A customer buys beer at a supermarket in New York on January 22, 2026.Charly Triballeau | AFP | Getty ImagesU.S. beer sales fell more sharply than expected, as new scanner data points to weakness in the category. The slowdown is also raising concerns on Wall Street that rising gas prices could put pressure on discretionary spending, particularly at convenience stores. Beer, full malt beverage (FMB) and cider volumes fell 6.3% year-on-year in the week ending May 2, on a two-week and four-week basis, according to data tracked by Nielsen. This is worse than the trends seen between November and mid-April,…
Author: Stacey D. Walls
Bloomberg: Musk vs. Altman: Microsoft executive Michael Wetter testifies that Microsoft spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, including its initial investments—Microsoft Corp. has spent more than $100 billion on its partnership with OpenAI, a sum that highlights the importance…
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters: The FTC says Shutterstock will pay $35 million to settle charges that allegedly misled consumers about its subscription plans and made it too difficult to cancel.— Shutterstock (SSTK.N) will pay $35 million to settle charges by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that the online purveyor of stock photography…
Michelle Del Rey / The United States today: Trump Mobile CEO Pat O’Brien said pre-orders for the T1 phone would begin shipping to customers this week and the device would be assembled in the United States, after months of delays.— Trump cell phones are shipping this week, the company confirmed exclusively to USA TODAY in a May 11 email.
Kool-Aid Hydration launches with three flavors: grape, tropical punch and blue raspberry lemonade.Source: Kool-AidKool-Aid is launching electrolyte packets made without artificial colors, aimed at reaching consumers who want to hydrate, but not at the prices of Gatorade or Liquid IV.The new product is part of the parent company Kraft Heinz broader plan to modernize its portfolio and reverse a nearly decade-long decline in sales. Its biggest brands, including Capri Sun, Oscar Mayer and Kraft Mac & Cheese, struggled as consumers sought fresher, more nutritious options to feed and hydrate their families. One year shy of its 100th anniversary, Kool-Aid sits…
Cade Metz / New York Times: Richard Socher’s Recursive Superintelligence Raised Over $650M From GV, Greycroft, Nvidia, AMD and Others at a $4B Valuation to Pursue “Recursive Self-Improvement”— Recursive Superintelligence, founded by former researchers at Google, Meta and OpenAI, is part of a growing effort…
Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times: Q&A with Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of devices and services, on Alexa+, the company’s focus on home devices, the Leo satellite broadband business, and more— Executive responsible for promoting the “beauty” and profitability of the group’s devices unit on the hardware push following Alexa+
Tamara Djurickovic / Tech.eu: Paymentology, which provides real-time card processing and payments technology to banks and fintechs, has raised $175 million co-led by Apis Partners and Aspirity Partners.— Paymentology provides cloud-native issuer processing technology for banks and fintechs, helping financial institutions modernize…
Molly Taft / Wired: Internal emails: xAI added 19 gas turbines to Colossus 2 in the last two months; xAI pursues lawsuit alleging Clean Air Act violations at site— Emails show Elon Musk’s company is expanding its use of portable gas-powered power at its Colossus 2 site as the fight for air quality continues.
Bloomberg: Sources: Anthropic in preliminary talks to raise at least $30 billion at a valuation of more than $900 billion; the cycle should close at the end of this month— Anthropic PBC is in preliminary talks with investors to raise at least $30 billion in new financing, according to people familiar with the matter…