Trading platform Robinhood, best known for introducing a new generation of traders to the stock market, crypto, and ETFs, is growing up alongside its customers, moving one step closer to becoming a full financial service company the likes of Fidelity or Charles Schwab.
On Wednesday, the digital brokerage announced plans to launch Robinhood Banking this fall, a one-stop service that provides traditional checking and savings accounts with luxury benefits, as well as Robinhood Strategies, a wealth management product.
Customers will need a Gold subscription, which runs $5 a month or $50 a year, to open those individual and joint checking accounts, which will allow users “to send money across the world in over 100 currencies, and even get cash delivered directly to you” (more on that below).
Robinhood’s new financial products will include new tools for wealth-management, AI-powered investment advice, access to tax advisors, estate planning, and instant transfers between Robinhood accounts and FDIC partner institutions for up to $2.5 million. Robinhood said the idea is to give members “access to financial services such as private wealth management and private banking, which were once thought out of reach to many.”
But perhaps the most unique perk offered is that customers will be able to have cash delivered to their door same-day, likely as a way to continue to capture younger investors with their smartphones. (Robinhood’s median customer age is now 35, up from 31 five years ago.) Cash deliveries would work similarly to, say, DoorDash, serving up cash instead of food.
Other unconventional perks for new banking customers reportedly include discounted helicopter rides.
Our goal is for Robinhood to give you a world-class financial team in your pocket, with cutting-edge tools you cant find elsewhere, Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s chairman said in a statement.
Robinhood said in the statement that it would charge Gold members 0.25% annually on managed individual and retirement accounts up to $100,000, with a yearly cap of $250, “which means free management on every dollar over $100k and an effective management fee of 0.1% for portfolios with $250,000 or 0.05% for those with $500,000.”
Unlike Robinhood Banking, Robinhood Strategies is already available to all Robinhood Gold members, and will begin rolling out to all customers in April, according to the company’s press release.
Shares of GameStop fell more than 15% on Thursday after the company’s plan to finance its bitcoin pivot raised questions about the timing of its move and its strategy to turn around its struggling retail business.
The video game retailer’s shares also gave up all their gains from a day earlier and were on track for their biggest one-day fall since last June, after the company said it was offering $1.3 billion in 0% 2030 convertible bonds to amass the cryptocurrency.
The company’s announcement that it would buy bitcoin to hold as a treasury reserve asset had created a mini euphoria among retail traders, who keenly track the so-called “meme stock.”
However, GameStop also announced the closing of a “significant number” of additional stores this year, signalling that its retail business continued to flounder despite attempts to turn it around.
“Investors are not necessarily optimistic on the underlying business,” said Bret Kenwell, U.S. investment analyst at eToro.
“There are question marks with GameStop’s model. If bitcoin is going to be the pivot, where does that leave everything else?”
The timing of GameStop’s decision to buy bitcoin is also in focus as the cryptocurrency’s price has gained nearly 27% since November’s presidential election, though they are sharply down from record highs due to uncertain economic conditions.
“Why did (GameStop) wait so long if they were going to go down this road? Six months ago, nine months ago would have made a lot more sense,” Kenwell said.
The debt offering to fund bitcoin purchases mimics the playbook of Strategy, one of the largest individual holders of bitcoin that is widely seen as a bitcoin proxy.
The overall outlook for crypto markets was also contributing to declines as GameStop’s move has “failed to meaningfully boost market confidence,” said Agne Linge, head of growth at decentralized bank WeFi.
With the day’s losses, GameStop shares have dropped more than 23% this year.
Lisa Pauline Mattackal, Reuters
X owner Elon Musk was privately messaging with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman while also putting public pressure on the social media company’s content moderation efforts, The Verge reported Thursday.
Two months ago, several Reddit subreddits started to block links to X in protest of Musk appearing to give the Nazi salute. Musk called the efforts “insane,” while a Reddit spokesperson at the time clarified that Reddit itself wasn’t imposing a ban on the links. A few days later, Musk claimed that Reddit users who were calling for violence against members of his Department of Government Efficiency were breaking the law.
Musk has been a vocal critic of content moderation on social platformsparticularly since buying Twitter, now X, in 2022to where he’s rolled back many trust and safety policies. At the same time, unironically, he’s been known to restrict links to other platforms on X.
And this certainly isnt the first time Musk has gone after criticsjournalists, users, even employees. Last month, Musk reportedly fired a Tesla manager who criticized Musk for a social media post that used the names of Nazis as wordplay.
The Verge reported that “shortly after” Musk and Huffman talked, Reddit enacted its 72-hour ban on the r/WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit, saying it was “due to a prevalence of violent content.” Reddit also fully banned a subreddit called r/IsElonDeadYet for breaking rules “against posting violent content.”
The r/WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit, which has more than three million followers, is mostly made up of users screenshotting posts from Bluesky and X. The r/IsElonDeadYet page consisted of a daily post asking whether he was, in fact, dead or not, according to an archived version of the site in December.
Reddit moderators learned that the two leaders had spoken, according to The Verge, and discussed it. In response to a user who said Musk is allowed to call out death threats, another reportedly said: “Oh, I dont have any problem with removing rule-breaking content (and taking the respective admin action on said accounts), but I find it a bit problematic that hes able to exert influence on both public and private institutions.”
Reddit has had ongoing tension with moderators and power usersespecially after a policy change requiring some third-party developers to pay much more for its application programming interface led to widespread protests in mid-2023. The company, which went public last year, has struggled to maintain balance between changes from its leadership team and its hundreds of millions of monthly global users.
In a major overhaul, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will lay off 10,000 workers and shut down entire agencies, including ones that oversee billions of dollars in funds for addiction services and community health centers across the country.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the department he oversees as an inefficient sprawling bureaucracy in a video announcing the restructuring Thursday. He faulted the department’s 82,000 workers for a decline in Americans’ health.
I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less, Kennedy said in the video, posted to social media.
The restructuring plan caps weeks of tumult at the nations top health department, which has been embroiled in rumors of mass firings, the revocation of $11 billion in public health funding for cities and counties, a tepid response to a measles outbreak, and controversial remarks about vaccines from its new leader.
Still, Kennedy said a painful period lies ahead for HHS, which is responsible for monitoring infectious diseases, inspecting foods and hospitals and overseeing health insurance programs for nearly half the country.
Overall, the department will downsize to 62,000 positions, losing nearly a quarter of its staff 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers encouraged by President Donald Trumps administration.
The cuts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Public health experts, doctors, current and former HHS workers and congressional Democrats quickly panned Kennedys plans, warning they could have untold consequences for millions of people across the country.
These staff cuts endanger public health and food safety, said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, in a statement. They raise serious concerns that the administrations pledge to make Americans healthy again could become nothing more than an empty promise.
But Kennedy, in announcing the restructuring, blasted HHS for failing to improve Americans lifespans and not doing enough to drive down chronic disease and cancer rates.
All of that money, Kennedy said of the department’s $1.7 trillion yearly budget, has failed to improve the health of Americans.
Cancer death rates have dropped 34% over the past two decades, translating to 4.5 million deaths avoided, according to the American Cancer Society. Thats largely due to smoking cessation, the development of better treatments many funded by the National Institutes of Health, including groundbreaking immunotherapy and earlier detection.
Federal health workers stationed across the country at agencies including the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration, both in Maryland described shock, fear and anxiety rippling through their offices Thursday. Workers were not given advance notice of the cuts, several told The Associated Press, and many remained uncertain about whether their jobs were on the chopping block.
Its incredibly difficult and frustrating and upsetting to not really know where we stand while were trying to keep doing the work,” said an FDA staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “Were being villainized and handicapped and have this guillotine just hanging over our necks.
HHS provided on Thursday a breakdown of cuts at the FDA, the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
3,500 jobs at the FDA, which inspects and sets safety standards for medications, medical devices and foods.
2,400 jobs at the CDC, which monitors for infectious disease outbreaks and works with public health agencies nationwide.
1,200 jobs at the NIH, the worlds leading public health research arm.
300 jobs at CMS, which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Medicare and Medicaid.
HHS said it anticipates the changes will save $1.8 billion per year but didn’t give a breakdown or any other details.
The cuts and consolidation go far deeper than anyone expected, an NIH employee said.
Were all pretty devastated, said the staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. We dont know what this means for public health.
Union leaders for CDC workers in Atlanta said they received notice from HHS on Thursday morning that reductions will primarily focus on administrative positions including human resources, finance, procurement and information technology.
At CMS, where cuts focus on workers who troubleshoot problems that arise for Medicare beneficiaries and Affordable Care Act enrollees, the result will be the lowest customer service standards for thousands of cases, said Jeffrey Grant, a former deputy director at the agency who resigned last month.
Beyond losing workers, Kennedy said he will shut down entire agencies, some of which were established by Congress decades ago. Several will be folded into a new Administration for a Healthy America, he said.
Those include the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees and provides funding for hundreds of community health centers around the country, as well as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which funds clinics and oversees the national 988 hotline. Both agencies pump billions of dollars into on-the-ground work in local communities.
SAMHSA was created by Congress in 1992, so closing it is illegal and raises questions about Kennedy’s commitment to treating addiction and mental health, said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University addiction researcher.
Burying the agency in an administrative blob with no clear purpose is not the way to highlight the problem or coordinate a response, Humphreys said.
The new Administration for Healthy America will focus on maternal and child health, environmental health and HIV/AIDS work, HHS said.
The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, created by a law signed by then-Republican President George W. Bush and responsible for maintaining the national stockpile that was quickly drained during the COVID-19 pandemic, will also be eliminated and moved into the CDC.
Amanda Seitz, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Matthew Perrone, Lauran Neergaard, JoNel Aleccia, Carla K. Johnson, and Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.
Smartphones have been around long enough that, to the casual observer, their designs seem to have hit a plateau. And on a functional level, thats more or less truewere all essentially holding the same six-inch-ish rectangle, aside from the occasional foldable exception.
But the maturity and ubiquity of smartphones have sparked a new phenomenon: the return of trends in cycles, much like fashion. For example, most phones released in the past few years have flat sides, like the iPhone 4 from 2010. Five years ago, almost all those sides would have been curved. Flat edges arent a new inventiontheyre just whats trending again.
But this year brings a surprising twist, something many thought unlikely to return: For the first time in a while, major phone makers are prioritizing thinness.
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Samsung kicked off the year by announcing its Galaxy S25 lineup, which includes a slimline model, the Galaxy S25 Edge. Bloombergs Mark Gurman has reported that Apple is planning a thinner 2025 iPhone said to feature a single camera. And smaller brands like Tecno showed off unusually thin phones at last months Mobile World Congress.
So, why now?
Around a decade ago, it was common for companies to boast about how thin their phones were. Heres the real magic, said Apples Phil Schiller when introducing the larger screens in 2014s 6.9mm-thick iPhone 6. Thinner than any phones weve ever madethat took an incredible amount of engineering. A few months later, Oppo announced its R5 phone, which came in at a record-breaking 4.85mm.
A Samsung Galaxy Edge smartphone next to the Samsung Galaxy 23 and Samsung Galaxy 24 smartphones at the Galaxy Unpacked event in San Jose, on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. [Photo: Michaela Vatcheva/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Back then, it seemed inevitable that phones would just keep getting thinner. But then something curious happened: The iPhone 6S got thicker, bumping up to 7.1mm and switching to a stronger aluminum alloy. It was an unofficial but obvious response to the iPhone 6s tendency to bend. (It happened to me.)
No one complained much about the iPhone 6S’s structural integrity, but iPhones kept getting thicker, topping out at the 8.3mm we see with the current iPhone 16 Pro. By and large, people havent seemed to mind. Battery life is much less of a concern than it used to be, and todays increasingly large camera hardware simply wouldnt fit in thinner devices.
The 2025 flurry of deliberately thin phones, then, is a clear break from recent trends. So why are manufacturers converging on the same idea?
The primary answer may be technical. While we dont yet know what Samsung or Apple are using in their upcoming devices, silicon-carbon batteries have become increasingly common in Chinese Android phones over the past year. Infusing silicon into the battery chemistry can provide a meaningful increase in capacity within the same volume.
Oppos latest Find N5 folding phone, for example, is just 4.2mm thick when unfoldedbarely thick enough to accommodate a USB-C port. But its 5,600mAh silicon-carbide battery represents a 17% increase in capacity over its predecessor, the Find N3, even though that phone was 38% thicker. Other companies like Xiaomi and Vivo have used the tech to similar ends.
The other reason thinner phones might take off is more subjective. When was the last time a new phone truly wowed you? There will clearly be trade-offs in battery life and performance with a significantly thinner device. But if you finish each day with more than half a charge, or if you rarely use your telephoto lens, its plausible you might prefer a slimmer, more attractive handset.
Combine better battery technology with the fact that most people dont need flagship-level performance, and suddenly a slim phone with few compromises seems pretty reasonable. It makes sense for companies to carve out space for design-forward devices in their lineups. Samsung has always been willing to experiment; and while Apple tends to be more conservative, its reportedly unimpressed with sales of its mid-tier Plus-not-Pro iPhones. Why not try something more distinctive between the entry level and the high end?
If anything, the question is whether these designs will go far enough. Samsung has yet to announce the Galaxy S25 Edges specs or let anyone in the media handle it, but I saw it suspended in the air at Mobile World Congress and wasnt particularly blown away by its dimensions. Bloombergs Gurman has suggested the upcoming slim iPhone will be about 2mm thinner than an iPhone 16 Pro, putting it around 6.3mmmore in line with the iPhone 6 than todays thicker models.
Maybe thats the right tradeoff. The goal here should be to create something like the MacBook Air of phones: impressive design with unspectacular specs that are good enough for most use cases. The Pro models can continue to be for people who really need them.
Plenty of people will always want the most performant phone with the biggest battery and best cameras, of course. But when a phones selling point is its physical form, it cant really be judged until you pick it up for yourselfand then find out how long its battery lasts.
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Beverly Hills hottest club is California Pizza Kitchen.
At least, thats what someone unfamiliar with the brand might have taken away from its new rebrand, which debuted on Monday. On its website, California Pizza Kitchen replaced its friendly yellow logo and wordmark with a silver chrome logo and the shortened name CPK.
[Photo: courtesy California Pizza Kitchen]
Meanwhile, on socials, the brand posted several videos of its new identity that looked more fit for promoting a rave than a family friendly pizza restaurant. Shots of flashing lights, serious models, and slogans like DEVOUR THE DOUBTERS and Fresh. To. Death were cut with clips of harshly-lit pizzas and interspersed with the brands new all-caps wordmark.
At first glance, one might have assumed these were assets for a new Liquid Death campaign or MSCHF launch. Many commenters on CPKs socials were quick to question what was going on with the brand, including the official Little Caesers account, which commented, Bestie whats happening on a particularly odd video. But, as it turns out, the whole edgelord rebrand was just a temporary marketing play to promote California Pizza Kitchens 40th anniversary. The restaurant just revealed the hoax through a partnership with actress Busy Phillips and restored its platforms to its original branding.
The campaign shows that, amidst an influx of purposefully shocking brand moves like Jaguars totally unrecognizable rebrand or Duolingos decision to briefly kill off its mascot, weve reached a new stage of the trend cycle: full brand-on-brand parody.
CPK’s midlife crisis
Dawn Keller joined California Pizza Kitchens as its CMO about a year ago. Since then, she says, shes learned that sentiment around the brand is overwhelmingly positive, given that many customers associate it with years of childhood dinners. The issue, though, is that many fans just dont think about CPK that often, Keller says.
Part of the problem is that the restaurant hasnt made much of an investment in its marketing efforts to keep CPK top of mind. On socials, it has a staid strategy of essentially reposting traditional ad materialsan approach thats less than ideal in a social media landscape that rewards brands who embrace big personalities and brain rot content. So, CPK decided to use the four decade milestone as an opportunity to shake things up by staging a midlife crisis.
[Photo: courtesy California Pizza Kitchen]
Leading up to the campaign, CPK conducted extensive brand research with its creative agency, Iris Worldwide, to decide how the company might grab consumers attention. That work led them to the conclusion that their existing brand positioning and visual identity was strong enough to exclude the possibility of an actual rebrand. Instead, Keller says, the 40-year anniversary campaign riffs on the tendency of other mature brands to go into panic mode and debut a rebrand that loses touch with their original purpose.
We were never of the opinion that we had to upend the apple cart and totally rebrand, Keller says. It was really more about, How do we rejuvenate this brand, amplify it, but do it in a fresher way than we’ve done? [. . .] There was a bit of parody that we were doing, knowing that some brands evolve, and it’s great, but some, you feel like they jump the shark.
[Photo: courtesy California Pizza Kitchen]
While CPKs hypebeast look only lasted for a week, Keller says the intention of the move was to usher the brand into a more adventurous, culturally relevant marketing era on social media.
For CPK, the marketing stunt surfaces an interesting tension between embracing a decades-old existing brand identity and parodying shock-value rebrands, while, at the same time, essentially benefitting from the shock-value strategy itself. Today, even brands who don’t actively embody what Fast Company has termed “DGAF branding” might still have to play into it to succeed online. Thus far, the fake rebrand has resulted in 21 million social impressions for CPK.
[Photo: courtesy California Pizza Kitchen]
It’s also yielded a mixed bag of responses. Keller says her team was expecting some confusion and backlash, both of which have been proven out. Whats surprised them, though, is that many fans actually liked the new look.
You’ve got literally people who were giving it a thumbs up and supported it, Keller says. Maybe that’s the minority, but even to see people with positive reactions to the fake brand really made us laugh. I think it goes back to that brand equity that CPK has, which is, people want CPK to win. They really do. They love it. A lot of people grew up with it. Even when we do something that iscome onobjectively preposterous, they’re still celebrating it.
Since President Trumps return to office in January, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has dropped several enforcement actions against companies filed under the agencys previous director, Rohit Chopra.
Now the bureau is seeking to give back a $105,000 penalty that Chicago-based lender Townstone Financial paid to settle alleged racial discrimination claims last year.
The case was initially filed in 2020, during Trumps first term, by Kathleen Kraninger, the director appointed by the president to lead the consumer watchdog. But on Wednesday, the new acting director of the CFPB, Russell Vought, sought to vacate the settlement completely and return the six-figure penalty that Townstone had to pay.
Once new CFPB leadership undertook the review of the history of this case, it became clear from the totality of internal evidence that this case has suffered from deficiencies on the merits and Townstone was targeted because of its protected speech, the bureau said in its filing to the U.S District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
What was the original case about?
The CFPB originally brought the action against Townstone, alleging that it had “discouraged black prospective applicants from applying for mortgage loans with Townstone . . . by making, over a period of years, several statements on their long-form commercial advertisement radio show.
The complaint accused the “Townstone Financial Show” of making discriminatory statements that discouraged Black applicants from seeking mortgage loans.
It cites five incidents, including some comments made by co-host Barry Sturner, Townstone’s CEO. In one example, for instance, Sturner referred to a downtown Chicago Jewel-Osco grocery store as Jungle Jewel and called it scary due to its diverse patrons. In another, he called Chicagos South Side hoodlum weekend and claimed police were the only force preventing it from becoming a real war zone.
The CFPB also alleged that “From 2014 through 2017, barely 2 percent of Townstones mortgage-loan applications were for properties in majority African American neighborhoods, even though they make up nearly 19 percent of the Chicago metropolitan areas census tracts.”
In 2023, a federal court in Chicago dismissed the bureaus lawsuit, ruling that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act only applied to actual loan applicants, not prospective ones. However, the bureau appealed, and a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned the decision.
Fast Company reached out to Townstone for comment. In its settlement in 2024, it admitted no wrongdoing.
The CFPB’s latest response
After reviewing the settlement, the bureau stated in a press release on Wednesday that the, CFPB abused its power, used radical equity arguments to tag Townstone as racist with zero evidence, and spent years persecuting and extorting them all to further the goal of mandating DEI in lending via their regulation by enforcement tactics.”
According to the press release, there was no complaint from the public against Townstone but the company was drawn out of hat by a computer model run by “DEI-driven bureaucrats.” It accused the previous CFPB administration of targeting Townstone for its protected free speech, using audio-mining software to review the companys radio shows and podcasts, specifically flagging political speech critical of the bureau.
They identified 16 minutes out of nearly 79 hours of radio content (.33%) that they deemed disconcerting,” the press release states, and that could be interpreted as inappropriate, incorrect, or insensitive.”
It further claimed that the radio show was only Talking about local crime, political issues around freedom of speech, supporting local law enforcement, and telling people to check out a neighborhood before buying a home.
The CFPB said in the recent filing that it supports the dismissal of all claims in order to permit the agency to return to Townstone the civil penalty it paid. The move signals a broader effort by the Trump administration to scale back what it describes as overreach and politically motivated enforcement actions from previous leadership.
After a yearlong search, the Sundance Film Festival announced Thursday that its new home will be Boulder, Colorado, keeping Sundance in the mountains but moving it out of Park City, the Utah ski town that had for decades provided the premier independent film gathering its picturesque snowy backdrop.
Organizers said that after 40 years in the mountains, the festival had outgrown Park City, and lacked the necessary theaters or affordable housing to continue hosting what has become one of North Americas most sprawling movie events. Sundance had narrowed down the options to Salt Lake City (with a smaller presence in Park City), Cincinnati and Boulder.
Boulder, organizers said, emerged as their choice due to its close proximity to nature, its small-town charm and an engaged community that provides Sundance the ideal setting for its future.
Boulder is a tech town, its a college town, its an arts town, and its a mountain town, Amanda Kelso, acting chief executive of the Sundance Institute, said in an interview Thursday from Boulder. At 100,000 people, a larger town than Park City, it gives us the space to expand.
Kelso, Sundance Institute board chair Ebs Burnough and Eugene Hernandez, director of the festival and head of programming, spoke shortly before announcing the festivals move in Boulder. Local officials, who helped lure Sundance with $34 million in tax credits over 10 years, applauded the decision.
Here in our state we celebrate the arts and film industry as a key economic driver, job creator and important contributor to our thriving culture, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.
A changed endorsed by Sundance founder Robert Redford
A shift from Park City to Boulder means Sundance stays at altitude but gives up being located in an expensive ski town. The mile-high Colorado city set in the foothills of the Rockies also maintains a sense of surrounding nature something organizers stressed as a factor in their decision. Boulders four-block pedestrian mall on Pearl Street, with nearby theaters, could also provide a similar sense of central hub like Park Citys Main Street.
The Sundance Institute was founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, who sought a location far from Hollywood to foster independent voices in film. In 1984, the institute took over the Sundance Film Festival, but the nonprofits mission of helping young filmmakers grow through labs and workshops Redfords real passion continued year-round away from the festival.
The 88-year-old Redford, who attended the University of Colorado in Boulder in his youth, gave the move his blessing.
Words cannot express the sincere gratitude I have for Park City, the state of Utah, and all those in the Utah community that have helped to build the organization, Redford said in a statement. What weve created is remarkably special and defining. As change is inevitable, we must always evolve and grow, which has been at the core of our survival.
How Sundance chose its new home
The festival made ethos and equity values one of its criteria, prompting many to wonder how much local politics would influence the choice by Sundance, which emphasizes inclusivity. Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is currently weighing a bill that would ban the flying of certain flags at schools and government buildings, including the LGBTQ pride flag.
Organizers said Boulders welcoming environment aligns with the ethos the Sundance Film Festival developed in Park City.
This process started 18 months ago and weve been in Utah for 40 years. So politics really didnt guide the process, Burnough said Thursday. It was really and truly about evolution. Thats where it landed. We didnt constantly spend time examining what bill was going forward or may or may not be signed.
With its current contract expiration date looming, the hunt for a new host city began in earnest in April 2024. The initial group of six contenders also included Atlanta, Louisville, Kentucky and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
What Sundance has meant for Park City, and the film world
Before packing up, Sundance will have one last edition in Park City in January 2026.
The Sundance Film Festival will be the Sundance Film Festival wherever we go. Whats consistent is our mission, said Hernandez. This is a festival of global discovery. Whats exciting about Boulder is this is a place we can build.
Over the years, Sundance in Park City swelled into a premier marketplace for American film, drawing studio executives and parka-wearing celebrities into the Wasatch mountains every January. It helped launch countless filmmakers over the years, from Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape) to Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station). Sundance scored its first best picture winner with CODA in 2022.
Sundance meant big business for Utah and Park City. In 2024, the festival had some 72,840 in-person attendees, 24,200 of whom were coming from out of state. According to the festivals economic impact report, out-of-state visitors spent an estimated $106.4 million in Utah during the festival. Its total economic impact was estimated to be $132 million, with 1,730 jobs for Utah residents and $69.7 million in Utah wages.
But the festival had also sparred with local ski resorts Park Citys other major money maker as festivalgoers filled the hotels and left the slopes virtually empty for two weeks during peak ski season. The festival was a boon to some local businesses, but a hindrance to others. For visitors flying into the 10-day festival, ballooning rental costs increasingly factored into attending.
Cox had urged Sundance to stay in Utah, but has said the state’s economy would be OK if it lost the festival.
All three top contenders budgeted millions to lure the lucrative festival to their city. Cincinnati set aside $2.5 million for Sundance and another $2.5 million to come if it was chosen. Salt Lake City offered Sundance $3.5 million to stay in Utah.
Jake Coyle, AP film writer
Associated Press Writer Hannah Schoenbaum and Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed to this report.
Eurozone banks are resilient but need to be ready for geopolitical shocks and their consequences, including the risk that liquidity could dry up amid jittery financial markets, European Central Bank supervisory chief Claudia Buch said on Thursday.
Policy reversals in some key areas by U.S. President Donald Trump‘s administration have unsettled investors in recent months, and policymakers are now assessing how this could affect growth, stability, and financial risk.
This comes on top of financial and political stress created by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions that followed.
“A potential deterioration in asset quality and possible economic disruptions caused by geopolitical conflicts or the effects of financial sanctions require heightened attention, sufficient capital and robust governance and risk management systems in banks,” Buch said in the ECB’s annual report on banking supervision.
Reuters reported last week some central bankers and supervisors were even questioning whether they can still rely on the U.S. Federal Reserve to provide dollar funding in times of market stress given Trump’s erratic trade and foreign policy.
Asked about this risk during a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, Buch said ECB supervisors continued to work well with their Federal Reserve colleagues but they monitored liquidity “very closely.”
“Liquidity risk and also foreign exchange risk is something we monitor very closely as a routine part of our supervisory assessment,” she said.
Sources told Reuters they considered it highly unlikely the Fed would not honor its funding commitments and the U.S. central bank itself has given no signals to suggest that.
In its annual report, the ECB spelled out how geopolitical shocks could affect banks.
Among risks ranging from politically motivated cyber attacks to asset seizures, the ECB said banks could face stress relating to liquidity and funding, including in foreign currencies.
This might result in higher borrowing costs, increased use of credit lines, and even margin calls, whereby a bank must post more collateral at a clearing house to avoid having its positions liquidated and being shut out of financial markets.
A constant threat during the 2008 global financial crisis, margin calls have all but disappeared from the public discourse since then in part thanks to liquidity backstops implemented by central banks such as the Fed and the ECB.
“Geopolitical risks need to be considered within the context of liquidity and capital planning,” the ECB’s report said.
Buch also said banks also needed to be prepared for cybersecurity threats as both the incidence and the severity of such attacks had increased.
Buch also called on European Union lawmakers to make progress in approving a crisis management and deposit insurance framework to better deal with bank failures and protect depositors.
Balazs Koranyi and Francesco Canepa, Reuters
Stocks of car rental companies Hertz and Avis saw their values unexpectedly hit the gas on Thursday. As of around midday, shares of Hertz Global Holdings were trading at around $4.15, an intraday increase of more than 20%. Likewise, Avis Budget Group shares were trading at around $74, also an increase of more than 20%.
This is likely welcome news to investors, who have seen the values of both stocks erode over the past year. Hertz shares are down more than 48% from a year ago, while Avis stock is down 40%.
Whats curious is that neither company reported earnings or was otherwise in the news cycle in a way that may have caused their respective shares to shoot up. As such, it appears that President Trumps recently announced tariffs on foreign-made cars may be the catalyst.
Trump announced plans for a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and auto parts on Wednesday, and as a result, car prices are expected to riselikely by thousands of dollars per vehicle. Even vehicles assembled in domestic factories could see significant price hikes, as the parts and components may have been manufactured in other countries.
How does this affect car rental stocks? Companies like Hertz and Avis, among others, have large, standing fleets of vehicles. Those vehicles are typically sold after theyre used as rentals, and given that theyre already on rental lotsmeaning, they dont need to be importedthey can dodge the new tariffs Trump recently announced. So, at least theoretically, those fleets are more valuable today than they were last week.
Or, put another way, new cars will get more expensive due to Trumps tariff plan, and that may cause an increase in demand for used vehicles, which wont be subject to the tariffs. So, companies or individuals with used vehicles that could hit the market soon stand to benefitincluding rental car companies.
Its also possible that vehicle owners will simply keep their cars longer, rather than buy new ones. That means buying new parts and components, which may be subject to tariffs themselves, but would still be far less expensive than purchasing a new vehicle.
Accordingly, that could benefit auto parts retailersand some of those retailers are also seeing a boost in their share prices. As of midday Thursday, AutoZone shares were up almost 4%, as were shares of OReilly Automotive. Shares of Advance Auto Parts, which also announced expansion plans this week, were up more than 8%.
