Your paycheck could be a little bigger in 2026, even if you didn’t get a New Year’s raise. That’s because, in order to adjust for inflation, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made some major changes to the tax code last year.
In case you missed it, the changes were announced back in October. Notably, the standard deduction for 2026 (to be filed in 2027)which reduces the amount of your income you’ll be taxed onwill rise. “For tax year 2026, the standard deduction increases to $32,200 for married couples filing jointly,” the October announcement explains. “For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $16,100 for tax year 2026, and for heads of households, the standard deduction will be $24,150.”
Experts say the change is likely to result in Americans saving money on their taxes. If the standard deduction increases, that means that they’re going to have a lower taxable income, which means that they’ll pay less taxes, Caroline Bruckner, the managing director of American Universitys Kogod Tax Policy Center, said per The Independent.
New income thresholds
Another major change from the IRS is the income threshold for each of the seven federal income tax brackets, which are set to change, too. The highest tax bracket, for those who file individually, is now for incomes over $640,600, which will be taxed at a 37% rate. For married people filing jointly, the same is true for those earning more than $768,700. That group is followed by the 35% bracket, which includes incomes over $256,225 for individuals and over $512,450 for married couples.
On the lower end of the spectrum, individuals and married couples earning at least $12,400 and $24,800, respectively, will be taxed at a 12% rate. The individual filers earning $12,400 or less will be taxed at a 10% rate. The same will be true for married couples filing jointly who earned $24,800 or less.
According to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., changing tax bracket thresholds is not unusual. And, it’s important for combating what’s known as “bracket creep,” which happens when inflation is the root cause of pushing taxpayers into higher tax brackets. That means it could increase how much taxpayers owe, without an increase in real income.
While the recent changes to 2025 tax brackets could boost your paycheck, they’re actually fairly modest when compared with recent years. For example, for a single filer, the income threshold for the 10% bracket rose from up to $11,000 in 2023 to $11,600 in 2024. For those married filing jointly, the threshold moved from $22,000 to $23,200. Likewise, the previous year, tax brackets changed by about 7% due to inflation.
How seriously are you taking your 2026 rebrand? Do you have your 365 buttons ready?
If this means nothing to you, you likely spent the holiday period at the lord intended – offline. But if spending less time on your phone isnt one of your 2026 resolutions, let me catch you up.
It started with a TikTok posted in December, all about rebranding for 2026. In the comments people shared their own strategies and self-improvement tips for the upcoming year. One comment, however, stood out from the rest.
Im getting 365 buttons, one for each day because I want to do more stuff and Im scared of time so I want to be more conscious of it, a user called Tamara wrote.
To which another user innocently asked: What is 365 buttons?
Tamara went on to explain: One for every day, to which another replied: Yes queen, but wdym buttons? Like to wear?
Tamara then clarified: Just to have to see how quick days pass and to remind myself that time passes and I just have fun and to do a lot of stuff.
Still confused? Youre not alone. What are you doing with the buttons everyday is what theyre asking, one user commented. Are you putting them in a jar, are you wearing them??
To this, Tamara responded: Hey so it actually only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I dont feel like explaining it to anyone else
What mightve remained an off-the-cuff interaction, instead blew up overnight with hundreds of videos since posted in reference to the comment exchange.
Some have made their best attempts to explain Tamaras logic (to my understanding a sort of sand timer, but in button-form). Others have taken Tamaras advice and started their own 365 button craft projects, from making their own brass buttons to upcycling clothing.
Kinda upset its already the third button but I don’t have to explain that to anyone, one creator posted on January 3rd. Only just now found out about 365 buttons so now i gotta wait til next year, another lamented this week.
Mostly, people have taken Tamaras words as a mantra or inspirational quote – complete with brat-esque graphics – to live by in 2026.
In much the same way Kylie Jenner prophetically proclaimed 2016 as the year of realizing stuff,” a decade on, in 2026 we can add to that axiom, it actually only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I dont feel like explaining it to anyone else.”
For Americans, the idea of watching live television without the constant barrage of commercials for prescription medications and junk food might seem foreign. Thats now the norm in the United Kingdom.
Starting on Monday, a ban has gone into effect that prohibits advertising foods high in fat, salt, and sugar on TV before 9 p.m. and at any time online. Its an attempt by the UK government to tackle childhood obesity. In 2022, 15% of children between the ages of 2 and 15 were obese, according to figures from the National Health Service.
What constitutes a banned product is a bit complex to decipher, as the rules cover 13 wide-ranging categories of food. Some products included in the advertising ban are obvioussoda, candy, potato chips, and desserts, for examplewhile others may be a bit surprising, like breakfast cereals, various types of yogurts, and ready-made meals like stuffed ravioli.
WELL OVERDUE
The UK has long banned TV advertisements for prescription drugs, and this latest advertising ban dates back to 2020, during the era of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, it didnt receive much traction under his successor.
In 2023, now-Prime Minister Keir Starmer campaigned on reforming the National Health Service and promised to put a ban into effect on advertising junk food if elected, saying it was well overdue.
That sentiment was echoed more recently by Katherine Brown, a professor of behavior change in health at the University of Hertfordshire, who told the BBC on Monday that the ban was long overdue and a move in the right direction.
COMPLYING WITH BAN
But food companies are already finding creative ways to comply with the ban, while still advertising.
These companies can advertise healthier versions of banned products or they can continue to advertise online and on television, so long as they dont show an “identifiable” product. This latter concession was one the UK government made following threats of legal action by the food industry against the blanket ban.
Legislation permits companies to switch from product advertising to brand advertising, which is likely to significantly weaken [the] impact [of the new rules], Anna Taylor, executive director of The Food Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the UK food system, told The Guardian.
Whats more, companies are switching up how they advertise, opting instead for outdoor advertising that include billboards and on public transportation. Outdoor advertising is the second-largest source of exposure to food advertising for children, according to the 2025 annual report from The Food Foundation, and food companies increased their advertising spend by 28% between 2021 and 2024 in anticipation of the TV and online ban.
MORE TO BE DONE
While the UK government has estimated that the advertising ban could prevent about 20,000 cases of childhood obesity, theres more work to be done, according to advocates.
Brown called on the government to make nutritious options “more affordable, accessible and appealing,” while Taylor said the ban marked a milestone on a bigger journey to protect children.
We cant stop here, we must remain focused on the goal: banning all forms of junk food advertising to children, Taylor told The Guardian.
As today is the first Monday of 2026, Americans across the country are settling back into their everyday routines after the busy holiday season.
But many are also recovering from the fluor still suffering from it.
Flu illnesses are surging across the country. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), positive influenza test results reached the highest levels of the season for the week ending December 27, 2025.
The CDC publishes a weekly influenza surveillance report that details positive case counts, illness activity levels by state, and breakdowns of flu types.
Due to the winter holidays, the CDCs latest weekly report was delayed. But the agency published its findings today, January 5, 2026.
The report shows that 32.9% of samples tested positive for influenza. Positive influenza test results have continued to trend upwards in recent weeks.
Influenza A H3N2 Super Flu cases are surging nationwide
Fast Company previously wrote about the worsening spread of the so-called super flu. The most common influenza strain this season is the subclade K, which is a mutated version of H3N2, a subtype of the influenza A virus.
According to CDC data, for the week ending December 27, a total of 994 influenza viruses were reported by public health laboratories. Of those, 971 were influenza A and 23 were influenza B. Of the 600 influenza A viruses that were subtyped, 91.2% were influenza A H3N2.
For the same week, 33,301 patients were admitted to hospitals with influenza.
Meanwhile, two influenza-related pediatric deaths were reported. One death occurred the week ending December 20 and one death occurred the week ending December 27. A total of nine influenza-related pediatric deaths have been reported this season.
For the week ending December 27, activity levels were considered very high in more than half of the U.S. states. Activity levels were also very high in Puerto Rico.
Screenshot via CDC.
The states with the highest flu activity include:
Alabama
Alaska
Arkansas
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Ohio
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
The CDC expects activity to continue for several weeks.
What are the symptoms of the flu?
Flu symptoms can vary from mild to severe. According to the CDC, these are the most common symptoms to be aware of:
Fever
Feeling feverish/having chills
Cough
Sore throat
Runny or stuffy nose
Muscle or body aches
Headaches
Fatigue (tiredness)
Possible vomiting or diarrhea
Its worth noting that not everyone with the flu gets a fever.
If youre experiencing flu-like symptoms, the CDC recommends limiting contact with others.
Total flu cases reach 11 million nationwide
The CDC estimates that at least 11 million flu illnesses have occurred so far this season. The agency estimates that there have been 120,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths from the flu.
The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months of age and older who has not yet been vaccinated this season get an annual influenza vaccine.
The Trump administration has added seven countries, including five in Africa, to the list of nations whose passport holders are required to post bonds of up to $15,000 to apply to enter the United States.
Thirteen countries, all but two of them in Africa, are now on the list, which makes the process of obtaining a U.S. visa unaffordable for many.
The State Department last week quietly added Bhutan, Botswana, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, and Turkmenistan to the list. Those designations took effect on Jan. 1, according to a notice posted on the travel.state.gov website.
It’s the latest effort by the Trump administration to tighten requirements for entry to the U.S., including requiring citizens from all countries that require visas to sit for in-person interviews and disclose years of social media histories as well as detailed accounts of their and their families’ previous travel and living arrangements.
U.S. officials have defended the bonds, which can range from $5,000 up to $15,000, maintaining they are effective in ensuring that citizens of targeted countries do not overstay their visas.
Payment of the bond does not guarantee a visa will be granted, but the amount will be refunded if the visa is denied or when a visa holder demonstrates they have complied with the terms of visa.
The new countries covered by the requirement join Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania, Gambia, Malawi, and Zambia, which were all placed on the list in August and October of last year.
Matthew Lee, AP diplomatic writer
For years, pharmaceutical companies have been racing to develop a market-ready GLP-1 weight-loss pill to join the ranks of popular injectables. Today, Novo Nordisks oral version of Wegovy is officially available for purchase.
The Wegovy pillwhich has been in clinical trials for over two years and was approved by the FDA on December 22is the first and only oral GLP-1 medication for weight loss in adults available in the U.S. According to a press release from Novo Nordisk, the pill hit the market on January 5 at more than 70,000 U.S. pharmacies and several popular telehealth providers.
Per a KFF health tracking poll released in November, 1 in 8 Americans were already taking a GLP-1 medication for weight-loss. The new Wegovy pill likely represents an incoming era of even more widespread access to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
We know there are people who are interested in addressing their weight but have been waiting on the sidelines for a medicine that was right for them, Ed Cinca, Novo Nordisks senior vice president of marketing and patient solutions, said in the press release. For many of them, he added, the wait is over.
As of this writing, Novo Nordisks stock is up about 4% since the announcement. Heres what to know about the companys new pill.
How much does the Wegovy pill cost?
Like the injectable version of Wegovy, its pill form will require a prescription from a doctor. Its available in multiple doses, including 1.5 milligrams (which is considered a starter dose, to help the body build up a tolerance), 4 mg, 9 mg, and 25 mg.
Novo Nordisk says prices for self-pay patients will start at $149 per month for the 1.5 mg dose. The 4 mg dose will also be available for $149 per month through April 15, 2026, then $199 per month after. The highest dose of 25 mg will be available for $299 per month.
Where is the Wegovy pill available?
Starting today, the Wegovy pill is available at more than 70,000 pharmacies, including CVS and Costco, as well as telehealth providers like Ro, LifeMD, Weight Watchers, NovoCare Pharmacy (Novo Nordisks direct-to-patient service), GoodRx, and more.
For its part, GoodRx (which is a healthcare company that provides coupons and savings to be applied in pharmacies) announced in its own press release that it will help consumers access the Wegovy pill at a variety of pharmacies for its lowest price of $149 per month at the 1.5 mg and 4 mg dosages. The news comes after GoodRx first joined forces with Novo Nordisk in September to offer the lowest-ever out-of-pocket prices for injectable Ozempic and Wegovy.
Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Monday to kick off the first full week of the new year, led by energy and technology companies.
The S&P 500 rose 0.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 639 points, or 1.3%, as of 10:55 a.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.8%.
Markets in Asia and Europe were mostly higher.
Energy companies and the oil market were a key focus after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a weekend raid. The price of U.S. crude jumped 1.4% to $58.13 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1.2% to $61.50 per barrel.
President Donald Trump has floated a plan for U.S. oil companies to help rebuild Venezuelas oil industry. Chevron surged 5% and Exxon Mobil rose 2% for some of the strongest gains in the market.
After years of neglect and international sanctions, Venezuelas oil industry is in disrepair. It could take years and major investments before production can increase dramatically. But some analysts expect its current output of about 1.1 million barrels a day could double or triple fairly quickly.
Big banks also made solid gains. JPMorgan Chase rose 3.4% and Bank of America jumped 2.6%.
Wall Street is also watching the technology sector as the industry kicks off its annual CES trade show in Las Vegas. Nvidia rose 0.3% and Intel jumped 2%.
Investors are particularly focused on advancements in artificial intelligence, or AI. The sector led the broader market to a series of records in 2025 on expectations that AI will continue to drive advancements and profits for a wide range of technology companies. The latest updates on AI from influential technology companies could help shed more light on whether the big investments are worth the potential financial risks.
Companies like Nvidia have been heavily investing in the technology, while investors on Wall Street have made those companies among the most valuable in the world. Their outsized valuations now drive much of the movement for major indexes.
Gold gained 2.8% and the price of silver soared 8%. Such assets are often considered safe havens in times of geopolitical turmoil. The metals have notched record prices over the last year amid lingering economic concerns brought on by conflicts and trade wars.
Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.18% from 4.19% late Friday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more closely with expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do, fell to 3.46% from 3.48% late Friday.
Wall Street will get several economic updates this week that will also be watched by the Fed as it determines interest rate policy.
On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management released its manufacturing index for December showing the sector continued shrinking. More importantly, the business group will release its December report on the services sector on Wednesday. The services sector makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy and it grew, even if only slightly, throughout most of 2025.
Reports on the job market later this week, which include updates for job openings and overall employment, will be a bigger focus for the Fed. The central bank has been weighing a slowing job market against risks for rising inflation as it decides whether to cut interest rates. It cut its benchmark rate three times late in 2025, but inflation has remained above its 2% target and that has made the Fed more cautious.
Wall Street still expects the Fed to hold rates steady at its upcoming meeting later in January.
Damian J. Troise, AP business writer
AP business writer Elaine Kurtenbach and AP video journalist Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.
While most EVs tip the scales at several tons, a new featherweight electric sports car weighs half as muchor lessthan others on the road.
Longbow, the U.K.-based startup behind the sleek EV, plans to bring its first vehicle to market later this year with a limited run of 150 cars, starting at 84,995, or roughly $110,000. A high-performance version of the design is on display at CES this week.
The companys aim is to reverse the car industrys weight problemsomething that’s especially an issue for EVs that have large batteries inside. Heavier vehicles have bigger carbon footprints, use more energy, and are more dangerous in a crash for pedestrians. They also wear out roads faster (as well as tires, which spew more microplastic pollution the more weight they carry).
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
Everything gets better when you remove weight, says Mark Tapscott, cofounder and CTO at Longbow. Still, most of the industry has been moving in the opposite direction.
We really see automotive in generaland EVs specificallyare getting increasingly heavier,” says Longbow CEO Daniel Davey. “When they become heavier, that requires more resources, requires bigger batteries, bigger motors. It’s kind of the opposite of marginal gains.”
The Chevy Silverado, for example, can weigh as much as 8,900 pounds. Even the smaller Nissan Leaf can weigh 4,200 pounds. Longbows Speedster weighs around 1,973 pounds.
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
A lighter car, by design
The car uses lightweight materials, prioritizing options with the lowest environmental impact. A lot of manufacturers will move towards carbon fiber, but it is the single worst material you can use for the environment, says Tapscott. It breaks easily. It’s difficult to maintain. You wear out the car quickly. Instead, the car uses a custom aluminum chassis designed to maximum stiffness while minimizing weight. It also includes natural fiber composites and thermoplastics.
Each design decision was made with lightness in mind. The handbrake is manual, for example, which makes it weigh less, but also makes it more effective and cheaper and quicker to develop.
The design team kept the car intentionally simple. Instead of chasing unnecessary specslike a 600-mile battery range when a typical commute might be 30 miles, or a four-second sprint from zero to 60the design is pared down to the essentials.
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
It’s similar to the approach that the startup Slate has taken as it works on a low-cost electric truck. “What they’ve done in the truck space I think is kind of revolutionary,” says Davey. “Because they’re saying, ‘You know all those things you pay loads of money that you don’t need? Well, you could not have them and not pay all the money if you’d like.’ And I think people like that idea.”
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
The world doesn’t need faster numbers,” says Tapscott. “It needs better experiences. And so that’s why we talk about what the car is, what it does, how it feels, rather than what battery chemistry we have.
They took time to find the right off-the-shelf components for the vehicle. The car on display at CES has innovative motors built into each wheel. The company hasn’t yet announced whether that feature will be available in the first cars that come out this year, but it’s another way that it can cut weight even further.
[Image: Donut Labs]
A typical drivetrain, with a central motor that connects to each wheel, might have around 100 parts that can weigh a couple of hundred pounds and take up valuable space. By placing motors in the wheels, it eliminates those components and works more efficiently. Donut Labs, the Finnish startup that designed the new motors, says that they can also reduce the cost of making a vehicle by $1,000 to $2,000. Having motors in the wheels also makes cars more responsive.
“It makes the car drive in a way that you cannot experience otherwise,” says Marko Lehtimäki, CEO of Donut Labs.
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
A more sustainable car that’s longer-lasting
Because of Longbow’s careful approach to sustainability, manufacturing the car has a lower carbon footprint than a typical gas car. When it’s driven, it also uses less electricity per mile than other EVs because it weighs less. (The lower weight also means that it can have a range of up to 280 miles on a charge, even though it uses a smaller battery than a typical EV.)
The company also designed the car to last as long as possiblewith an unprecedented pledge to help keep each car on the road for 100 years. The first step: trying to design a classic car that people will want to keep for life rather than replace.
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
“It has to start with design,” says Tapscott. “No one wants to drive the Fiat Multipla anymore because it was the ugliest car ever built. So a core tenet of being available for a hundred years is that people want the car. Desirability. We looked at design that is timeless, not radically modern. We are drawing more inspiration from cars of the past.”
The materials are also made to last. The aluminum chassis, for example, won’t rust or corrode. The parts are designed for repair. When possible, the engineers chose 3D printing for certain parts, like clips or brackets, so that they can easily be remade later on demand decades from now.
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
The car is also designed to be fun to driveanother way, obviously, to convince drivers to keep the same car in use longer. The light weight is an important part of the experience.
“I think most people today haven’t actually experienced what a lightweight car is like to drive,” says Tapscott. “Even a lightweight hatchback or economy [sedan] are all well over 3,000 pounds or so. So when you start driving something that’s under 2,000 pounds, everything changes. The way it handles corners, under acceleration, under braking, everything gets better when you get lighter. I think any racing driver will explain that the weight is the most important thing you have.”
[Photo: Longbow Motors]
Their aim is to design the best sports car in the world, not just the best electric version. “You need to meet people where they are,” says Tapscott. “And you need to meet petrol on an even playing field, and do that with a really aspirational car that’s better. It just happens that it has one full green credential as well.”
That mandate will extend beyond sports cars, though that’s where the company is beginning. “Our mission is to quickly make all cars better and lighter for people and the planet,” says Davey. “That’s really by showing a way to an industry that has lost itself by just adding all this excess weight to everything that they do.”
When I was Chief of Staff at CoinDesk, I was in charge of the publication’s approach to AI. One of the earliest debates our internal AI committee had was about whether we should allow AI to index our articles or not.
Most of the people on the committee thought we should block AI crawlers. While the fury of media copyright lawsuits had yet to begin, the issue had gotten some traction, and it was easy to make the case that we shouldn’t give our content away to AI companies to summarize unless we were compensated in some way.
But one person boldly made the case for the other side: He argued that, if AI becomes the new way people find information, shutting ourselves out of AI services would mean our storiesand more broadly, the ongoing narratives around themwould be cut out of the amalgamated answers that the people using AI would read. We would be conceding that ground to competitors to not just get referrals (which, we knew even then, would be few), but to establish consensus. We would no longer be the authority on the things we write about, at least for those who find information through AI portals.
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The cost of silence
Little did I know that largely academic debate at the time would become the centerpiece of the AI conversation nearly three years later. Today, information presence in AI summariesfor brands, for public relations, and for the mediais of great interest, and poorly understood. For publishers, the issues of copyright and compensation are ongoing. But regardless of how those conflicts are resolved, AI has become the primary interpreter of their content for a large and growing audience.
The committee didn’t have a name for it back then, but the idea of taking the opposite course of blocking, and actually encouraging AI to index your content, is now called generative engine optimization or GEO (sometimes the first word is substituted for “answer,” or AEO). When I’ve previously written about GEO, it was mostly in the context of why publishers would even want to do it. After all, if AI is taking your content and summarizing it without sending users to your site, what’s the benefit?
There are reasons, but I think it’s more informative to flip the question around: What’s the cost if you don’t? And that is relinquishing your influence on the consensus around the topics in your domain.
The risk isn’t the loss in trafficthat’s lost anyway. Audiences are turning to AI as their information guides no matter what publishers do. What a publisher risks losing is their role as the chief interpreter of events. By reporting facts and validating claims, journalists have historically set the baseline for others to react to. Without those inputs, AI will paint a poor picture of reality.
The thing is, even if a publisher opts out of AI summarization, there will always be someone else who republishes the information who doesn’t (an important foundational concept of copyright law is that, although works are copyrightable, the underlying facts and ideas aren’t). Except now that set of facts is put through their lens, and that will define the first draft that machines reuse. Will the answer be inadequate and incomplete? Probably. But as use of AI increases, it’ll be what most interpret as the truth.
That’s why I think framing AI blocking as an existential dilemma kind of misses the point. Blocking AI from indexing your content means blocking yourself from having a say in what a rapidly expanding portion of the world counts as truth. A publisher prioritizing GEO means finding the value in what can’t be captured by traditional metrics like traffic and time on site. Victory in the new battleground of the AI summary will be measured by a different set of criteria: citations in AI answers, influence on narratives, and long-tail impact on trust and authority.
Shaping truth at scale
None of this is to say publishers should just let the AI companies crawl as much as they want and settle for no compensation. If anything, measuring and showing that your content is the source of consensus is hard proof of how valuable the content is. Lawsuits naturally focus on consent, copyright, and compensation, but the rise of GEO reveals what’s really being contested: Who gets to shape meaning at scale.
Demonstrating how specific content influences AI answers is currently a challenge, but that’s about to change. Led by marketers, PR agencies, and brands, there’s a strong push to better understand GEO and how strategies around content, technical factors, and communication can help AI take notice of certain narratives over others. Like SEO, it will always be more art than science, but by this time next year I suspect the field of GEO won’t look nearly so nascent.
On top of that, AI will be an even bigger informational gatekeeper than it is today. Litigation over compensation is important and necessary, but it shouldn’t keep the media from competing to be included in the new crucible where truth is formed. Journalists may no longer control the interfaces where people get information, but they still control the facts. Asserting that role in an AI world doesn’t mean you stop fighting for a better one.
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A massive 243-kilogram (535-pound) bluefin tuna sold for a record 510 million yen ($3.2 million) at the first auction of 2026 at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market.The top bidder for the prized tuna at the predawn auction on Monday was Kiyomura Corp., whose owner Kiyoshi Kimura runs the popular Sushi Zanmai chain. Kimura, who has won the annual action many times in the past, broke the previous record of 334 million yen ($2.1 million) he set in 2019.Kimura later told reporters he was hoping to pay a bit less for it, but “the price shot up before you knew it.”The auction started when the bell rang, and the floor was filled with torpedo-shaped fish with their tails cut off so bidders could examine meat details such as color, texture and fattiness while walking around the rows of tuna.The pricey fish was caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan, a region widely regarded for producing some of the country’s finest tuna, and costs 2.1 million yen ($13,360) per kilogram ($6,060 per pound).“It’s in part for good luck,” Kimura said. “But when I see a good looking tuna, I cannot resist I haven’t sampled it yet, but it’s got to be delicious.”Hundreds of tuna are sold daily at the early morning auction, but prices are significantly higher than usual for the Oma tuna, especially at the celebratory New Year auction.Due to the popularity of tuna for sushi and sashimi, Pacific bluefin tuna was previously a threatened species due to climate change and overfishing, but its stock is recovering following conservation efforts.
Associated Press
