The squabble comes at a moment of troubling economic uncertainty. While the U.S. economy has continued to grow this year, hiring has slowed and inflation remains elevated as Trump’s import taxes have created a series of disruptions for businesses and hurt confidence in his leadership. At the same time, there is a recognition that the nearly $2 trillion annual budget deficit is financially unsustainable.House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, among those appearing on the Sunday news shows, said there have been no talks with Republican leaders since their White House meeting last Monday.“And, unfortunately, since that point in time, Republicans, including Donald Trump, have gone radio silent,” Jeffries said. “And what we’ve seen is negotiation through deepfake videos, the House canceling votes, and of course President Trump spending yesterday on the golf course. That’s not responsible behavior.”The Trump administration sees the shutdown as an opening to wield greater power over the budget, with multiple officials saying they will save money as workers are furloughed by imposing permanent job cuts on thousands of government workers, a tactic that has never been used before.Even though it would be Trump’s choice to cut jobs, he believes he can put the blame on the Democrats because of the shutdown.“It’s up to them,” Trump told reporters on Sunday morning before boarding the presidential helicopter to celebrate the Navy’s 250th anniversary in Norfolk, Virginia.While Trump rose to fame on the TV show “The Apprentice” with its catchphrase of “You’re fired,” Republicans on Sunday claimed that the administration would take no pleasure in letting go of federal workers, even though the administration had also put funding on hold for infrastructure and energy projects in Democratic areas without clear signs of remorse.“We haven’t seen the details yet about what’s happening” with layoffs, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday morning on NBC. “But it is a regrettable situation that the president does not want.”Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, also said the administration would prefer to avoid the layoffs.“We want the Democrats to come forward and to make a deal that’s a clean, continuing resolution that gives us seven more weeks to talk about these things,” Hassett said on CNN. “But the bottom line is that with Republicans in control, the Republicans have a lot more power over the outcome than the Democrats.”Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California defended his party’s stance on the shutdown, saying on NBC that the possible increase in health care costs for “millions of Americans” would make insurance unaffordable in what he called a “crisis.”But Schiff also noted that the Trump administration has stopped congressionally approved spending from being used. That essentially undermines the value of Democrats trying to seek compromises on the budget since the administration could block the spending of money from any deal. The Trump administration sent Congress roughly $4.9 billion in “pocket rescissions” on foreign aid, a process that meant the spending was withheld without time for Congress to weigh in before the previous fiscal year ended last month.“We need both to address the health care crisis and we need some written assurance in the law I won’t take a promise that they’re not going to renege on any deal we make,” Schiff said.The television appearances indicated that Democrats and Republicans are busy talking, deploying internet memes against each other that have raised concerns about whether it’s possible to negotiate in good faith.Vice President JD Vance said a video putting Jeffries in a sombrero and thick mustache was simply a joke, even though it came across as mocking people of Mexican descent as Republicans insist that the Democratic demands would lead to health care spending on immigrants in the country illegally, a claim that Democrats dispute.Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for any federal health care programs, including insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Still, hospitals do receive Medicaid reimbursements for emergency care that they are obligated to provide to people who meet other Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not have an eligible immigration status.The challenge, however, is that the two parties do not appear to be having productive conversations with each other in private, even as Republicans insist they are in conversation with their Democratic colleagues.On Friday, a Senate vote to advance a Republican bill that would reopen the government failed to notch the necessary 60 votes to end a filibuster. Johnson said the House would close for legislative business next week, a strategy that could obligate the Senate to work with the government funding bill that was passed by House Republicans.“Johnson’s not serious about this,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on CBS. “He sent all his congressmen home last week and home this week. How are you going to negotiate?”Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Sunday that the shutdown on discretionary spending, the furloughing of federal workers and requirements that other federal employees work without pay will go on so long as Democrats vote no.“They’ll get another chance on Monday to vote again,” Thune said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”“And I’m hoping that some of them have a change of heart,” he said.
Jeffries, Johnson and Schiff appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hassett was on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Schumer was on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and Thune was on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Josh Boak, Associated Press
October ushers in changing foliage, cooler temperatures, and the spooky season made eerier with less daylight.
Costumes are donned and even the night sky wants to help set the mood. Much to the dismay of werewolves, Octobers Harvest supermoon will peak tonight (Monday, October 6) at 11:47 p.m. ET, according to the Farmers Almanac.
Lets break down the science behind this nighttime spectacle and take a look at future events.
Why is Octobers full moon called the Harvest Moon?
The full moon closest to the autumnal equinox gets the moniker Harvest Moon. Septembers offering took place on September 7 and the equinox took place on September 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. This means that October gets the crown in 2025, although that is not always the case.
Before modern conveniences, the Harvest Moon helped farmers out by rising around the same time each evening and giving extra illumination. This light allows those working the land to get crops collected before the frigid winter months arrive.
What is a supermoon?
The moon orbits the Earth in an elliptical pattern. This means there are points on its path when the moon is closer to the Earth than at others.
When the satellite is at its closest points to the Earth, it is called perigee. When a full moon happens during this period, it gets upgraded to super. (We cant confirm yet if it gets a cape and a sidekick.)
According to NASA, supermoons can appear in the sky to be 30% brighter and up to 14% larger than your average full moon. This happens three or four times a year.
What about the Draconid meteor shower?
The extra light is both a blessing and a curse. The supermoon is not the only celestial phenomenon taking place on October 6 as the Draconid meteor shower is expected to begin and peak on October 8.
The supermoons illumination might just upstage the meteors from the 21P Giacobini-Zinner comet by washing them out.
Supermoons appear full to the naked eye for a couple of days, and the Draconid meteor shower will last until October 10, so theres a small window of hope.
If that doesnt pan out, you can always look forward to the Orionid meteor shower peak, which takes place on October 21.
But wait, theres more . . .
Octobers Harvest Moon is a trendsetter. This bright spot is the first of three back-to-back supermoons that will close out the year. Novembers moon just might outdo the Harvest Moon, but lets not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
Uniqlo, the Japanese retailer known for its monochromatic casual wear and accessories, is gearing up to significantly expand its U.S. physical footprint next year.
The brand will open 11 new stores across seven cities in spring and summer 2026, Uniqlo told Fast Company. The expanded fleet will include four new stores in New York City: three in Manhattan and an additional location in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
The new locations come two decades after Uniqlo opened its first U.S. store in Manhattans Soho neighborhood in 2006.
For fans of Uniqlos ultra-stretch jackets, Pufftech vests, and functional backpacks, it gets even better: The company is also planning new flagship locations in Chicago and San Francisco, along with additional stores in Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the Annapolis Mall in Maryland.
Uniqlo currently operates 78 stores in the United States. The new stores will add to that tally, putting its U.S. footprint closer in size to that of Inditex-owned Zara, the Spanish fast-fashion chain, which has roughly 97 stores in the United States. Both are still relatively small in comparison to rival H&M Group, which reported 754 stores across North and South America as of August 31.
Uniqlos leadership says the brand is not looking to open stores merely for the sake of planting flags in new territories.
Our strategy is about thoughtful growthopening the right stores in the right placeswhile ensuring every location reflects our customers voices and delivers a meaningful, high-quality experience, Fuminori Adachi, CEO of the brands U.S. division, said in a statement.
Retail is facing headwinds in 2025
The expansion comes as many U.S. apparel chains have been struggling with declining foot traffic and sluggish sales.
Price-conscious shoppers, stung by sticker shock and an uncertain economy, are buying less or staying away altogether. Many consumers, especially younger ones, have turned to ultra-cheap e-commerce platforms such as Shein and Temu for their fashion fixes.
Some well-known apparel chains have culled their store counts or worse in recent years. U.S. retailer Gap Inc. announced in 2020 that it would close 350 of its Gap and Banana Republic stores. More dramatically, fast-fashion retailer Forever 21 wound down its U.S. operations after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March.
Apparel sellers are hardly the only chains impacted by a landscape reshaped by online shopping. Retailers from Starbucks to Petco have closed stores this year as they reassess their brick-and-mortar needs and redesign their storefronts for an era when in-store customers can no longer be taken for granted.
All of this makes Uniqlos announcement a welcome bright spot. Fast Retailing, the brands Tokyo-based parent company, saw its revenue grow 10.6% in the nine months to May compared to the same period last year, according to financial results announced in July.
The retail giant, which operates more than 3,600 stores worldwideincluding some 2,500 Uniqlo storesgenerated sales of 3.1 trillion yen ($21.42 billion) for its fiscal year ending August 31, 2024.
Where are the new Uniqlo stores opening?
The full list of new locations being announced by Uniqlo are below.
New York
Brooklyn: Williamsburg
Manhattan: Union Square
Manhattan: Bryant Park, Fifth Avenue
Manhattan: World Trade Center
Illinois
Chicago: 600 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago: Oakbrook Mall
California
San Francisco: 830 Market Street
Massachusetts
Boston: Downtown Crossing, 395-403 Washington Street
Maryland
Annapolis Mall
Washington State
Seattle area: Issaquah Commons
Washington, D.C.
Georgetown Park: 3262 M Street NW
In addition to the above stores, the Austin American-Statesman last week reported that Uniqlo is planning to open a location in the Texas capital, citing a regulatory filing. A representative for Uniqlo declined to confirm the Austin location.
