Good morning, Quartz readers!
HERE’S WHAT YOU. NEED TO KNOW
Target earnings really missed the mark. Its failure to drum up business through promotions and price cuts sent its stock tumbling Wednesday.
An AI executive was arrested for defrauding her stockholders. AllHere Education founder Joanna Smith-Griffin joins a long list of Forbes 30 Under 30 alums to run into legal trouble.
Bitcoin cracked a record $94,000. Trading in the cryptocurrency also appears to be getting less volatile.
Google execs went through great lengths to lower a veil of secrecy over their operations. One product management vice president told underlings “I don’t do History on” with chat logs.
McDonald’s is bringing back the McRib. The fast food giant will also sell you jugs of McRib sauce if you can get past its E. coli scandal.
The Fed cuts are not cutting into mortgage rates
Instinct would tell you that when the interest rates undergirding the entire U.S. financial system go down, lenders would pass those savings along to people taking out mortgages. But that hasn’t been the case since the Federal Reserve started lowering borrowing costs.
Instead, mortgage rates have actually been going up after spending much of the year declining in anticipation of the Fed cuts. That’s because investors are skeptical that the central bank’s fight against inflation is actually over; their bets against Treasury notes are pushing up other interest rates in tandem.
What will it take for mortgages to become more affordable? Quartz’s Rocio Fabbro finds out what the holdup is.
Corporate America’s AI chatbots are getting a promotion
Many of the AI products targeted at business clients so far have been focused on co-pilots that help humans with their tasks. But now the industry’s legion of chatbots assistants are going to begin moving over to the driver’s seat.
The next buzzword to accompany AI chatter will be “agents,” or bots that can complete complex tasks autonomously. Microsoft has rolled out previews of one example, which it has named “Project Manager,” with travel-booking and customer-service phone call functions not far behind from the likes of OpenAI and Google.
What lies on the other side of this brave new AI frontier? Quartz’s Britney Nguyen scopes out the future to show where things are going.
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SURPRISING DISCOVERIES
There’s a bug with a sting so bad it has almost no predators. The tarantula hawk wasp inflicts so much pain that few animals are brave enough to battle it.
Milan has suddenly beat out New York and London to be home to the world’s newest glitziest shopping district. Commercial rents on Via Monte Napoleone can top €20,000 ($21,000) a year — per square foot. (paywall)
One class of college athletes is missing out on the name-image-likeness sponsorship bonanza. A competitive regulatory quirk has left cheerleaders trying to figure out the new landscape without the help of their schools’ vast new NIL infrastructures.
The best pizza-makers in the world are from Bahrain. A team from the gulf country are now the holders of Pizza Hut’s “Global Gold Pan” competition trophy.
TikTok fashion trends were the canary in the coal mine of America’s rightward lurch. Observers believe that the “trad wives,” “quiet luxury,” and “clean girl” micro-aesthetics were cultural signals that pointed to a looming Donald Trump presidency. (paywall)
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Our best wishes on a safe start to the day. Send any news, comments, fancy shopping streets, and mortgage rate shrink rays to talk@qz.com. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Melvin Backman and Audrey McNamara.