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Amazon will double down on the Whole Foods brand, killing two of its own physical retail experiments in the process. The online retail giant said Tuesday that it will close all of its Amazon Go convenience stores and Amazon Fresh brick-and-mortar grocery stores. In total, around 70 locations across the two sub-brands will close starting at the beginning of February, with some to later reopen under the Whole Foods brand. Amazon Fresh stores served as a physical counterpart to Amazons online grocery delivery service by the same name while Amazon Go stores offered convenience store staples with a high-tech checkout twist. After a careful evaluation of the business and how we can best serve customers, weve made the difficult decision to close our Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, converting various locations into Whole Foods Market stores, Amazon wrote in a blog update, adding that it gathered valuable insights during their operation. The Amazon brand might take a back seat in its brick-and-mortar strategy, but the retail giants IRL ambitions remain. Amazon also announced plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods stores over the next few years. When the latest Go and Fresh store closures are wrapped up, Amazons network of Whole Foods stores will serve as the companys only physical retail footprint at least for now. With the closures, Amazon is backing off of its long experiment with Fresh and Go physical retail stores, which tested emerging retail technology and pushed its brand into new shopping categories. Amazon Go was known for allowing shoppers to pick up what they wanted and Just Walk Out instead of individually scanning items in a traditional checkout counter. That system, which relied on sensors and overhead cameras to track what shoppers purchased and linking it to their accounts digitally. While Amazon once held an ambitious roadmap for a vast network of physical stores centered around its Just Walk Out technology, the company has scaled back consistently in recent years. In 2018, Amazon was reportedly planning to open up to 3,000 cashierless stores running the technology over the next three years. By early 2026, Amazon Go was down to just 14 stores. The high cost of outfitting stores with a sophisticated array of sensors eventually dimmed those ambitions, with the company backtracking to a system that lets customers scan items to smart carts as they shop. Amazon now licenses the Just Walk Out technology out to third parties, including a number of merch, food and beverage locations in Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. Amazon is still tinkering around with ways to bring its digital storefront into the physical shopping realm. Even as it rolls back some smaller-scale retail plans, Amazon clearly still wants to take a bite out of the everyday shopping and grocery success that brands like Walmart and Costco enjoy. As soon as next year, Amazon plans to open its first massive, big box-style store stocked with home goods, groceries and prepared food in the Chicago area. Its purpose-built for what we see retail customers demand today, an Amazon lawyer told local officials, who went on to greenlight the project last week.
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E-Commerce
Downloads of UpScrolled, a new short-form video app, are surging after TikTok’s recent change to U.S. ownership. Developed by Palestinian-Australian Issam Hijazi, the social media app currently ranks #2 in the U.S. in the Apple store among free apps, following ChatGPT, and markets itself as a place “where every voice gets equal power.” “No shadowbans . . . No pay-to-play favoritism. Just authentic connection where your content reaches the people who matter most,” reads UpScrolled’s website. Last week, Chinese-owned TikTok closed a $14 billion deal, brokered by the Trump administration, to avoid a ban in the U.S., creating an American subsidiary with new ownership going to a joint venture that includes Trump allies Oracle founder Larry Ellison and Dell Technologies’ Michael Dell. The surge in downloads is also happening amid allegations that TikTok censored videos of ICE agents in Minnesota and other anti-Trump content. What is UpScrolled? UpScrolled is a platform for sharing photos, videos, and text. It says its mission is to “always remain impartial to political agendas, conflicts, and unjust views.” It brands itself as a “no-censorship” platform with a focus on free speech. It’s available on iOS and Android. UpScrolled says it was developed as an alternative to popular Big Tech-run social media platforms such as Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Instagram, Elon Musk’s X, and, of course, TikTok. “UpScrolled exists because we were tired of waiting for Big Tech to do the right thing,” its website states. “We needed a place where people could speak freely without playing algorithm games or being punished for telling the truth.” Other TikTok alternatives are also seeing a surge UpScrolled is not the only TikTok alternative seeing a surge after the U.S. deal. Skylight Social, or Skylight, also saw an uptick to over 380,000 users, per TechCrunch. Backed by Mark Cuban and built on open source tech, has over 42 million users.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trumps crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation’s growth rate as the U.S. population reached nearly 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024’s almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest in two decades and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people. Immigration increased by almost 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024’s increase of 2.8 million people. If trends continue, the gain from immigrants in mid-2026 will drop to only 321,000 people, according to the Census Bureau, whose estimates do not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu. Births outnumbered deaths last year by 519,000 people. While higher than the pandemic-era low at the beginning of the decade, the natural increase was dramatically smaller than in the 2000s, when it ranged between 1.6 million and 1.9 million people. Lower immigration stunts growth in many states The immigration drop dented growth in several states that traditionally have been immigrant magnets. California had a net population loss of 9,500 people in 2025, a stark change from the previous year, when it gained 232,000 residents, even though roughly the same number of Californians already living in the state moved out in both years. The difference was immigration since the number of net immigrants who moved into the state dropped from 361,000 people in 2024 to 109,000 in 2025. Florida had year-to-year drops in both immigrants and people moving in from other states. The Sunshine State, which has become more expensive in recent years from surging property values and higher home insurance costs, had only 22,000 domestic migrants in 2025, compared with 64,000 people in 2024, and the net number of immigrants dropped from more than 411,000 people to 178,000 people. New York added only 1,008 people in 2025, mostly because the state’s net migration from immigrants dropped from 207,000 people to 95,600 people. South Carolina, Idaho and North Carolina had the highest year-over-year growth rates, ranging from 1.3% to 1.5%. Texas, Florida and North Carolina added the most people in pure numbers. California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia had population declines. The South, which has been the powerhouse of growth in the 2020s, continued to add more people than any other region, but the numbers dropped from 1.7 million people in 2025 to 1.1 million in 2025. Many of these states are going to show even smaller growth when we get to next year, Brookings demographer William Frey said Tuesday. The effects of Trump’s immigration crackdown Tuesday’s data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made a surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign. The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and the first half of Trump’s first year back in office. The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration’s crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nations 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons. They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up, Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week. How the population estimates are calculated Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data. The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency. Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Frey said the bureau’s staffers appear to have been doing this work as usual without interference. So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out, Frey said. By Mike Schneider, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Prize-winning composer Philip Glass has called off a scheduled world premiere at the Kennedy Center of a symphony about Abraham Lincoln, the latest in a wave of cancellations since President Donald Trump ousted the previous leadership. Glass’ Symphony No. 15, Lincoln, was to have been led by Grammy-winning conductor Karen Kamensek for performances on June 12 and June 13. Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony, Glass said in a statement released Tuesday by his publicist. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership. A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Glass, who turns 89 on Saturday, was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2018. Over the past year, artists withdrawing from planned performances have ranged from Renée Fleming to Bela Fleck. Trump, whose handpicked board of trustees have said they are renaming the center the Trump Kennedy Center, has placed the venue at the heart of his campaign against what he calls woke culture.” Trump’s name already hangs on the outside of the venue, in addition to Kennedy’s, despite such a change requiring an act of Congress. Hillel Italie, AP national writer
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E-Commerce
If you have ever lifted a weight, you know the routine: challenge the muscle, give it rest, feed it, and repeat. Over time, it grows stronger. Of course, muscles only grow when the challenge increases over time. Continually lifting the same weight the same way stops working. It might come as a surprise to learn that the brain responds to training in much the same way as our muscles, even though most of us never think about it that way. Clear thinking, focus, creativity, and good judgment are built through challenge, when the brain is asked to stretch beyond routine rather than run on autopilot. That slight mental discomfort is often the sign that the brain is actually being trained, a lot like that good workout burn in your muscles. Think about walking the same loop through a local park every day. At first, your senses are alert. You notice the hills, the trees, the changing light. But after a few loops, your brain checks out. You start planning dinner, replaying emails, or running through your to-do list. The walk still feels good, but your brain is no longer being challenged. Routine feels comfortable, but comfort and familiarity alone do not build new brain connections. As a neurologist who studies brain activity, I use electroencephalograms, or EEGs, to record the brains electrical patterns. Research in humans shows that these rhythms are remarkably dynamic. When someone learns a new skill, EEG rhythms often become more organized and coordinated. This reflects the brains attempt to strengthen pathways needed for that skill. Your brain trains in zones too For decades, scientists believed that the brains ability to grow and reorganize, called neuroplasticity, was largely limited to childhood. Once the brain matured, its wiring was thought to be largely fixed. But that idea has been overturned. Decades of research show that adult brains can form new connections and reorganize existing networks, under the right conditions, throughout life. Some of the most influential work in this field comes from enriched environment studies in animals. Rats housed in stimulating environments filled with toys, running wheels, and social interaction developed larger, more complex brains than rats kept in standard cages. Their brains adapted because they were regularly exposed to novelty and challenge. Human studies find similar results. Adults who take on genuinely new challenges, such as learning a language, dancing, or practicing a musical instrument, show measurable increases in brain volume and connectivity on MRI scans. The takeaway is simple: Repetition keeps the brain running, but novelty pushes the brain to adapt, forcing it to pay attention, learn, and problem-solve in new ways. Neuroplasticity thrives when the brain is nudged just beyond its comfort zone. The reality of neural fatigue Just like muscles, the brain has limits. It does not get stronger from endless strain. Real growth comes from the right balance of challenge and recovery. When the brain is pushed for too long without a breakwhether that means long work hours, staying locked onto the same task, or making nonstop decisions under pressureperformance starts to slip. Focus fades. Mistakes increase. To keep you going, the brain shifts how different regions work together, asking some areas to carry more of the load. But that extra effort can still make the whole network run less smoothly. Neural fatigue is more than feeling tired. Brain imaging studies show that during prolonged mental work, the networks responsible for attention and decision-making begin to slow down, while regions that promote rest and reward-seeking take over. This shift helps explain why mental exhaustion often comes with stronger cravings for quick rewards, like sugary snacks, comfort foods, or mindless scrolling. The result is familiar: slower thinking, more mistakes, irritability, and mental fog. This is where the muscle analogy becomes especially useful. You wouldnt do squats for six hours straight, because your leg muscles would eventually give out. As they work, they build up byproducts that make each contraction a little less effective until you finally have to stop. Your brain behaves in a similar way. Likewise, in the brain, when the same cognitive circuits are overused, chemical signals build up, communication slows, and learning stalls. But rest allows those strained circuits to reset and function more smoothly over time. And taking breaks from a taxing activity does not interrupt learning. In fact, breaks are critical for efficient learning. The crucial importance of rest Among all forms of rest, sleep is the most powerful. Sleep is the brains night shift. While you rest, the brain takes out the trash through a special cleanup system called the glymphatic system that clears away waste and harmful proteins. Sleep also restores glycogen, a critical fuel source for brain cells. And importantly, sleep is when essential repair work happens. Growth hormone surges during deep sleep, supporting tissue repair. Immune cells regroup and strengthen their activity. During REM sleep, the stage of sleep linked to dreaming, the brain replays patterns from the day to consolidate memories. This process is critical not only for cognitive skills like learning an instrument but also for physical skills like mastering a move in sports. On the other hand, chronic sleep deprivation impairs attention, disrupts decision-making and alters the hormones that regulate appetite and metabolism. This is why fatigue drives sugar cravings and late-night snacking. Sleep is not an optional wellness practice. It is a biological requirement for brain performance. Exercise feeds the brain too Exercise strengthens the brain as well as the body. Physical activity increases levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, a protein that acts like fertilizer for neurons. It promotes the growth of new connections, increases blood flow, reduces inflammation, and helps the brain remain adaptable across ones lifespan. This is why exercise is one of the strongest lifestyle tools for protecting cognitive health. Train, recover, repeat The most important lesson from this science is simple. Your brain is not passively wearing down with age. It is constantly remodeling itself in response to how you use it. Every new challenge and skill you try, every real break, every good night of sleep sends a signal that growth is still expected. You do not need expensive brain training programs or radical lifestyle changes. Small, consistent habits matter more. Try something unfamiliar. Vary your routines. Take breaks before exhaustion sets in. Move your body. Treat sleep as nonnegotiable. So the next time you lace up your shoes for a familiar walk, consider taking a different path. The scenery may change only slightly, but your brain will notice. That small detour is often all it takes to turn routine into training. The brain stays adaptable throughout life. Cognitive resilience is not fixed at birth or locked in early adulthood. It is something you can shape. If you want a sharper, more creative, more resilient brain, you do not need to wait for a breakthrough drug or a perfect moment. You can start now, with choices that tell your brain that growth is still the plan. Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse is an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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