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The U.S. Treasury Department is considering a $1 commemorative coin bearing President Donald Trumps likeness in honor of America’s 250th birthdayand to celebrate the president, too. U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach shared a first draft of the coin on social media on Friday. The coin features Trumps profile on one side, along with the words IN GOD WE TRUST and the dates 1776 and 2026. The other side features the president raising his fist next to an American flaga pose similar to the images of Trump raising his fist after an attempted assassination in July 2024. The words FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT, which Trump had chanted to the crowd in that moment, also appear along the edge of that side of the coin. No fake news here. These first drafts honoring Americas 250th Birthday and @POTUS are real, Beach wrote in a social media post. Looking forward to sharing more soon. Why is the U.S. minting a new $1 coin? In preparation for the 250th anniversary of the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Congress in 2020 authorized the U.S. Mint to issue new $1 coins in 2026 with designs emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial. In 1976, when the U.S. celebrated 200 years since 1776, a $1 coin was minted featuring the Liberty Bell and the moon. According to the U.S. Mint, the country’s commemorative coin program has raised more than $500 million in surcharges. That revenue goes to funding for federal museums, monuments, historical sites, and more. The most recent commemorative coins, featuring abolitionist Harriet Tubman and the Greatest Generation, were issued in 2024. Fast Company has asked the Treasury Department for comment, but did not immediately hear back. Trump coin could challenge precedent Many former presidents, including most recently George H.W. Bush, have been featured on commemorative coins, but U.S. law forbids the Treasury from minting and issuing a coin displaying a “living former or current President. The law, which dates to 1792, refers to coins created specifically to celebrate a president, however. Presidents may appear on such a coin only once two years have passed since their death, according to the law. It is unclear how the law might apply in the case of a coin issued for another purpose, such as the 250th anniversary, Reuters noted. A spokesperson for the Treasury told Fox Business that the draft is among other designs being considered. While a final $1 dollar coin design has not yet been selected to commemorate the United States semiquincentennial, this first draft reflects well the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, even in the face of immense obstacles, the spokesperson said.
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E-Commerce
The U.S. Space Force on Friday announced it will assign five of seven critical military missions for the coming fiscal year to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The awards are a $714 million boon to SpaceX, underscoring the companys continued dominance over Pentagon space contracts, despite Musk and U.S. President Donald Trumps public falling out earlier this year. United Launch Alliance (ULA) will undertake the two other launches; it was awarded $428 million for two launches, according to a press release viewed by Space News. SpaceX pulls ahead on Pentagon launches The awards are made under the National Security Space Launch Program, which earlier this year selected SpaceX, ULA, and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin for 54 missions scheduled between fiscal 2027 and 2032 as part of its National Security Space Launch Program (NSSL)contracts worth $13.5 billion. Space is the ultimate high ground, critical for our national security, said U.S. Space System Command official Col. Eric Zarybnisky in a release, per Air Space and Forces. We continue to assure access to that high ground. Delivering assets to the warfighter is our ultimate mission, and we rely on our strong government-industry partnerships to successfully achieve that goal,” Zarybnisky said. Fast Company has reached out to the Space Force for comment. The missions assigned to SpaceX include launches for a communication satellite, three classified payloads, and a reconnaissance satellite. The Space Force makes its awards two years in advance, so these launches will likely take off in 2027. Blue Origin pushes for Mars mission The awards also underlined the fact that Blue Origins New Glenn rocketthe companys rival to SpaceXs Falcon Heavyhas yet to be certified for national security launches. No missions were assigned to the third provider, Blue Origin, which has its next opportunity for a mission in FY27, Space Systems Command said in a statement, per SpaceNews. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is slated to launch a NASA mission to Mars as soon as the end of this monthdelayed since 2024that could bring it closer to receiving certification, however.
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E-Commerce
OpenAIs new video generation app Sora is barely a week old, but CEO Sam Altman is already dropping updates to address some major potential issues with the app. In the days since Sora launched, the app has soared to the top of the U.S. Apple App Store as users flocked to try iteven though it is still invite-only. And just as its popularity has skyrocketed, experts increasingly sounded the alarm over the likelihood that OpenAI may face legal action over Soras ability to generate copyrighted characters, logos, and other intellectual property. Thats what the new updates appear geared to address. In a Friday blog post, Altman said Sora will undergo two major changes: The first change is aimed at giving rights holders “granular control over generation of characters,” he wrote, similar to the companys opt-in model for likenesses. The second will be tweaking the app to create revenuein part so that some proportion of the apps takings can be shared with rights holders, according to Altman. It’s unclear when the changes will take effect, with Altman only writing they would be coming “soon.” Sora’s fan dilemma We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of interactive fan fiction and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all), Altman wrote, caveating that some edge cases might sneak through the cracks. Generated videos featuring characters from SpongeBob SquarePants, South Park, and a number of other television shows and movies could already be found on the app in the days after its release, CNBC reported. People are eager to engage with their family and friends through their own imaginations, as well as stories, characters, and worlds they love, and we see new opportunities for creators to deepen their connection with the fans, Varun Shetty, OpenAIs head of media partnerships, told CNBC in a statement. Well work with rights holders to block characters from Sora at their request and respond to takedown requests,” Shetty told the outlet. Fast Company reached out to OpenAI for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication. Other publications that tested the app found that it wouldn’t generate certain images, including of celebrities who hadn’t given OpenAI permission to use their likeness. The app also wouldn’t create violent content, as well as some political content, according to The New York Times. AI copyright concerns growing The concerns over OpenAIs new app come months after Disney and Universal filed a copyright lawsuit against another AI image-generator, Midjourneymarking the first time a global entertainment company sued an AI platform over copyright. Disney has also sent a cease-and-desist to Character.AI over alleged copyright violations, CNBC reported. In his blog post Friday, Altman nodded to the remarkable creative output of some Sora users, writing that people are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences. Altman wrote that the app will continue to change over the coming months, in a “trial and error” process. Our hope is that the new kind of engagement is even more valuable than the revenue share, he wrote.
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E-Commerce
Last week, Starbucks announced the closure of 1% of its North American stores by the end of 2025, resulting in sudden job losses for hundreds of baristas. The closures are one part of a $1 billion restructuring strategy dubbed Back to Starbucks”; the coffee chain will also be laying off 900 corporate employees. Processing the news in real time, Starbucks baristas have made their feelings about the closures clear, filming their reactions and going viral in the process. A Starbucks employee at a Washington state location posted a heartfelt video to TikTok last week. Starbucks permanently closing my store and leaving us jobless was not on my 2025 bingo card, she wrote alongside a clip, which has more than a million views, of her hugging a coworker. In a follow-up video, she wrote: making a banana cream matcha to cope with my store permanently closing. In another video viewed more than 6 million views, one employee dances to Michael Jacksons They Dont Care About Us on the counters and tables of the Starbucks that employed her before its imminent closure. The announcement assured that baristas from closing stores will either be offered severance packages or transferred to new locations. But rather than wait for official news of their fate, many decided to take matters into their own hands, crowdsourcing their own list of shuttering locations. On TikTok, a group of employees discussed their predictions for where they might be relocated in the shuffle. The big reveal: Everyone in the video was let go. We deserve better, and Im sorry for every barista going through it right now too, another barista captioned her video, claiming she was given just two days’ notice of her stores closure. Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents 12,000 baristas across 45 states and the District of Columbia, said it was requesting information from Starbucks about the planned closures. We expect to engage in effects bargaining for every impacted union store, as we have done elsewhere, so workers can be placed in another Starbucks store according to their preferences, reads the statement published last week. It has never been more clear why baristas at Starbucks need the backing of a union. Starbucks announced its closing locations where it doesnt see a path to financial performance, and those it identified as unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect.
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E-Commerce
This week brought a mix of serious headlines and splashy moves. On one end, regulators and retailers are making decisions that could directly affect your wallet and grocery cartfrom FICO shaking up how mortgage lenders handle credit scores to Walmart promising cleaner labels on its private-label food. On the other, cultural and corporate forces collided in ways that only 2025 could deliver: Starbucks is closing stores (many of them unionized), and Taylor Swift is rolling out a new album and a three-day movie event thats giving theaters a rare box office jolt. Here are some of the week’s biggest stories. More pasta recalled after deadly listeria outbreak Retailers added new ready-to-eat pasta items to ongoing listeria-related recalls this week, including products from Trader Joe’s and Albertsons. The CDC ties the outbreak back to August 2024. Cases have currently risen to 20 this year, with four fatalities and 19 hospitalizations. Quantum computing stocks leapagain Rigetti, D-Wave, IonQ, and Quantum Computing Inc. notched double-digit daily pops, extending huge 12-month runs. Rigetti landed a $5.7 million order for two upgradable 9-qubit Novera systems; D-Wave touted a U.K. police pilot that sped up response-time modeling. Fans see early commercial traction; skeptics say the hype is still miles ahead of revenues. Big banks eye relief as capital rules get rewritten Trump-era regulators are crafting the most sweeping capital update since 2008, easing parts of the Basel Endgame, recalibrating GSIB surcharges, and tailoring leverage constraints. Industry sources expect systemwide capital to be flat at worstmaybe lower for some mega-banks. Critics warn softer buffers could bite if the economy wobbles. Walmart is cleaning up its private-label ingredients Walmart announced plans this week to eliminate the use of synthetic dyes and 30 additives across its Great Value, Marketside, Freshness Guaranteed, and Bettergoods brands by January 2027. The move follows federal nudges to phase out dyes and taps consumer demand for simpler labels. Walmart says 90% of its private-label items are already dye-free, with more reformulations rolling out soon. Starbucks closings include 59 unionized stores As part of a $1 billion Back to Starbucks overhaul, the company will close about 1% of North American stores by the end of 2025 while opening others. Starbucks Workers United says 59 of the closing cafés are unionized; the company says union status wasnt a factor and is offering transfers or severance. KB Home hints Florida discounts went too far After cutting hard to revive demand, KB Home says Florida orders bouncedand some communities may now see price increases. Management points to fewer housing starts and cost reductions as tailwinds. Not an all-clear for the whole state, but the tone has shifted from defense to cautious optimism. FICO upends mortgage-score distribution Fair Isaac Corp. will let mortgage lenders license FICO scores directlyskipping the credit bureausand says per-score costs could fall up to 50%. FICO shares ripped higher; Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax slumped on margin worries. The change follows public pressure from housing regulators to boost competition and lower fees. Taylor Swifts 3-day film window = scarcity play Alongside her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, Swift is premiering a companion film in AMC, Cinemark, and Regal multiplexes this weekend for just three days (Oct. 35). Its the same scarcity engine behind her limited-edition dropsand a studio-free win for theaters. Great for Swift-level stars; not a plug-and-play model for everyone else. Tesla sued over Cybertruck doors after fatal crash A new suit alleges electronic door releases failed in a fiery crash, trapping a 19-year-old passenger; manual releases require finding concealed cables. It adds to complaints and investigations around Teslas button-operated doors. Tesla has floated redesigns that blend mechanical and electronic releases to address panic scenarios. New Yorks inflation refund checks are in the mail New York is sending onetime checks of $150 to $400 to 8.2 million households through October and November. Eligibility is based on 2023 filing status and adjusted gross income (AGI); no application is needed, but make sure your address is current with the state if you’re a NY resident.
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E-Commerce
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