BUSINESS

Lindsay Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, is now claiming there isn’t enough evidence to prove the former labor and delivery nurse killed her three children.

President Donald Trump has pushed Americans to “let data reign,” encouraging the construction of data centers needed to support the artificial intelligence boom even as public opposition to the facilities is strong.

U.S. consumers are under a lot of pressure, no matter how you slice it.

Between the ongoing war with Iran that was only supposed to last a few weeks, fluctuating oil prices that are driven by social media posts from the President, and stubborn inflation that the government just can’t seem to get under control, consumers are feeling the effects of it all.

While the Consumer Confidence Index published by The Conference Board showed that Americans remained resilient despite softening confidence, the narrative shifted significantly in September, leading researchers to call it a deterioration in confidence.

U.S. consumers turn negative on the economy

September marked the third consecutive month of declining confidence, but the fall from August was more pronounced than in the previous months.

“The Consumer Confidence Index deteriorated notably in September, following two prior months of softening,” said Dana M Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board. “The Present Situation Index fell sharply, while the Expectations Index slipped further into negative territory. Consumer appraisals of current business conditions became negative for the first time since September 2024.¨

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The Consumer Confidence Index fell by 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, down from 88.6 in August.

The Present Situation Index — which measures consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions — dropped by 7.9 points to 109.3.

The Expectations Index — which measures consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions — fell by 5.9 points to 63.3.

What is driving economic confidence levels lower?

According to the survey, while perceptions of the labor market remain positive, perceptions of the current labor market have worsened.

But that’s just one of the factors leading to the loss of confidence.

“Consumers’ write-in responses regarding factors affecting the economy were mostly pessimistic in September,¨Peterson said. ¨References to prices, the high cost of goods and services, and oil and gas prices in particular, rose to new heights, reflecting September’s surge in fuel costs. Comments about war/conflict eased this month but remained elevated. Consumers also frequently cited politics, trade, and employment in their write-in responses, though to a lesser extent.”

Pulling out to a wider view on a six-month moving-average basis, confidence across all age groups and nearly all income groups declined in September. Consumers with a household income between $125,000 and $149,000 reported the greatest decline in confidence over the last six months.

Meanwhile, Gen Z, followed by Millennials, maintained the highest confidence on a six-month moving average, while the three oldest generations continued to show weakness.

Confidence fell among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.

Maskot / Getty Images

Consumer confidence by the numbers

According to the survey, 18.5% of consumers said that business conditions were good, down from 18.8% in August, while 20.4% said business conditions were bad, up from 17.3%.

Nearly 24% of consumers said that jobs were “plentiful,” down nearly 1 percentage point from the 24.5% who felt that way in August. About 22% said jobs were “hard to get,” up from 20.3% prior.

Looking to the future, 15.9% of those surveyed said they expect business conditions to improve, down from 17% in August, while 25.4% expected them to worsen, up from 23.3%.

They were also more negative about the labor market outlook, with 14% expecting more jobs to be available, down from 14.8% in August, while 28.4% expected fewer jobs, up from 26.1%.

Lower confidence leads to less spending

Consumers increasingly worried about the labor market and business conditions will naturally want to spend less on things they can go without.

Expected spending on services over the next six months fell in September. The top 5 planned services consumers expect to spend money on were: restaurants/bars/takeout, streaming/internet/mobile services, beauty and personal care, utilities, and healthcare. Meanwhile, the anticipated spending for discretionary activities like hotels, movies, airfare and amusement parks moderated.

The six-month average on plans to purchase autos and homes also declined slightly. Among durable goods, furniture and smartphones remained priorities, while spending plans on refrigerators and TV sets fell the most on a six-month moving-average basis.

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While the internet argued over whether Meta’s new Muse AI agent could rival ChatGPT, the company quietly revealed something else entirely.

A cable stretching 4,300 miles under the Atlantic Ocean, built to move more data per second than any transoceanic line in history.

The project barely registered outside industry circles. But it says more about where Meta (META) thinks its real advantage lies than any single product launch could. It fits into a pattern the company has been building for years without much public attention.

What is Meta’s Petal cable?

Meta announced Petal on Sept. 21, describing it as the first transoceanic subsea cable capable of delivering a full petabit per second of capacity, connecting the United States directly to France’s Atlantic coast over roughly 7,000 kilometers, or about 4,300 miles.

The company is not building it alone. Meta is partnering with NEC as the turnkey system supplier and Sumitomo Electric Industries for the fiber technology, while French telecom Orange will manage the cable’s landing on France’s Atlantic coast.

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The technical leap is real. Petal will be the first system to deploy multi-core fiber technology at transoceanic distances. Its two-core fiber design uses 48 pairs of spatial channels, doubling the capacity of Anjana, Meta’s previous 24 fiber-pair system, without a proportional increase in power or physical cable size, Meta’s engineering team wrote.

Meta already has experience building at this scale. The company worked with Microsoft, Aqua Comms, and Vodafone to complete the Amitié cable system in 2023. That was a 16-fiber-pair transatlantic system delivering up to 400 terabits per second, the highest-capacity transoceanic cable ever deployed at the time, Computer Weekly reported.

Why Meta is building its own ocean cables

For years, tech companies simply rented capacity on cables built and operated by telecom carriers. But the explosive growth of cloud and AI traffic is pushing the largest technology companies toward greater direct control of the infrastructure carrying their data.

Meta has quietly become one of the largest investors in the industry. The company has been involved in more than 20 undersea cable projects over the past decade. It has progressively taken a larger role in building and controlling the physical infrastructure that carries its global traffic.

Petal is only one piece of a much larger buildout. It sits alongside Project Waterworth, Meta’s more than 31,000-mile cable system spanning five continents. Together, the projects form part of Meta’s broader effort to build out its global subsea infrastructure, TechCrunch reported.

The logic behind Meta’s infrastructure push extends beyond subsea cables.

The company’s Hyperion campus in Louisiana crossed $50 billion in committed investment this year. That reflects Meta’s broader effort to secure greater control over the physical infrastructure needed to scale AI, according to CNBC.

Meta worked with Microsoft, Aqua Comms, and Vodafone to complete the Amitié cable system in 2023.Bloomberg / Getty Images

The bigger AI infrastructure bill behind it

Petal and Waterworth are expensive additions to an already enormous spending plan. Meta narrowed its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $130 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior range of $125 billion to $145 billion.

The company cited continued heavy investment in data-center capacity and other infrastructure needed to support future growth, CNBC reported.

That spending has already squeezed Meta’s cash generation. The company produced just $784 million in free cash flow during the second quarter, down sharply from $8.55 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. Infrastructure spending consumed most of the cash produced by operations.

Meta’s spending is part of a nationwide pattern that dwarfs previous infrastructure booms. A Brookings Institution analysis put the total cost of AI buildout projects at $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032.

That is a larger economic investment than the major U.S. canal, electrification, railroad, highway, and telecommunications booms combined, Quartz reported.

That scale of spending has not gone unnoticed by local communities. Meta’s own CFO Susan Li described the AI infrastructure building environment as dynamic and uncertain on a recent earnings call. Opposition to large data-center projects has grown in several U.S. communities.

Meta has said it invested more than $2.3 billion in Ohio data centers alone since 2018, paying more than $40 million in property taxes and fees during that time, according to Stocktwits.

What Petal means for Meta investors

Owning cables and data centers outright only makes sense if Meta’s AI ambitions actually require that much dedicated infrastructure. The company has said it remains constrained by available computing capacity today, suggesting the buildout is not simply precautionary.

Financing that scale of investment is also drawing more scrutiny from lenders. Banks have started weighing community support and project readiness more heavily before financing AI-related infrastructure. That shift could make the broader AI infrastructure buildout more expensive or complicated to finance.

The cable announcement is easy to overlook next to a flashy AI agent launch. But it may say more about Meta’s actual strategy than Muse does.

The company is increasingly treating control of the physical infrastructure connecting its data centers as a strategic requirement for scaling its AI systems. That strategy will face a major test as Petal enters service in 2029.

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MLB on FOX saw significant viewership gains for the 2026 regular season, All-Star Game, and World Baseball Classic. Here’s the details.

T-Mobile is once again asking customers to cough up more money for a monthly fee that they can’t dodge.

The carrier has continued to add charges and raise fees this year despite the risk of losing customers to growing competition.

For instance, in March, it introduced a $35 Device Connection Charge for devices purchased directly from Apple and increased its restocking fee for device returns by $5 to $10 (depending on the device price). By June, it doubled the rate for calls made while traveling outside the U.S., increasing it from $0.25 to $0.50 per minute. 

The pricing changes come as more U.S. consumers are becoming more open to switching carriers to avoid overpaying for wireless service. According to a December survey by WhistleOut, T-Mobile risks losing 75.9 million customers due to high prices. 

T-Mobile raises a recurring fee on monthly bills

Despite this shift in customer behavior, T-Mobile has decided to raise its Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee, which customers pay on their monthly bills. 

According to T-Mobile’s website, the Regulatory Programs portion of the fee helps it “cover costs for funding and compliance with government mandates, programs and obligations.”

The Telco Recovery component helps the carrier “cover costs and charges” imposed by other carriers for delivery of calls from its customers to theirs and for “certain network facilities, operations, and services.”

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T-Mobile states on its website that, on Oct. 12, the fee will increase from $4.49 per line per month to $5.49 for voice lines, a total increase of $1. For mobile internet lines, the monthly rate will increase from $2.10 per line to $2.60, a 50-cent hike. 

The carrier did not provide a reason for the fee increase. However, the last time it raised this fee for voice and mobile internet lines was on Jan. 21, where it went up by 50 cents for both types of lines. 

In 2024, T-Mobile actually faced a class-action lawsuit over its Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee. Customers alleged that, for decades, they were charged the fee “illegally,” noting that the fee’s description was “unfair and deceptive” because it could change at the company’s will. 

T-Mobile is raising its Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery Fee for the second time this year.Shutterstock

Rising wireless prices are having a surprising impact

T-Mobile’s latest move follows the carrier’s recent decision to retire several older wireless plans and push some customers to pricier replacements.

As T-Mobile continues to ask customers for more money, rising prices in the wireless industry are starting to have unexpected consequences. 

According to a recent Bloomberg report, price increases in the wireless market likely contributed to the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates to a target range of 3.75% to 4%, its first hike in three years. 

Excluding food and energy costs, the core consumer price index (CPI), which measures the monthly change in prices U.S. consumers pay, increased 0.3% in August from a month earlier, Bureau of Labor Statistics data revealed.

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A 5.9% increase in wireless service pricing accounted for nearly a 10th of a percentage point on its own. This was the single largest monthly increase recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in roughly 30 years.

The measure primarily tracks prices for prepaid and monthly wireless plans from cellular carriers.

The core inflation reading would have come in at 0.2%, as economists expected, without the sharp increase in wireless prices.

“While it is true that the wireless index added 10bps to the core CPI today, and that the core ex-wireless would have been 0.20%, I don’t think the Fed will have the luxury of slicing and dicing the data at the meeting next week,” wrote Omair Sharif, an economist and president of Inflation Insights, in a note cited by Bloomberg. 

T-Mobile hasn’t been the only wireless carrier raising prices this year. In May, Verizon increased the monthly price of its Unlimited Ultimate wireless plan by $5.

In April, AT&T hiked prices for its retired unlimited plans that were active before July 24, 2025, by up to $20. In August, AT&T extended the same increases to wireless plans activated between July 24, 2025, and Nov. 1, 2025. 

AT&T also raised its “Administrative & Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee” and “Administrative Fee” by $1 per line.

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Warren Buffett stepped down as chairman of the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway in September 2026, completing a process in which he relinquished lead responsibilities over the company he presided over for more than half a century.

In January 2026, Greg Abel took over as CEO, giving up day-to-day management duties in a role he assumed in 1965.

Still, Buffett will continue in an honorary advisory role as chairman emeritus. The role of chairman — which he first held in 1970 — was taken up by his son, Howard Buffett.

Here’s a look at Howard Buffett’s net worth and how many shares he owns in Berkshire.

What is Howard Buffett’s net worth in 2026?

Buffett has a net worth of at least around $9 million based solely on the value of Berkshire shares he held as of 2026. GuruFocus estimates that Howard Buffett also owns around $3 million worth of Lindsay Corp shares, which would bring his minimum wealth to at least around $12 million.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, a popular online source for celebrity wealth (which does not disclose its sources or methodology), his total net worth is much higher, at around $400 million.

How many Berkshire Hathaway shares does Howard Buffett own?

Buffett owned 10 Class A shares valued at around $7.5 million and 2,450 Class B shares valued at $1.2 million, based on the closing stock prices of September 28, 2026. Both classes of shares were listed as of March 4, 2026, according to Berkshire’s 2026 proxy statement.

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How does Howard Buffett’s wealth and Berkshire stake compare to other family members? 

Howard Buffett held the fewest number of shares among family members who served as the company’s executive officers and directors. 

Howard’s sister, Susan, who also serves as a director, held 80 Class A shares and 3.19 million Class B shares, with a combined value of $1.67 billion. Most of those shares, though, are held by two private foundations for which Susan Buffett, according to Berkshire, “possesses voting power but with respect to which she disclaims any beneficial interest.”

Warren Buffett’s holdings in both classes of shares were valued at around $148 billion. Forbes ranked him the 10th richest person in the world with a net worth $143.7 billion, as of September 27, 2026. His holdings totaling 196,317 Class A shares accounted for 38.4% of the outstanding Class A stock.

How much does Howard Buffett earn as a director of Berkshire Hathaway?

Buffett earned $3,000 as a director of Berkshire Hathaway in 2025, according to the company’s 2026 proxy statement.

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Warren Buffett is part of the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic effort among billionaires to disburse their wealth. Buffett, 96, pledged more than 99% of his wealth to be distributed through philanthropic organizations during his lifetime or at his death.

It appears that less than 1% of Warren Buffett’s wealth will go to his heirs, including Howard, who is 71.

Who is Howard Buffett?

Howard G. Buffett is the second of three children of Warren Buffett and his first wife, Susan Thompason, and he was born on December 16, 1954, in Omaha, Nebraska.

He is chairman and CEO of his eponymous charity, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which, according to its website, is focused on “investing in global food security, conflict mitigation, and efforts to counter human trafficking. Outside of the foundation, Buffett is a farmer, photographer, conservationist, businessman, former elected official, and former sheriff of Macon County, Illinois.

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Long before Jeff Bezos became the second-richest man on the planet, light years before he served looks as an unlikely style icon, and decades before he hosted a foam party on his $500 million superyacht, Koru, Bezos was just a regular guy with a dream, starting a small business out of a Bellevue, Washington garage.

Within a month of launching his online bookstore, however, Amazon (AMZN), then known as Cadabra, had shipped books to all 50 states and 45 countries. Amazon was growing—fast. Bezos would eventually describe its growth model as a “flywheel,” where lower prices generated more customers, increased traffic attracted more sellers, and greater scale allowed Amazon to reduce prices even further. Just four years after Bezos launched Amazon, his company had grown into the world’s largest online retailer.

But while Bezos controlled 100% ownership of Amazon when he founded it in 1994, he diluted his ownership in order to raise the capital it needed to fuel even greater growth. In 1995, Bezos raised $1 million in seed capital by selling 20% in the company to a cohort of angel investors that included his parents, his brother, and his sister. By the time Amazon made its IPO on May 15, 1997, Bezos owned roughly 43% of the company. After his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’ stake fell to roughly 12% (Scott received about 4% of Amazon’s outstanding shares in the divorce settlement). By the end of 2021, after Bezos had stepped down from the role of Amazon CEO, his stake was 12.7%.

Today, Amazon’s CEO is Andrew Jassy, Bezos’ top adviser and former head of Amazon Web Services. But while Bezos is no longer responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations, he continues to be Amazon’s largest shareholder.

@kingspathlegacy Jeff Bezos Outfit 💼🔥 We analyzed the style of Jeff Bezos. Known for his elegant and confident appearance, Bezos often wears tailored suits, luxury polos, designer sunglasses, and premium accessories. Over the years, his style has evolved into a more modern and polished look, reflecting the confidence and success that made him one of the world’s most recognizable entrepreneurs. Whether at business events or casual outings, he prefers clean, sophisticated, and high-quality pieces. Some models are hard to identify exactly, so a few prices are estimated based on similar pieces — don’t mind if something isn’t 100% accurate. #jeffbezos #bezos #sigma #outfit #fashion ♬ original sound – Ralph

How much of AMZN does Jeff Bezos own? 

As of Amazon’s May 2026 proxy statement, Jeff Bezos owned 950 million shares, equating to about 8.8% of the company.

However, he has since sold and donated millions of shares. According to Bezos’ latest SEC filing, he owned approximately 879.3 million Amazon shares as of Aug. 26, 2026. Those shares were worth $219.2 billion as of Amazon’s September 2026 share price of $249.27.

Amazon is not Bezos’ only major asset. He also owns The Washington Post, aerospace company Blue Origin, and his private investment firm, Bezos Expeditions. He and his second wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, also hold a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio that includes properties in Miami, Beverly Hills, New York, Washington, DC, and Maui.

Is Jeff Bezos the largest individual shareholder of Amazon?

Yes, Bezos remains Amazon’s largest individual shareholder. Current CEO Andrew Jassy holds roughly 2.25 million shares, or a 0.02% stake in the business, worth approximately $562.3 million.

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Douglas Herrington, Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Stores and Shelley Reynolds, Amazon’s VP and Principal Accounting Officer, both own less than a 0.01% stake of shares outstanding. Herrington holds 474,638 shares roughly valued at $118.3 million, while Reynolds holds 119,780 shares valued at $29.9 million.

Amazon’s largest institutional shareholders

Institutional investors also hold significant stakes in Amazon. According to 13F filings for the quarter ending June 30, 2026, BlackRock held approximately 748.4 million Amazon shares, while Vanguard Capital Management and State Street held approximately 635.7 million shares and 397.2 million shares, respectively.

FundSharesValueTotal valueBlackRock Inc.748,403,539$178.4 billion13.2%Vanguard Capital Management, LLC635,764,130$151.5 billion11.2%State Street Corp. 397,186,958$94.7 billion7.0%FMR LLC365,660,364$87.2 billion6.4%Geode Capital Management, LLC233,211,684 $55.4 billion4.1%Morgan Stanley179,376,541$42.8 billion3.2%JPMorganChase & Co.167,979,147$40.3 billion3.0%Invesco Ltd.143,818,328$34,3 billion2.5%Norges Bank140,565,601$33.5 billion2.5%Vanguard Portfolio Management LLC121,626,899$29.0 billion2.1%Source: Oxfordledge

Given AMZN’s September 2026 share price of $249.27, that means that not even the company’s three largest institutional shareholders have as big a stake in the company as Bezos himself.

The global theme and amusement park industry is projected to grow from approximately $71.5 billion USD in 2026 to $110.6 billion USD by 2033.

Still, individual parks can face pressures ranging from rising operating costs to heavy regional competition and snowballing corporate debt from repairs and renovations that keep rides appealing to visitors.

Theme park giant Six Flags closed six “underperforming” locations in its amusement and water park portfolio in 2026. Wild Waves Theme and Water Park in Washington State, Adventure Landing in North Carolina, and Fun Spot America in the Atlanta suburbs are also among the smaller parks that have shut down since the start of the year.

The latest name to join that list is Ryze Adventure Park in Missouri.

Standing out from more traditional amusement parks as an “aerial adventure park” with ziplines and elevated bike and ropes courses, the park was opened by locals Greg Hoffman and Tony Holt in 2021 after years of development based on a concept more popular in several European countries.

Ryze Adventure Park shuts down 4 years after opening

As first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ryze Adventure Park is now set to close after just four years in operation, as operating costs rose faster than the owners could build out a visitor base and reach profitability.

Built across four stories on a lot next to a former church, the adventure park was designed to offer more than 100 aerial challenges, such as an observation deck, swaying bridges, a zipline jungle gym, and a 50-foot free-fall tower.

Tickets started at $39 for adults, and the staff was made up primarily of several dozen seasonal workers during the summer months.

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Ryze’s owners promoted it as having “something for everyone” — both thrill seekers and those who would come to the park with kids and spend their time walking around and seeing the views from the different observation decks.

Amid falling revenue, Hoffman and Holt had tried to seek external management help from Applied Adventure Consulting Co., a Colorado-based management firm behind other similar adventure parks.

But ultimately the business model set out at the time of Ryze’s launch anticipated it growing its revenue by 20% within five years. According to the owners, the adventure park saw its profits drop by more than 40%.

Ryze Adventure Park was opened in 2021 by Greg Hoffman and Tony Holt.Ryze Adventure Park

“A whole year of expenses without revenue”: Ryze Adventure Park owners on closure

“It kind of softly closed,” Hoffman described to a local outlet. “We had a whole year of expenses without revenue.”

The owners are still looking for a last-minute partner to step in and see potential in an adventure park in the St. Louis suburb. Despite the falling profits, the park quickly found a strong community of regional fans that would return summer after summer over the last five years.

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It was also a popular booking for local corporate retreats and school field trips.

“Ryze is a confidence builder and a collaborative activity,” Hoffmann said to The Dispatch. “Otherwise, it will have to be taken down.”

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