BUSINESS

There is hope that Americans soon won’t have to deal with long lines at many airports around the country, as senators in Washington, D.C., are sounding upbeat about a funding plan that would end a long-running partial government shutdown and restart paychecks for Transportation Security Administration agents.

From its modest start as a mall food court restaurant in 1967 in Atlanta, Georgia, Chick-fil-A has grown into one of the most dominant quick-service restaurant brands in North America, despite maintaining a limited global footprint.Sustained growth at that scale requires more than expansion alone. It depends on operational consistency, customer loyalty, and supply chain efficiency. Chick-fil-A continues to outperform competitors in customer satisfaction. For the 11th consecutive year, the chain ranked as the top quick-service restaurant in the American Customer Satisfaction Index 2025 Restaurant and Food Delivery Study, earning a score of 83 out of 100.Now, the company is making a strategic, multi-million-dollar investment to strengthen the infrastructure behind that performance in one of its fastest-growing regions.Chick-fil-A reveals plans for a new distribution facility in TexasChick-fil-A is opening a new distribution and warehouse facility in Lubbock, Texas, designed to store food and support delivery operations across its West Texas locations, according to the announcement in partnership with the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance.The facility is expected to improve logistics efficiency, streamline transportation, and strengthen its infrastructure to meet increasing demand for its growing restaurant footprint. “Lubbock provides access to quality talent and strategic advantages that allow us to better serve the needs of our owner-operators and restaurants in the region, and we are excited about our investment into this community,” said Chick-fil-A Supply Operations senior director Dan Marques in a statement.Construction is scheduled to begin in May 2026. Once completed, the project is expected to generate approximately $50 million in capital investment and create about 80 new jobs in the region. “Their commitment to community and strong company values align well with the values we prioritize as a city. This investment will create long-term opportunities for families across our great community,” said Lubbock Mayor Mark McBrayer about Chick-fil-A in a statement.

Chick-fil-A reveals plans for a new distribution center in Lubbock, Texas, to strengthen its supply chain amid expansion.Shutterstock

Chick-fil-A’s supply chain expansion strategyThe Lubbock facility is part of Chick-fil-A’s ongoing logistics investments. Since opening its first full-scale Chick-fil-A Supply distribution center in 2020, the company has rapidly scaled its network.Today, Chick-fil-A Supply operates 15 locations listed as open or coming soon across 12 states, each capable of serving up to 300 restaurants, according to its Chick-fil-A Supply website.Current and planned distribution centersColorado: Denver (open)Florida: Fort Lauderdale (open); Lakeland (planned)Georgia: Cartersville (open)Kansas: Kansas City (open)Kentucky: Cincinnati (planned)Missouri: St. Louis (open)North Carolina: Mebane and Charlotte (open)Ohio: Cleveland (open); Cincinnati (planned)South Carolina: Columbia (open)Tennessee: Nashville (open)Texas: Dallas and San Antonio (open); Lubbock (planned)Utah: Salt Lake City (planned)This growing network reflects a long-term shift towards vertical integration, giving the company more control over how products move from suppliers to restaurants as it continues to expand. Why Chick-fil-A is investing in its own distribution networkOwning and operating distribution centers allows restaurant brands to reduce reliance on third-party logistics providers, an increasingly important advantage amid current supply chain volatility.Key benefits of proprietary distributionGreater product consistency and freshnessLower transportation costsFaster and more reliable delivery timelinesImproved operational visibility through dataBetter scalability to support rapid expansionRestaurant industry expert Alicia Kelso noted that this approach also unlocks valuable data insights.”Such data could provide a more seamless distribution process throughout the rest of the chain and identify how to drive cost savings and performance,” Kelso told Restaurant Dive.Food distributor Quirch Foods said food distribution networks play a vital role in ensuring that restaurants are consistently stocked with the ingredients they need.”A strong food distribution network ensures that the right products arrive at the right time— without delay and with the quality guaranteed,” said Quirch Foods.Chick-fil-A’s continued restaurant growth and strong financial performanceChick-fil-A currently operates about 3,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the U.K., and Singapore, according to Technomic data.Financial performance suggests the company’s strategy is working. Chick-fil-A generated more than $9 billion in total revenue in 2024, representing a nearly 14% increase, and achieved $22.7 billion in systemwide sales, according to QSR Magazine.Chick-fil-A’s total yearly sales 2024: $22.7 billion2023: $21.6 billion2022: $18.8 billion2021: $16.7 billion2020: $13.7 billion2019: $12.2 billionThese results place Chick-fil-A among the top three U.S. restaurant brands based on domestic systemwide sales. McDonald’s (MCD) leads with $53.5 billion in 2024, followed by Starbucks (SBUX) at $30.4 billion.More Chick-fil-A Business News:Chick-fil-A reveals seven new menu items for Spring 2026Chick-fil-A is making a major change to 425 restaurants nationwideChick-fil-A quietly rolls out six new sandwiches for 2026Why it matters for Chick-fil-AChick-fil-A’s investment in supply chain infrastructure signals a strategic shift from rapid expansion to operational optimization at scale. By strengthening logistics capabilities in key regions like Texas, the company is positioning itself to sustain growth, improve efficiency, and maintain customer satisfaction.Fast-food competitors with their own supply chainsMcDonald’s: Partner-driven but highly controlled global distribution network, according to McDonald’s CorporateChipotle Mexican Grill (CMG): Centralized distribution with strong supplier control, per ChipotleDomino’s Pizza (DPZ): Fully vertically integrated, according to Domino’sYum! Brands (YUM): Plans to consolidate supply chain management, per Supply Chain DiveRestaurant Brands International (QSR): Centralized procurement across brands, according to RBIRelated: Starbucks rival launches coffee shops in cult favorite chain

Images from Syria, Iraq and other war zones show that U.S. missiles keep failing to explode. Has a costly program to keep these missiles reliable failed?

Quince is disrupting the luxury market by offering high-quality goods at mass-market prices through its efficient manufacturer-to-consumer model.

The conflict with Iran has already put fresh stress on the U.S. economy, as companies report rising prices, fewer orders and a decline in employment.

Goldman Sachs just bumped its U.S. recession probability to 30% from 25%, underscoring how quickly things are moving.Just weeks ago, the odds were closer to 20%, but now we’re seeing the risk being repriced in real time.For perspective, the bank isn’t talking about a specific trigger.Goldman points to a confluence of pressures, including geopolitical tensions, sluggish growth, and fading policy support, all hitting at once. Perhaps the most urgent catalyst is the oil shock linked to Middle East tensions. Higher oil prices feed into inflationary pressures while squeezing purchasing power. At the same time, the bank argues that, even before the oil shock, the U.S. economy was edging toward a tipping point.On top of that, the labor market is showing major signs of fatigue, while fiscal support that cushioned the economy previously is fading, as we see the impact of prior tax cuts and spending rolling off.It’s important to consider, though, that this isn’t an outright recession call as of yet. The bank still sees a 70% chance of avoiding one, backed by rate cuts in the back half of the year. But clearly, the narrative is moving from a soft landing to something much more fragile. 

Goldman Sachs updates its recession outlook for 2026, signaling a notable shift in expectationsPhoto by Bloomberg on Getty Images

What the latest U.S. data says about growth, jobs, oil, and inflationGDP: U.S. real GDP grew at a sluggish 0.7% annualized in Q4 2025. Labor: February payrolls dropped by 92,000, while unemployment jumped to 4.5%. Oil: Brent climbed from nearly $71 at the beginning of the Iran war to nearly $101 at the time of writing, after recently touching $110. Inflation: February CPI ran at 2.4% year-over-year; the latest PCE, the Fed’s preferred gauge, was 2.8%, with core PCE at 3.1% in January.How oil shocks trigger inflation, slow growth, and raise recession riskAt its core, the macro story boils down to a couple of forces and how they react under duress.Goldman Sachs resets oil-price bets as war rages onHow Fed meeting impacts mortgage rates, housing marketIMF drops blunt warning on US economyThe Federal Reserve, which controls monetary policy, sets interest rates that determine how easy it is to borrow money. On the flip side, fiscal policy, driven by the U.S. government, effectively shapes spending and taxation to support economic growth.After the pandemic hit, both of these forces went into overdrive. Interest rates were cut to near zero while trillions in stimulus money flooded the economy, paving the way for a powerful rebound, but also planting seeds of sticky inflation.By 2022, the script flipped. The Fed was compelled to aggressively raise interest rates to cool the economy, while government support ended, leaving growth much more exposed.However, the latest oil shock makes things a lot trickier. Rising energy prices have effectively pushed inflation higher while slowing demand.Related: Gold’s biggest drop in decades hides a powerful tailwindThat creates a brutal policy trap: the Fed, which would usually slash rates to support growth, has its hands tied because it can’t afford to fuel inflation again. At the same time, fiscal policy is hampered by high deficits, constricting the government’s ability to step in. For context, the U.S. national debt is at a mind-boggling $39 trillion, as per the latest Treasury data. That leads to a much more fragile setup, where the traditional stabilizers of the economy have a lot less room to respond.Latest bank and economist calls on U.S. recession riskJPMorgan: Sees 35% recession odds, warning markets are still complacent over a potentially sustained oil shock weighing-down demand and growth.Bank of America: Argues that recession risks are underpriced, sounding the alarm that a prolonged conflict could trigger a broader slowdown in the global economy.Morgan Stanley: Delayed its first Fed rate-cut call to September (from June), saying that the second-round of oil shocks could weaken market activity and labor markets. Moody’s Analytics / Mark Zandi: The veteran economist reset his recession probability at 49%, warning it could easily cross 50% if oil prices remain elevated.EY-Parthenon / Gregory Daco: Sees 40% recession odds, with risks rising if geopolitical tensions continue to intensify.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Reuters, JPMorgan Chase.
What’s really driving Goldman’s recession resetGoldman’s shift in recession odds isn’t about just a singular shock, but about multiple pressures converging at once. Related: Goldman Sachs sends blunt message on Nvidia stock after GTCIn fact, the bank argues that the U.S. economy was already sluggish before the Iran-led oil crisis, before the layered hit from energy, labor, and policy constraints. The obvious result is a far more fragile backdrop.Oil shock from Middle East tensions: The Strait of Hormuz disruptions have pushed Brent toward $100+, along with elevated upside risks. The bank warns that higher energy costs will continue to lift inflation, impacting businesses and consumers alike. Slowing economic momentum: The bank sees U.S. growth now cooling off to just 1.25%–1.75% in the second-half of 2026, a level close to “stall speed”.Labor market softening: Unemployment is forecasted to jump to 4.6%, with hiring already near breakeven levels.Fading fiscal support: The boost from previous tax cuts and government spending continues to fade, removing a major layer of support just as risks are rising.Collectively, Goldman’s message is that the economy is in a far less resilient position than it was just months ago.The recessions that defined modern U.S. markets1929–1933: The Great Depression, arguably the benchmark for economic collapse in U.S. history.1973–1975: Popularly known as the oil-shock recession, defined by stagflation, skyrocketing energy prices, and a painful slowdown.1980 and 1981–1982: A double-dip downturn, linked to Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s fight with inflation and elevated interest rates.2001: The famous dot-com bust recession, which, despite being milder, turned out to be a major market and business reset.2007–2009: The Great Recession, led by the housing crisis, banking stress, and financial panic.2020: The Covid-led recession, which was the briefest on record but turned out to be the steepest economic shock ever.
Source: NBER.
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Getting AI agents to perform reliably in production — not just in demos — is turning out to be harder than enterprises anticipated. Fragmented data, unclear workflows, and runaway escalation rates are slowing deployments across industries.“The technology itself often works well in demonstrations,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst with Greyhound Research. “The challenge begins when it is asked to operate inside the complexity of a real organization.” Burley Kawasaki, who oversees agent deployment at Creatio, and team have developed a methodology built around three disciplines: data virtualization to work around data lake delays; agent dashboards and KPIs as a management layer; and tightly bounded use-case loops to drive toward high autonomy.In simpler use cases, Kawasaki says these practices have enabled agents to handle up to 80-90% of tasks on their own. With further tuning, he estimates they could support autonomous resolution in at least half of use cases, even in more complex deployments.“People have been experimenting a lot with proof of concepts, they’ve been putting a lot of tests out there,” Kawasaki told VentureBeat. “But now in 2026, we’re starting to focus on mission-critical workflows that drive either operational efficiencies or additional revenue.”Why agents keep failing in productionEnterprises are eager to adopt agentic AI in some form or another — often because they’re afraid to be left out, even before they even identify real-world tangible use cases — but run into significant bottlenecks around data architecture, integration, monitoring, security, and workflow design. The first obstacle almost always has to do with data, Gogia said. Enterprise information rarely exists in a neat or unified form; it is spread across SaaS platforms, apps, internal databases, and other data stores. Some are structured, some are not. But even when enterprises overcome the data retrieval problem, integration is a big challenge. Agents rely on APIs and automation hooks to interact with applications, but many enterprise systems were designed long before this kind of autonomous interaction was a reality, Gogia pointed out. This can result in incomplete or inconsistent APIs, and systems can respond unpredictably when accessed programmatically. Organizations also run into snags when they attempt to automate processes that were never formally defined, Gogia said. “Many business workflows depend on tacit knowledge,” he said. That is, employees know how to resolve exceptions they’ve seen before without explicit instructions — but, those missing rules and instructions become startlingly obvious when workflows are translated into automation logic.The tuning loopCreatio deploys agents in a “bounded scope with clear guardrails,” followed by an “explicit” tuning and validation phase, Kawasaki explained. Teams review initial outcomes, adjust as needed, then re-test until they’ve reached an acceptable level of accuracy. That loop typically follows this pattern: Design-time tuning (before go-live): Performance is improved through prompt engineering, context wrapping, role definitions, workflow design, and grounding in data and documents. Human-in-the-loop correction (during execution): Devs approve, edit, or resolve exceptions. In instances where humans have to intervene the most (escalation or approval), users establish stronger rules, provide more context, and update workflow steps; or, they’ll narrow tool access. Ongoing optimization (after go-live): Devs continue to monitor exception rates and outcomes, then tune repeatedly as needed, helping to improve accuracy and autonomy over time. Kawasaki’s team applies retrieval-augmented generation to ground agents in enterprise knowledge bases, CRM data, and other proprietary sources. Once agents are deployed in the wild, they are monitored with a dashboard providing performance analytics, conversion insights, and auditability. Essentially, agents are treated like digital workers. They have their own management layer with dashboards and KPIs.For instance, an onboarding agent will be incorporated as a standard dashboard interface providing agent monitoring and telemetry. This is part of the platform layer — orchestration, governance, security, workflow execution, monitoring, and UI embedding —  that sits “above the LLM,” Kawasaki said.Users see a dashboard of agents in use and each of their processes, workflows, and executed results. They can “drill down” into an individual record (like a referral or renewal) that shows a step-by-step execution log and related communications to support traceability, debugging, and agent tweaking. The most common adjustments involve logic and incentives, business rules, prompt context, and tool access, Kawasaki said. The biggest issues that come up post-deployment: Exception handling volume can be high: Early spikes in edge cases often occur until guardrails and workflows are tuned. Data quality and completeness: Missing or inconsistent fields and documents can cause escalations; teams can identify which data to prioritize for grounding and which checks to automate.Auditability and trust: Regulated customers, particularly, require clear logs, approvals, role-based access control (RBAC), and audit trails.“We always explain that you have to allocate time to train agents,” Creatio’s CEO Katherine Kostereva told VentureBeat. “It doesn’t happen immediately when you switch on the agent, it needs time to understand fully, then the number of mistakes will decrease.” “Data readiness” doesn’t always require an overhaulWhen looking to deploy agents, “Is my data ready?,” is a common early question. Enterprises know data access is important, but can be turned off by a massive data consolidation project. But virtual connections can allow agents access to underlying systems and get around typical data lake/lakehouse/warehouse delays. Kawasaki’s team built a platform that integrates with data, and is now working on an approach that will pull data into a virtual object, process it, and use it like a standard object for UIs and workflows. This way, they don’t have to “persist or duplicate” large volumes of data in their database. This technique can be helpful in areas like banking, where transaction volumes are simply too large to copy into CRM, but are “still valuable for AI analysis and triggers,” Kawasaki said.Once integrations and virtual objects are established, teams can evaluate data completeness, consistency, and availability, and identify low-friction starting points (like document-heavy or unstructured workflows). Kawasaki emphasized the importance of “really using the data in the underlying systems, which tends to actually be the cleanest or the source of truth anyway.” Matching agents to the workThe best fit for autonomous (or near-autonomous) agents are high-volume workflows with “clear structure and controllable risk,” Kawasaki said. For instance, document intake and validation in onboarding or loan preparation, or standardized outreach like renewals and referrals.“Especially when you can link them to very specific processes inside an industry — that’s where you can really measure and deliver hard ROI,” he said. For instance, financial institutions are often siloed by nature. Commercial lending teams perform in their own environment, wealth management in another. But an autonomous agent can look across departments and separate data stores to identify, for instance, commercial customers who might be good candidates for wealth management or advisory services.“You think it would be an obvious opportunity, but no one is looking across all the silos,” Kawasaki said. Some banks that have applied agents to this very scenario have seen “benefits of millions of dollars of incremental revenue,” he claimed, without naming specific institutions. However, in other cases — particularly in regulated industries — longer-context agents are not only preferable, but necessary. For instance, in multi-step tasks like gathering evidence across systems, summarizing, comparing, drafting communications, and producing auditable rationales.“The agent isn’t giving you a response immediately,” Kawasaki said. “It may take hours, days, to complete full end-to-end tasks.” This requires orchestrated agentic execution rather than a “single giant prompt,” he said. This approach breaks work down into deterministic steps to be performed by sub-agents. Memory and context management can be maintained across various steps and time intervals. Grounding with RAG can help keep outputs tied to approved sources, and users have the ability to dictate expansion to file shares and other document repositories.This model typically doesn’t require custom retraining or a new foundation model. Whatever model enterprises use (GPT, Claude, Gemini), performance improves through prompts, role definitions, controlled tools, workflows, and data grounding, Kawasaki said. The feedback loop puts “extra emphasis” on intermediate checkpoints, he said. Humans review intermediate artifacts (such as summaries, extracted facts, or draft recommendations) and correct errors. Those can then be converted into better rules and retrieval sources, narrower tool scopes, and improved templates. “What is important for this style of autonomous agent, is you mix the best of both worlds: The dynamic reasoning of AI, with the control and power of true orchestration,” Kawasaki said. Ultimately, agents require coordinated changes across enterprise architecture, new orchestration frameworks, and explicit access controls, Gogia said. Agents must be assigned identities to restrict their privileges and keep them within bounds. Observability is critical; monitoring tools can record task completion rates, escalation events, system interactions, and error patterns. This kind of evaluation must be a permanent practice, and agents should be tested to see how they react when encountering new scenarios and unusual inputs. “The moment an AI system can take action, enterprises have to answer several questions that rarely appear during copilot deployments,” Gogia said. Such as: What systems is the agent allowed to access? What types of actions can it perform without approval? Which activities must always require a human decision? How will every action be recorded and reviewed?“Those [enterprises] that underestimate the challenge often find themselves stuck in demonstrations that look impressive but cannot survive real operational complexity,” Gogia said. 

High-quality craft breweries that have been recognized for their excellence are struggling to remain in business as they battle the craft beer apocalypse.The industry’s historic downturn, known as the Craft Beer Apocalypse, began in 2023 with 385 brewery closings and grew to 434 in 2025, according to the Brewers Association.Among the craft breweries to close down in 2026 was San Francisco’s Olfactory Brewing, which shut down in February.The brewery’s Proverbial Fork beer won a gold medal in the Great American Beer Festival‘s Mixed-Culture Brett Beer category in 2024.

True Anomaly Brewing Co.’s award-winning days will end as it closes down its business because of a highway project.Shutterstock

True Anomaly Brewing closes downAnother award-winning craft brewery, True Anomaly Brewing Co., is set to close down its brewery and taproom at 2012 Dallas St. in Houston on April 30, blaming an Interstate 45 expansion project that is displacing homes and businesses along its path, the company said on its Instagram page.”It is incredibly difficult to write this, but after an unforgettable run in East Downtown, the taproom will be closing its doors. Our final day will be April 30th,” True Anomaly said on Instagram.The message said the brewery’s business was closing, as plans for a second location did not move forward.Second location plans don’t develop”Over the past year, we found ourselves caught in the path of the I-45 expansion while also working to open a second location nearby,” the message said. “Construction delays and shifting timelines pushed the project further and further out.””We kept brewing and kept believing it would come together, but eventually the stars just stopped aligning,” the message continued. “We’ve got some weeks ahead of us, and we plan to make the most of them.”The Texas Department of Transportation began expanding and rerouting Interstate 45 in the downtown Houston area in late 2024 as part of a multi-billion-dollar project that will shift the freeway from the west side of downtown to the east side to align it with Interstate 69 and U.S. 59., Houston Public Media reported.Aerospace employees started companyTrue Anomaly was established in 2019 by four employees of NASA and the Johnson Space Center, who are former rocket scientists, space-suit developers, and mission managers.The fledgling entrepreneurs started honing their brewing craft in a garage with some brewing equipment and a lot of experimentation, according to the company’s website.Inspired by a shared fascination with science and outer space, the partners brewed beers, “just a little (or a lot) off the mean trajectory,” according to the company website. The craft brewery’s website lists 50 locations where cans of True Anomaly beer could be purchased, which include H.E.B. Markets, Whole Foods, and Total Wine.More closings:67-year-old furniture retailer liquidates, closes downKroger grocery chain rival closes locations in restructuring143-year-old grocery chain closes more locations, lays off dozensTrue Anomaly won a silver medal in 2025 for its Sea of Waves American Sour Ale at the Great American Beer Festival. The brewery also won a silver medal for its Flanders Redux at the Brewers Association’s World Beer Cup competition. It was named 2023 and 2024 Brewery of the Year and has won several other medals at the Texas Craft Brewers Cup.True Anomaly’s Year-Round BeersScout Mexican Style LagerSmall Giant Grisette Little SaisonContact Light American SaisonRocket Park Pale AleSky Lab American IPATrainer Session Hazy IPABen’s House IPA West Coast IPAGo Flight Hazy IPA Related: 54-year-old Home Depot rival closes store, no bankruptcy

“His revenue sharing, which he did not disclose, creates conflicts of interest as advisers may be incentivized to recommend funds that pay them more.