GLP-1 patches are being pushed on TikTok Shop, despite the platforms ban on selling weight-loss products.
Recent posts flagged by Olivia Little of Media Matters promise weight loss, reduced appetite, and fewer cravingswithout the cost of injections. One caption reads: Dont waste your $$ on the [shot emoji]. Another creator wrote, See yall in a month with no waist [hourglass emoji].
Many of the flagged videos include shoppable links, enabling direct in-app purchases. That runs counter to TikToks prohibited products policy, which bans items that claim to aid in weight management, fat reduction, or similar goals. (Fast Company has reached out to TikTok for comment.)
Supplement makers have rushed to cash in on the GLP-1 hype, flooding the market with pills, powders, and patches branded with the name but containing no actual GLP-1 agonist drugs. Experts say they dont compare to prescription medications like semaglutide or tirzepatide.
Consumer GLP-1 patches sold through social platforms are unregulated and have no credible clinical evidence showing they deliver therapeutic GLP-1 drug levels, Dr. Castel Santana, medical director at 10X Health, tells Fast Company.
Established GLP-1 receptor agonists given by prescriptionfor example, weekly semaglutide or tirzepatide injectionshave been tested in large randomized clinical trials and produce substantial, measurable weight loss and metabolic benefits, he continues. By contrast, the patches on social platforms often lack ingredient transparency, dosing controls, and regulatory oversight.
Unlike pharmaceuticals, supplements arent required to undergo Food and Drug Administration approval or rigorous safety and efficacy testing.
Kind Patches, the most popular GLP-1 patch brand identified by Media Matters, claims its product provides weight management and appetite control with ingredients like berberine, chromium, pomegranate, and L-glutamine extract.
The biological mechanism they imply, berberine boosts GLP-1, has limited supporting evidence at ingredient level, typically with oral administration and modest effectsnot proof that a consumer adhesive patch will produce clinically meaningful GLP-1 activation, Santana says. (Fast Company has reached out to Kind Patches for comment.)
That hasnt slowed demand: Media Matters found more than 364,000 single packs and nearly 98,000 triple packs sold on TikTok Shop.
With an army of ambassadors promising quick fixes and collecting commissions, the pitch is simple: Stick on a patch and lose weight in months. The science, however, says otherwise.
South Korea’s president said Thursday that Korean companies will likely hesitate to make further investments in the United States unless Washington improves its visa system for their employees, as U.S. authorities released hundreds of workers who were detained from a Georgia factory site last week.In a news conference marking 100 days in office, Lee Jae Myung called for improvements in the U.S. visa system as he spoke about the Sept. 4 immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 South Korean workers at a battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah.South Korea’s Foreign Ministry later confirmed that U.S. authorities have released the 330 detainees 316 of them Koreans and that they were being transported by buses to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport where they will board a charter flight scheduled to arrive in South Korea on Friday afternoon. The group also includes 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals and one Indonesian.The massive roundup and U.S. authorities’ release of video showing some workers being chained and taken away, sparked widespread anger and a sense of betrayal in South Korea. The raid came less than two weeks after a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Lee, and just weeks after the countries reached a July agreement that spared South Korea from the Trump administration’s highest tariffs but only after Seoul pledged $350 billion in new U.S. investments, against the backdrop of a decaying job market at home.Lawmakers from both Lee’s liberal Democratic Party and the conservative opposition decried the detentions as outrageous and heavy-handed, while South Korea’s biggest newspaper compared the raid to a “rabbit hunt” executed by U.S. immigration authorities in a zeal to meet an alleged White House goal of 3,000 arrests a day.During the news conference, Lee said South Korean and U.S. officials are discussing a possible improvement to the U.S. visa system, adding that under the current system South Korean companies “can’t help hesitating a lot” about making direct investments in the U.S.
Lee: ‘It’s not like these are long-term workers’
U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working.But South Korean officials expressed frustration that Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s yearslong demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand U.S. industrial investments.South Korean companies have been mostly relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers who are needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.Lee said that whether Washington establishes a visa system allowing South Korean companies to send skilled workers to industrial sites will have a “major impact” on future South Korean investments in America.“It’s not like these are long-term workers. When you build a factory or install equipment at a factory, you need technicians, but the United States doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work,” he said.“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies. They will wonder whether they should even do it,” Lee added.Lee said the raid showed a “cultural difference” between the two countries in how they handle immigration issues.“In South Korea, we see Americans coming on tourist visas to teach English at private cram schools they do it all the time, and we don’t think much of it, it’s just something you accept,” Lee said.“But the United States clearly doesn’t see things that way. On top of that, U.S. immigration authorities pledge to strictly forbid illegal immigration and employment and carry out deportations in various aggressive ways, and our people happened to be caught in one of those cases,” he added.
South Korea, US agree on working group to settle visa issues
Following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Wednesday that U.S. officials have agreed to allow the workers detained in Georgia to later return to finish their work at the site. He added that the countries agreed to set up a joint working group for discussions on creating a new visa category to make it easier for South Korean companies to send their staff to work in the United States.Before leaving for the U.S. on Monday, Cho said more South Korean workers in the U.S. could be vulnerable to future crackdowns if the visa issue isn’t resolved, but said Seoul does not yet have an estimate of how many might be at risk.The Georgia battery plant is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are currently building in the United States. They include other battery factories in Georgia and several other states, a semiconductor plant in Texas, and a shipbuilding project in Philadelphia, a sector Trump has frequently highlighted in relation to South Korea.Min Jeonghun, a professor at South Korea’s National Diplomatic Academy, said it’s chiefly up to the United States to resolve the issue, either through legislation or by taking administrative steps to expand short-term work visas for training purposes.Without an update in U.S. visa policies, Min said, “Korean companies will no longer be able to send their workers to the United States, causing inevitable delays in the expansion of facilities and other production activities, and the harm will boomerang back to the U.S. economy.”
Kim Tong-Hyung and Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press
It was the Fourth of July, and I was in my Sing Sing cell, sweating in the heat, perched on the edge of my bunk with my feet dunked in a bucket of cold sink water. What really had me burning, though, was that the Wi-Fi had been down in my block for three days. I couldnt use my tablet to reach my friend and publicist, Megan, who handles my outside email and edits. With my brain boiling, I could hardly write; I usually work in the drafts folder of the messaging app, and now I was locked out.
Before the Wi-Fi cut outI heard a wire melted during a recent heat waveId received a couple of messages: interview questions about my forthcoming book, The Tragedy of True Crime, and edits on some other freelance stories. Now, whenever I punched in my password, a message popped up: This device is not connected to the system. The shouts from the tiers above and below made it clear the outage wasnt just me. That was a relief: In the past, my messages were often delayed for what I assumed was extra scrutiny, a reminder of what it means to be a prison journalist. I could try the phones in the yard, but that would mean navigating the gangs who monopolize them when the Wi-Fi goes out.
When I got locked up almost 24 years ago, I never imagined wed one day have Wi-Fi inside. In 2019, the prison communications company Securus installed kiosks across all New York facilities and issued every prisoner a clear, 6-inch tablet (imagine a clunky, low-grade iPad). By 2024, the kiosks were mostly abandoned, and our tablets had been upgraded with Wi-Fi that let us send messages and make phone calls from our cellsthough the internet itself remained off-limits.
I have a love-hate relationship with Securus. The technology, janky as it is, has helped me grow as a journalist. At the same time, Securus is sustained by the families and friends of people in prison, and activists have pushed for more regulation and free communications. If corporations can profit off us, we should at least be able to use the same tools to earn income legally. Writing is one way, but there arent many freelancers working inside. There is plenty of ambition, though, and plenty of time; why not let guys work phone-based jobs, like telemarketing? Still, its unrealistic to expect the state to provide this technology free of charge.
Yo, I think the Wi-Fi is done for the weekend, Macho, my workout partner, told me at the pull-up bar in the yard on that hot July afternoon. They aint coming to fix it on a holiday.
The day before, Securus technicians had fixed the Wi-Fi in other cellblocks, and I told Macho I was sure theyd be in ours next. When he asked why, I answered: Because Securus only cares about profit. Time is money; every hour the Wi-Fi is out, theyre losing money.
Communication is big business on the prison black market, too. Contraband cell phones, mostly iPhones, are everywhereoften smuggled in by correction officers (COs) and sold to prisoners. Eighteen hundred dollars on Cash App will get you one. And no wonder: online access is the closest we can get to freedom. But if youre caughtand most areyoure sent to solitary and transferred to another prison. As much as an iPhone might make my work easier, Ive never bought one.
Thats not to say I havent been curious. A few years back, a friend gave me a glimpse of the connected life, pulling up my articles on his iPhone (Id never seen my work appear on Google before) and later loaning me the device, which sent me into a frenzy of scrolling, swiping, and searching. Fumbling through the phone, I felt a kind of cognitive dissonance: lost, navigating iOS without a map, and paranoid, peeking out through my cell bars for patrolling COs. Its complicated to reconcile my outside identity as a law-abiding prison journalist, which seems respected, with my inside identity as a convict, which is always under suspicion. The anxiety I felt using an iPhone, even for just a few minutes, made me realize it wasnt worth the portal it opened.
A cell becomes an office
I wasnt too keyed into the 90s dot-com era. Flirting with girls in AOL chat rooms wasnt my thing. I never owned a computer, never opened a Word document, and never sent an email. Instead, I was running the streets, selling drugs, and partying in nightclubs. The only technology that interested me was whatever could help me move dope. I gave my dealers Nextel phones with the push to talk feature, like walkie-talkies. Id heard the Feds had a harder time recording radio frequencies. (I never did manage to confirm whether that was true.)
In 2001, at 24, I shot and killed a friend-turned-foe and was soon arrested, tried, and sentenced to 28 years to life. I had a ninth-grade education, but I was still ambitious. At first, life inside tracked pretty close to the one Id had outside: I got in trouble, did drugs, and bounced around different prisons (common for people serving long sentences). In 2007, I landed in Attica, New Yorks most notorious maximum-security prison. There, I met an engineer who had killed his wife and was finishing up his 20-year sentence. He told me the world would make huge technological advances while I was in prison, allowing people to create new identities online. Despite being wrapped in 30-foot walls, he said, I too could build an online presence. But I had to figure out who I wanted to become.
By the 2010s, while the outside world made massive technological leaps, we prisoners limped into the 21st century with our typewriters, 8-tracks, and Walkmans. At Attica, I took a creative writing workshop and mailed out an essay that wound up in The Atlantic. That break showed me a path forward. I could become a freelance journalist from the joint. There was no law against it, and many federal judges, adhering to the First Amendment, have ruled that prison writers have a right to publish and even earn income from their work. I began publishing regularly. My 6-by-9-foot cell became my office. I practiced personal journalism, drawn to first-person storytelling that brought readers inside the world I lived in.
[Photo: Bettmann / Contributor/Getty Images]
Id observe the action and interview colorful characters in the yard, then write in my cell, sitting on an upturned bucket and tapping out stories on a Swintec typewritera clear plastic machine (prison officials prefer see-through electronics because theyre easier to search for contraband). It had a 7,000-character memory, which worked for short articles but got tricky as assignments grew longer. I had to print out the early pages, delete them to free up space, then continue with the next section. I mailed manuscripts to helpers on the outsideeditors, studentswho forwarded them to magazine editors. When pieces were accpted and revised, my helpers snail-mailed the edits back. I reworked essays and, whenever I was on deadline, dictated changes over the phone in the yard. When I transferred to Sing Sing in 2016, the cells were smaller. The cellblocks, like the madhouse of B Block with its open tiers stacked five stories high (where Im currently writing this), were even louder.
Swingtec Clear Cabinet typewriter [Photo: Swingtec]
In 2019, Securus tablets came to New York prisons. They were given to us for free, but everything on them cost money. Messages, capped at 6,000 characters, were about 15 cents each. Individual songs cost $1.99. New movies, like Captain America: Brave New World, ran $8.99 to rent (Megan tells me she can rent it on Amazon Prime for $5.99). Thirty-minute phone calls from New York prisons cost about a dollar. The tablets exposed the class divide in here: the haves built up song catalogs in the hundreds or even thousands, while the have-nots couldnt afford to message or call anyone. I guess that mirrors American society.
At first, I was excited about the technology, but it turned out to be useless to me. My messagesboth incoming and outgoingwere held up for weeks. None of the men around me had this problem. When I asked the Sing Sing superintendent why he was holding my messages, he said he wasnt. I kept working on the typewriter and navigating the phones.
The business of staying connected
Heres the lay of the land with these prison communications companies. As Bianca Tylek writes in the book The Prison Industry, ViaPath (which owns GettingOut) and Aventiv Technologies (which owns Securus and JPay) form a duopoly that controls 80% of the $1.5 billion prison communications market. Their products for prisoners include phone calls, tablets, and video calls. For corrections agencies, they offer a suite of surveillance tools: live monitoring, recording, transcription, and storage of phone calls; remote access to tablets; and alerts when certain words are used. These two companies contract with nearly every correctional agency at the state, county, and federal levels, and the size of their kickbacksmoney agencies earn from our communicationsdepends on how willing public officials are to allow price gouging.
While New York limits how far Securus can go with its rates, officials running jails and prisons in the South have allowed the company to charge detainees as much as $14 for a 15-minute phone call. Securus also charges families fees to send moneyit costs $5 for each transfer, with a $300 capto buy the overpriced items on tablets and at the commissary. The prison money-transfer market exceeds $100 million per year. According to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, one-third of families with an incarcerated relative go into debt trying to stay in touch. Thats why reform advocates have been pressuring these companies for years to lower their rates.
In 2023, Worth Rises and other advocacy organizations successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate prison phone rates. In July 2024, the FCC voted to implement new rules in line with the bipartisan bill, including caps on phone call pricing and a ban on most kickbacks to corrections agencies. Yet on June 30, the FCC announced a two-year postponement of those rules, allowing excessive pricing to continue until at least April 2027.
(In a statement sent to Fast Company, Securus emphasized that the company’s tablets and services play a role in rehabilitation and reentry. “We believe a fair and sustainable regulatory framework must balance affordability with the vital investments needed for security and technology, the statement reads. “As the industry leader, Securus engaged with the FCC during the Martha Wright-Reed rulemaking process. We have complied with the resulting order while also challenging it in court alongside 18 State Attorneys General.” The statement adds that where states dont publicly fund calls, it must charge rates that cover the cost of providing and maintaining technology and security infrastructure.)
As I was working on this piece in July, New York State Prison Commissioner Daniel Martuscello sent an announcement via our tablets: starting August 1, all phone calls in the states facilities would be free. Unlike in Massachusetts, where free calls came through legislation, Martuscello negotiated directly with Securus and will allot $9 million per year from the $3.58 billion corrections budget to cover the cost. That money goes to Securus.
So far, the transition has been seamless. But with more calls being made in the block, connections now drop more frequently, and the audio quality is worse. Still, the free calls have lifted a burden from families and friends. Its a clear win for Worth Rises and other advocates. And yet, without Securus providing the infrastructure in the states 42 prisonsWi-Fi and tablets issued to every prisonerthis move to free calls could have caused chaos if wed been forced to rely on the limited landline phones in the yard.
A screenshot of Megan Posco’s edits sent to the author in a Securus message. [Screenshot: Megan Posco]
In the summer of 2020, I transferred from Sing Sing to Sullivan Correctional Facility, a smaller maximum-security prison in the Catskills. There, most of my messages started going through. I spent $15 on a rubber keyboard made by Securus and began typing my pitches and works-in-progress in the drafts folder of the email app, which had spell check and let me cut and paste. Whenever my tablet dieda couple of times a yearI was issued a new one, minus my drafts, losing thousands of words of work.
There wasnt a hard drive, and the data wasnt saved to the cloudfor us to access, at least. Securus provides corrections agencies with mountains of data on us, enabling them to monitor our communications; this is perhaps the main reason agencies welcome the technology. Whenever I dictate my writing over the phone, sometimes reading sentences that describe my past criminal behavior or one of my subjects crimes, I worry the AI-powered monitoring will pick up words like gang, gun, or killing and use them out of context to keep me in prison.
The tech isnt perfect on the other side, either. Whenever Megan gets an error message in the Securus app on her iPhone, she tries to figure out if its a system-wide outage. Her first stop is downforeveryoneorjustme.com/securusa site she tells me she has saved in her favoritesto check if its reporting an issue. Shell also go to the r/PrisonWives subreddit and sort by new; if others cant connect, there will inevitably be a post titled, Does anyone know if Securus is down?
Messaging under watch
At Sullivan, each cellblock had an octagonal shape with two tiers, and cells that wrapped around a common area with tables and seats bolted to the floor. During evening recreation, men watched TV, played chess, and talked on four phones. The line for the one kiosk in the common area often created chaos. We were limited to five syncs a day, and guys argued over who skipped the line. Whenever I needed to send a message during the day, before evening rec, I would ask prison porters, who mopped and buffed the cellblock floors, to sync my tablet for me. Being out of their cells while the rest of us were locked in was a perk of the job. Over the years, my guy was Cracker Thug (his nickname, tattooed across his belly). I paid him a pack of Newports every week.
Technically, thats against the rules. One day in April 2021, Cracker Thug synced my tablet, sending out a message I had written to a magazine editor. Soon after, I received a misbehavior report for using the kiosk during non-recreation hours. I had been infraction-free for years. It felt retaliatory. No one else got written up around that time. At the disciplinary hearing, I received seven days loss of yard privileges. Soon after, I got a book deal.
A couple of years earlier, I had been featured on a true-crime show called Inside Evil With Chris Cuomo. I was duped into participating, and the result was a cheesy episode titled “Killer Writing.” It made me think more deeply about the stories we tell about crime and punishment in America, and I soon became a critic of the lurid genre, calling out writers and producers for capitalizing on so much trauma. But I also felt I could do a better job telling these stories about the lives of people in prison, and, if possible, portray us as more than murderers.
This is what I explained to Ryan, an editor at Celadon Books, when I called him from the common area in the cellblock. It was shower time. Men yelled. Walkie-talkies crackled off the hips of officers. I assured Ryan that the Securus tablet would help me deliver the book. He made an offer, and I accepted.
In a dark corner of the Sullivan cellblock, I tapped out the 100,000-word manuscript on the rubber keyboard. This was before we got Wi-Fi, before the ability to make calls from our cells, so I negotiated the phone line in the yard to call my sources and talk through edits with Megan and my research assistant, Mattthe two people Ive spoken to almost daily for the past four years.
The editing system Megan, Matt, and I developed felt like a covert ops missive. We suspected the Securus algorithm flagged certain words and rerouted those messages to the facility lieutenant, so we started disguising themreplacing letters with a star (m*rder) or a special character (kîlled) to avoid detection. I could send a message like the one below, and Megan and Matt would know exactly what edits I wanted:
Stefan owned // ADD: S & T Famous Bags, // a store on Kings Highway, in Brooklyn, …
A COUPLE GRAFS DOWN
//CUT: The story// Stefan told // CUT: people, including // his friend who owned the Park Slope brownstone //CUT : , was // that he was a friend … GOOD
A COUPLE GRAFS DOWN
After Shane took a shower . . . But it was a small thing, and Stefan criticized the way Shane was doing it, and that sent Shane into // CUT: a spiral// ADD a dark and empty place. //
By the end of 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul closed Sullivan, citing the states declining prison population, and I was sent back to Sing Sing. It was one of the first New York prisons to get the Wi-Fi upgrade. Now we can send and receive messages and make phone calls from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Instead of beefing over the kiosk in the block to sync or fighting for a half-hour on the yard phones, men can call from their cells all day long.
Aside from paying a premium for certain products, were not the ones most victimized; our families are. Im glad the people who didnt make the choices that landed us here no longer have to shoulder the cost of expensive calls. The tablets also come loaded with free education programs, and if we want music, movies, or games, thats up to us to buy. That choice alone carries a small sense of freedom. If Im not the harshest critic of Securus, maybe its because Ive seen firsthand how the tech can make us more productive.
And heres the thing: If private companies are allowed to profit off us, then we should also be allowed to use the same tech to earn money consulting, freelancing, and doing real work. Society should want us better prepared for release. Guys I mentor inside have already used the tablets to break into freelance journalism. From their cells, they publish articles, earn income, pay taxes, even send money home to help their kids.
For most, though, the tablets are just a distraction from the monotony. There arent many writers in the joint. I wonder what else men could do with this tech to make a little money. Maybe I could do some telemarketing over the phone in my cell so I can earn a few dollars, Macho, my workout partner, told me. Beats bothering my girl with phone calls all day.
Late in the afternoon on July 4, the cellblock came alive. Yo, Wi-Fi is back on. Lets go! a random voice yelled. Another added: Fuck Securus!
I told you so! I shouted down to Macho before calling Megan, eager for updates and relieved I wouldnt miss my deadline. The block quickly returned to its usual maddening din: hundreds of men yelling tier to tier, others glued to thir phones.
Inflation rose last month as the price of gas, groceries, hotel rooms and airfares rose, along with the cost of clothes and used cars.Consumer prices increased 2.9% in August from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, up from 2.7% the previous month and the biggest increase since January. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%, the same as in July. Both figures are above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.The reading is the last the Fed will receive before its key meeting next week, when policymakers are widely expected to cut their short-term rate to about 4.1% from 4.3%. Still, the new inflation data underscores the challenges the Fed is facing as it experiences relentless pressure from President Donald Trump to cut rates. Inflation remains stubborn while the job market is weakening, diverging trends that would require polar reactions from Federal Reserve policymakers to address.Hiring has slowed sharply in recent months and was lower than previously estimated last year. The unemployment rate ticked up in August to a still-low 4.3%. And weekly unemployment claims rose sharply last week, the government also reported Thursday, a sign layoffs may be picking up.Typically the Fed would cut its key rate when unemployment rose to spur more spending and growth. Yet it would do the opposite and raise rates or at least keep them unchanged in the face of rising inflation. Last month, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that Fed officials are increasingly concerned about jobs. Yet stubbornly high inflation could keep the Fed from cutting very quickly.On a monthly basis, overall inflation accelerated, as prices rose 0.4% from July to August, faster than the 0.2% pace the previous month. Core prices rose 0.3% for the second straight month.Gas prices jumped 1.9% just from July to August, the biggest monthly increase since a 4% rise in December. Grocery prices climbed 0.6%, pushed higher by more expensive tomatoes, apples, and beef. The cost of travel soared, with air fares rising 5.9% just from July to August and hotel room prices rising 2.3%. Rental costs also increased, rising 0.4%, faster than the previous month.The impact of tariffs appeared to be mixed, with many imported goods rising in price but modestly. Clothing costs rose 0.5% just last month, though they are still just slightly more expensive than a year ago. Furniture costs rose 0.3% and are 4.7% higher than a year earlier. Appliance costs also rose from July to August, after falling the previous month.The inflation data arrives at the same time that Trump has sought to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook as part of an effort to assert more control over the Fed. Yet late Tuesday, a court said the firing was illegal and ruled that Cook could keep her job while the dispute played out in the courts.
Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
Supermarket chain Safeway is reportedly planning close 12 of its stores in the coming weeks. The grocer, which is a subsidiary of Albertsons Companies, currently operates over 900 stores across the United States. But Safeway will shutter the doors at some locations in Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico.
Ten of the planned store closures are in Colorado. Meanwhile, one store in Nebraska and one store in New Mexico will also close, according to a list compiled by USA Today. Albertsons attributes the closures to store performance.
“We continuously evaluate the performance of our stores, and occasionally, after long and careful deliberation, it becomes necessary to make the difficult decision to close certain locations,” Albertsons said in a statement to USA Today. “We are working to place affected associates in nearby stores wherever possible.
Fast Company contacted Albertsons to confirm this list. We will update this story if we hear back.
Which stores are closing?
The following Safeway locations will reportedly close on or before November 7:
201 E. Jefferson, Englewood, Colorado 80113
500 E. 120th Ave, Northglenn, Colorado 80233
1653 S. Colorado Blvd., Denver, Colorado 80222
12200 E. Mississippi, Aurora, Colorado 80012
3657 S. College Ave, Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
860 Cleveland Ave., Loveland, Colorado 80537
5060 North Academy Blvd., Colorado Springs, Colorado 80918
1425 S. Murray Blvd., Colorado Springs, Colorado 80916
315 W. 2nd St., La Junta, Colorado 81050
906 E. Olive St., Lamar, Colorado 81052
230 Morehead Street, Chadron, Nebraska 69337
730 W. Main St., Farmington, New Mexico 87401
Retail store closures are a growing trend
Retail closures continue to be a growing trend. Fast Company has been following what many have branded as the retail apocalypse nationwide, which has impacted retailers like At Home, Claires, and Rite Aid.
Many familiar retailers have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as they restructure their businesses and reduce their brick-and-mortar footprints. Some chains, such as fabrics retailer Joann, have winded down operations completely.
Safeway isnt the only grocery store reducing its brick-and-mortar footprint. In its first-quarter earnings report in June 2024, Kroger announced plans to shutter 60 of its stores by mid-2026.
The news of Kroger and Safeway store closures comes on the heels of a failed merger.
In October 2022, Kroger reached an agreement to acquire Albertsons for $25 billiona move that would have created one of the largest grocery chains in the United States.
However, in 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the merger, alleging that it would lead to higher prices and eliminate competition. Federal and state judges ruled that the merger was unlawful, and both companies terminated the agreement.
Grocery store closings contribute to food deserts
Grocery store closures impact local communities. In addition to job losses, closures result in reduced access to food. Supermarket store closures contribute to food deserts, a term used to describe areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food.
According to recent data from the USDAs Food Access Research Atlas, an estimated 18.8 million people in the United States, or 6.1% of the U.S. population, live in areas with limited access to healthy foods. Organizations like Feeding America work to reduce food insecurity.
Wall Street pointed toward a third consecutive day of records before the opening bell Thursday ahead of new U.S. data releases on the labor market and inflation.Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3% while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq each ticked 0.2% higher.Market movement will hinge on government reports about inflation and unemployment benefits, two areas that the Federal Reserve attempts to manage as part of its dual mandate to control inflation and maintain a healthy labor market.Most economists believe the Fed will cut rates at its meeting next week after recent data revealed a labor market that’s been softening for longer than previously thought. While inflation also remains stubbornly above the U.S. central banks 2% target and is forecast to have risen again in August, Fed officials have increasingly expressed concern about a slowing U.S. job market.Recent government reports have also shown that hiring has slowed sharply in recent months and was lower than previously estimated last year, a sign that companies may be worried about future sales and are less interested in adding staff.Stocks have reached records in large part because Wall Street is expecting the economy to pull off a delicate balancing act: slowing enough to convince the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, but not so much that it causes a recession, all while inflation remains under control.Many things must go right for that to happen, and an encouraging signal came from a report Wednesday saying inflation at the U.S. wholesale level unexpectedly slowed in August.Traders were already convinced the Fed will deliver its first cut to interest rates of the year at its next meeting, but they need inflation data until then to be mild enough not to derail those expectations.In premarket trading Thursday, shares of residential home flipper Opendoor climbed 36% after the company named Kaz Nejatian, the COO of Shopify, as its CEO. Opendoor also announced that co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu are returning to serve on the board of directors, with Rabois stepping into the chairman’s role.Shares of FedEx fell 1.3% while UPS slipped 2.1% after Bank of America downgraded both package delivery companies’ stock.In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX rose 0.3%, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5% and France’s CAC 40 climbed 0.9%.In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 1.2% to 44,372.50, with tech investment company SoftBank Group’s shares jumping 8.3% in a second straight day of gains.Data released Thursday showed Japan’s producer prices rose 2.7% year-on-year in August from a 2.5% rise the previous month, in line with market expectations. The higher cost of food, transport equipment and machinery contributed to the rise in prices.In Chinese markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid 0.4% to 26,086.32 while the Shanghai Composite index rose 1.7% to 3,875.31.Shares of chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp added more than 6%, while Hua Hong Semiconductor rose 3.8%. Cambricon Technologies, often called China’s Nvidia, climbed 9%.South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.9% to 3,344.20 while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.3% to 8,805.00. India’s BSE Sensex added nearly 0.2% while Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1%, trimming earlier gains.
Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott, Associated Press
Americans are marking 24 years since the September 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work, and other tributes honoring the victims.Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed will join dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Thursday in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.Others choose to mark the day at more intimate gatherings.James Lynch, who lost his father, Robert Lynch, during the World Trade Center attack, said he and his family will attend a ceremony near their hometown in New Jersey before spending the day at the beach.“It’s one of those things where any kind of grief, I don’t think it ever goes away,” Lynch said as he, his partner, and his mother joined thousands of volunteers preparing meals for the needy at a 9/11 charity event in Manhattan the day before the anniversary. “Finding the joy in that grief, I think, has been a huge part of my growth with this,” he said.The remembrances are being held during a time of increased political tensions. The 9/11 anniversary, often promoted as a day of national unity, comes a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah.
The reading of names and moments of silence
Kirk’s killing is expected to prompt additional security measures around the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York, authorities said.At ground zero in lower Manhattan, the names of the attack victims will be read aloud by family and loved ones in a ceremony attended by Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance. Moments of silence will mark the exact times when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center’s iconic twin towers, as well as when the skyscrapers fell.At the Pentagon in Virginia, the 184 service members and civilians were killed when hijackers steered a jetliner into the headquarters of the U.S. military will be honored. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will attend the service before heading to the Bronx for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers Thursday evening.And in a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths, will honor the victims of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. That service will be attended by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.Like Lynch, people across the country are also marking the 9/11 anniversary with service projects and charity works as part of a national day of service. Volunteers will be taking part in food and clothing drives, park and neighborhood cleanups, blood banks and other community events.
Reverberations from attacks persist
In all, the attacks by Al Qaeda militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “Global War on Terrorism” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former Al Qaeda leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.The anniversary ceremony in New York was taking place at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, where two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets inscribed with the names of the dead mark the spots where the twin towers once stood.The Trump administration has been contemplating ways that the federal government might take control of the memorial plaza and its underground museum, which are now run by a public charity currently chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic. Trump has spoken of possibly making the site a national monument.In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.__Associated Press reporters Michael Hill in Albany, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this story.
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Philip Marcelo, Associated Press
Shares in meme stock darling Opendoor Technologies (Nasdaq: OPEN) are surging once again after the real estate sales platform announced a new CEO: Kaz Nejatian, the chief operating officer of Shopify. Heres what you need to know about Nejatian and how investors are reacting to the news.
Whats happened?
Yesterday, Opendoor named the chief operating officer of Shopify, Kaz Nejatian, as its new CEO. The appointment was news to many, but the fact that Opendoor was looking for a new chief executive was not.
Thats because on August 15, Opendoor announced that its then-CEO, Carrie Wheeler, would be stepping down effective immediately. In her place, the companys chief technology and product officer, Shrisha Radhakrishna, stepped up as interim leader as the search for a new CEO commenced.
At the time, Opendoor said, Wheeler had made the decision to step down from her role as CEO. However, as The Wall Street Journal notes, there has been pressure from retail investors to replace Wheeler, especially after the companys disappointing Q2 2025 results, which saw it purchase 63% fewer homes during the quarter than a year earlier.
Opendoor makes the majority of its money by buying homes directly from homeowners, fixing them up, and then flipping them for a profit.
But during its Q2 results, Opendoor also offered guidance that spooked investors. It said that during its current Q3, it expects revenue of $800 million to $875 million. That represents a 36% decline from the revenue it generated in the same quarter a year earlier.
OPEN stock fell nearly 20% as a result of these announcementsseverely limiting the gains that it had made in July when it became a favorite among meme stock investors.
In a press release announcing the search for a new CEO, Wheeler said she believed now is the right moment for a leadership transition, and Im confident the company is on a strong path forward. The company, in turn, stated that its new CEO search is well underway.
As of yesterday, that search has ended.
Who is Kaz Nejatian?
Kaz Nejatian comes to Opendoor from Shopify, where he had held the role of the online shopping platforms chief operating officer since 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before becoming Shopifys COO in 2022, Nejatian was a VP of merchant services at the company and, prior to that, held the title of VP & GM of Shopify Money. Before Shopify, Nejatian worked at Facebook as a lead project manager for the companys payment platform and billing teams.
Before his positions at Big Tech companies, Nejatian was the cofounder and CEO of Kash, a mobile payments technology company that catered to small businesses.
Kash was founded in 2012 and acquired by one of the largest fintech companies in the U.S. in 2017, according to Opendoors press release. According to PitchBook, the acquiring firm was undisclosed.
Announcing the appointment of Nejatian as the companys new CEO, Opendoors cofounder and chairman, Keith Rabois, said Nejatian is a decisive leader who has driven product innovation at scale, ruthlessly reduced general and administrative (G&A) expenses to drive profitability and deeply understands the potential for AI to radically reshape a companys entire operations.
He is the right leader to unlock Opendoors unique data and assets as we build on Opendoors original mission, now enhanced as an AI-first company, he added.
As for Nejatian, the new CEO said his position at Opendoor was a privilege. Few life events are as important as buying or selling a home, he added. With AI, we have the tools to make that experience radically simpler, faster, and more certain. Thats the future were building.
How have Opendoor shares reacted?
Shares in Opendoor have reacted very well to the appointment of Nejatian as CEO.
As of the time of this writing, in premarket trading this morning, OPEN shares are currently trading up more than 35% to $7.92 per share. Yesterday, OPEN shares had closed down over 4% to $5.86 per share.
The companys shares are now at their highest level since 2022.
Year-to-date, OPEN shares have surged more than 266% as of yesterdays close. However, whether they can maintain their recent momentum in the long term will likely ultimately depend on the companys future fundamentals, rather than any transient meme stock hype.
Rocket Labs pivot from small launch darling to serious SpaceX competitor is about to be tested. The Long Beach, California-based company has already sent 12 of its light-lift Electron rockets into space in 2025, carrying payloads for commercial and government customers, with several more planned before the end of the year from its Virginia and New Zealand launch sites.
But the next several months are pivotal, as Rocket Lab races to bring its next-generation, medium-lift Neutron rocket to the launchpad before years end. Its an ambitious timeline, CEO Peter Beck acknowledges, and the company will need to hit all its marks in the coming weeks to meet it.
“When we put a vehicle on the pad, we do not expect it to fail,” Beck tells me in our wide-ranging conversation. “If you look at our launch vehicle, our spacecraft history, generally the stuff that we build works the first time.”
But with the success of Neutron, Rocket Lab will be able stake its claim as a major player in space-defense infrastructure. Neutron can carry nearly 28,000 pounds, perfect for launching larger satellite constellations and national security missions. Already, Rocket Lab is building satellites for missile defense systems, broadband, and more.
As he prepares for the first flight of Neutron, Beck talked with me about whats riding on this next-gen vehicle, how the companys long-term strategy hinges on making it work, and why launchpad explosions are not part of his development plan.
In this Premium piece, you will learn:
The massive cost savings Rocket Lab is achieving on Neutron compared with the competition
How Beck bested more than 100 small launch companies to dominate that market
What he’s doing to put Rocket Lab in position to be a “real provider” for the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense project
Why the major space companies of the future will be “a little bit blurry” in terms of their mission
Weve seen mixed outcomes among your launch competitors this year, with some notable flameouts. How do you see the state of competition right now?
I think everybody can declare that the small-launch race has been won, right? Electron has really hit a high cadence this year, and weve had a lot of customers all turning up on time, which is fantastic.
I remember when we started the Electron [program], there were more than 100 small launch companies and billions of dollars flowed into small-launch. Astra consumed $400 million or so in their program [before going private last year and refocusing on engine building]. Virgin Orbit spent $1.2 billion on their program [before filing for Chapter 11]. ABL spent $300 million or $400 million, and so it goes. Firefly is sending payloads into the ocean.
I think the medium-launch market is going to end up in a similar way. There are a few programs that are funded, and I think that will sort itself out and there will be a viable alternative to the [Space X] Falcon 9, which is much needed for some competition in that space.
Its going to be really interesting as the heavy vehicles shake out. You saw a really great flight from [United Launch Alliances] Vulcan. Youve got [Blue Origins] New Glenn coming on. So it’s getting exciting.
The next phase of Rocket Labs business depends on getting the medium-lift Neutron launched. Youre still holding out hope for a launch in 2025?
Things are happening in parallel and theyll all sort of crescendo at the end. It’s a green light schedulethat means everything has to go. But right now, we can see a path until there’s no path. Were not waving the white flag.
And at the end of the day, if it’s not at the end of the year, it won’t be that far away. A few months here or there in the grand context of a 20-year lifecycle of a product is just totally irrelevant.
One of the things that I don’t think we’ve done a good job of is putting into context that this will be a four-year-plus, $350 million rocket development program. If you look at the last two rocket development programs: The one that just launched [ULAs Vulcan launch], that was a decade and $7 billion. And another one that just launched [SpaceXs Starship] was, like, 20 years and nobody knows how many billions of dollars.
In space exploration, things go wrong all the time. If the first Neutron launch failsif it explodes as weve seen from competitor rocketsare you ready to try again quickly?
Let’s talk about philosophy to start with. So, we don’t put anything on the pad unless we think it’s going to work. The threshold for Electron was 92%: I said to everybody that unless you are 92% sure that your system is going to be perfectly functional, don’t put it on the pad.
Other companies have philosophies where theyll take big risks and are happy to fail and fail fast. I think you can do that if you have essentially infinite capital.
Our development approach is not like that. When we put a vehicle on the pad, we do not expect it to fail. If you look at our launch vehicle, our spacecraft history, generally the stuff that we build works the first time.
The expectation of Neutron is that we reach orbit on the first flight. I’m not setting an expectation that we clear the pad, or that we get a good stage burn or nominate so many seconds of flightthat’s all bullshit. The idea here is to get to orbit.
The one area I would appreciate people giving us some slack on is the reentry and landing, because thats new and it took a company a very long time to master.
But if the worst happens, we have enough capital reserves to fund the entire program three times over. So it would be disappointing. Someone would need to leave me alone for a couple of days. But it presents no existential threat to the company whatsoever.
How quickly can you establish the kind or regular launch cadence you now have with Electron?
At the moment, theres one Electron rolling off the line every 11 days. With the Neutron, we’ve been really consistent that our bill rate will be one, three, and five [for the first three years].
Although everybody wants it to be faster, that’s what it takes. You need that dwell time between those flights to make the upgrades and the learnings that you see and to build that into your manufacturing.
With Electron, we put a factory in that was capable of producing one Electron every week, and we are at one every 11 days now. We haven’t bought or added any capital equipment. We followed the exact same approach with Neutron.
At our Middle River, [Maryland] facility, we invested in a 90-ton, three-story building where we build all of the composite components for the vehicle. We have the Archimedes engine factory, in Virgin Orbit’s old factory building [in Long Beach, California]. So we’re able to really build that scale quickly.
The one wrinkle here with Neutron is that its a reusable first stage. So the highest production rate we will ever have of stage ones at least is at the beginning of the program. And then stage ones get replaced once every 10 or 20 flights.
Launch services are just one part of Rocket Labs business. Where do the others stand right now?
On the space-system [spacecraft components] side, we continue to build out scale there with pending acquisitions of companies like Mynaric [a German manufacturer of laser communication equipment], which are a really key elment.
And the third pillar is youve seen us for the first time move into payloads, which is squarely focused on national security. We think with the opportunities that are there right now, that is exactly the right place to be focused.
Can you explain what you mean by payloads?
The sensor. Basically, you only build a satellite to host the sensor. The sensor is doing the work, and you only launch a satellite because you need to put the sensor in orbit. So, everything revolves around the sensor, whether it’s an antenna for doing broadband or it’s a telescope for doing Earth observation, it is the reason that you build something and go to space.
And thats the reason for acquiring Geost, which makes electro-optical and infrared sensor systems?
The acquisition of Geost positions us to be a disruptive player in [defense] programs such as the Golden Dome. Its not quite the Manhattan Project, but not that far off, with massive spending. And the space domain piece of that is core.
Our aspirations are slightly larger than just to be a part of it. We want to be a real provider. And the payload, or sensor, acquisition of Geost is a key element for that missile defense infrastructure that we now have under our belt.
With the continuing uncertainty around the Ukraine conflict and U.S. involvement with NATO, have you had more demand from governments in Europe, too?
With the world today, unfortunately, everybody is looking at their defense strategy. I’d say we are just getting our feet in Europe. Obviously, we’ve won some launch contracts for the European Space Agency on Electron, and our components business has sold into Europe for a long time. But once we close the acquisition of Mynaric, well have a German base. If you look at how weve expanded globally, Europe is the next big opportunity for us outside America.
Have changes in government contracting under the Trump administration, and the DOGE cuts, impacted your business? Have you benefited from the Trump-Musk falling out?
I have a policy not to comment on politics. Unlike my competitor, I’m just a humble rocket guy. But what I will say is that there is more desire than ever to have a really fulfilled competitive landscape within launch especially. And both commercial customers and government customers really, really want Neutron to come along and provide some competition in a market that has become a little bit less competitive over time.
Do you think the space industry will look very different five years from now?
If I have my way, it will. I think it’s going to become very clear, if its not already, that the really large space companies of the future are going to be a little bit blurry about how much of a space company they are and how much of something-else company they are.
I mean, if we look at our friends over at SpaceX, are they a telecommunications company, or are they a space company?
It has always been our ethos and our belief that if you have the ability to build the spacecraft and launch it and deploy it in orbit at a rate that’s faster than anybody else, then you have a distinct advantage.
That’s been proven out with Starlink. The only way to be competitive with Starlink is to have your own ability to launch at will, at mass, at cadence, your own satellites. I think that will become true in a lot of domains in space.
And so there’ll be a relatively small number of companies that have launch and manufacturing capabilities who will be the large players.
Does that mean that many of your current competitors will not be around in five years?
I dont know if they’re still around, or they morph, they adapt? Thats up to them. As the industry changes and adapts, you can have your Kodak moment or not, right?
Artificial intelligence may be booming, but there are some things people can still do better.
That’s according to a new study from the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, which found that virtual salespeople in livestreams dont outperform humans in the same role. In fact, when interacting with consumers to promote products in real time, these AI-powered digital streamers barely do better than no streamers at all. (So much for AI coming for that job.)
People assume that if businesses are using digital streamers, they must be doing well,” said Yanwen Wang, coauthor of the study. “But they arent, at least not in their current incarnation.”
The study, published in Information Systems Research, looked at sales data from e-commerce site Tmall.com. It compared sales by humans and AI-powered digital streamers of 328 products (74 by humans, 72 by digital streamers, and 182 with no streamers).
While the results were clear that sales were much higher when actual people were involved, the question of why remained.
By testing AI streamers that looked and sounded different, study researchers found more realistic avatarswhich behaved more like humans, with more human-sounding voicesmade a real difference in what people bought.
In fact, one key factor made the most difference: The avatar’s ability to answer questions in real time increased sales by 25%, for an 86% rise in revenue. (That’s not all: Surprisingly, adding a lottery to the livestreamwhere viewers could win prizeshelped increase sales by another 17%, boosting revenue 70%.)
Only enhanced real-time Q&A interactions allowed the digital streamers to achieve sales performances on par with human streamers, Wang concluded, suggesting quicker, interactive engagement is a key driver of sales, and that the best approach to selling online may be a mix of human and AI elements.
