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U.S. carrier JetBlue has raised its checked bag fees by as much as $9 as the war in the Middle East disrupts global oil supplies and increases fuel prices.

The new fees took effect Monday. For most domestic economy passengers, the first checked bag now costs $39, up from $35. During peak travel times such as April spring breaks, major holidays and the summer, passengers will have to pay $49 instead of $40, the airline said.

The airline, which has its flagship terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that charging more for optional services “used by select customers” would allow it to keep its airfares competitive.

“While we recognize that fee increases are never ideal, we take careful consideration to ensure these changes are implemented only when necessary,” JetBlue said.

Airlines around the world are confronting soaring operating expenses due to jet fuel prices that have jumped more than 85% since the Iran war began on Feb. 28. The conflict has curtailed ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway for a fifth of the world’s oil. Airspace closures in parts of the Middle East have added to the price pressure by forcing some airlines to take longer routes that burn more fuel.

A number of non-U.S. carriers already have added fuel surcharges or raised ticket prices in response.

Jet fuel is one of the airline industry’s biggest expenses, typically accounting for about a quarter of operating costs. The average price for a gallon of jet fuel reached $4.64 on Tuesday, up from $2.50 the day before the conflict broke out, according to Argus Media. The energy market intelligence company’s U.S. Jet Fuel Index tracks the average prices across major hubs, including Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York.

Industry analysts expect U.S. airlines to pass some of their higher fuel costs on to travelers through add-ons, such as checked bags and seat upgrades, since they don’t typically have fuel surcharges. And once one airline raises fees, analysts say, others are likely to follow.

JetBlue also increased the charge to check a second bag from $50 to $59 for off-peak periods, and from $60 to $69 for periods of peak demand.

The carrier said some customers would still be able to check their first bag for free, including those who hold one of the airline’s co-branded credit cards and loyalty program members who reach certain tiers. Most customers flying transatlantic routes will also continue to receive their first checked bag free.

Iran’s determination to close off the Strait of Hormuz to ships from nations it considers unfriendly has caused crude oil prices to fluctuate wildly and in turn, driven up fuel prices. Earlier this month, the CEOs of Delta Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines reported that higher jet fuel prices had already added about $400 million in operating costs.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

In his corner office at Corning Inc.’s towering steel-and-glass headquarters in Corning, N.Y., CEO Wendell Weeks keeps a small, yellowed piece of paper in a dark wood frame behind his desk. Dated Nov. 17, 1880, it’s Thomas Edison’s $311.97 order for Corning Glass Works to produce the glass for a risky new invention of his: the lightbulb. 

“I keep that to always remind me: If someone comes to you with an idea that seems small, but there’s a way to make the world just a little bit better, say yes,” Weeks says. “A lot of ideas won’t work, but the ones that do, those are really good.”

The 173-year-old glass company has proved this concept again and again. The creator of iconic kitchen brands such as Pyrex and CorningWare also developed the glass for telescopes, the earliest TV picture tubes, and heat-resistant glass windows for spacecraft. It answered the call of Apple’s Steve Jobs to create Gorilla Glass—that touch-sensitive, hard-to-shatter glass encasing your smartphone. And it created the fiber-optic cables connecting much of the internet—and those now powering the AI revolution.

Those innovations help explain why the CEO of a company in upstate New York with just $13 billion in 2023 revenue has the admiration and friendship of some of the biggest names in business, from Silicon Valley tycoons such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to Motor City moguls like Ford’s Jim Farley. Jony Ive, Apple’s former head of design, says there are few collaborators he holds in higher regard—high praise from the man who crafted the industry-shifting iPhone. “As a designer, as a creative, it’s a complete honor to work with somebody like Wendell,” Ive says. “He is utterly consumed by trying to work with you to solve difficult, sometimes almost seemingly impossible challenges.” 

Lauren Petracca for Fortune

A formative failure

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the 6-foot-7, 65-year-old Corning CEO. In the 1990s, Weeks was the Corning vice president tapped to run a new optical fiber business to power the burgeoning internet—an innovation that drove Corning’s valuation to nearly $100 billion at the height of the internet bubble in 2000. 

That bubble burst the following year, sending the company’s stock price plummeting from some $100 to $1. But Weeks proved his mettle by remaining committed to the enterprise after the dotcom crash. Even when Corning lost 99% of its value and had to lay off half its employees, Weeks insisted on the soundness of the strategy and continued to develop the company’s fiber tech.

He recalls begging company leadership not to fire him and instead let him stay on to clean up the mess: “I said, ‘I’m chaining myself to the wheel here. I’ll be a janitor or whatever it is, but I’m staying until this gets fixed.’ They said, ‘Well, it’s not going to be a janitor. We’d like you to become president.’”

Since then, Corning’s big bet on optical fiber has paid off, and it now accounts for 30% of the company’s revenue. Thanks to the rise of AI, tech giants such as Microsoft are flocking to Corning’s new and improved optical fibers to support hyperscale data centers and generative AI, which require far more fiber than has been used in the past, at much higher speed capabilities. 

With a market cap of $41 billion, Corning’s stock price has increased some 50% since January. In October, the company announced a $1 billion multiyear deal with AT&T to provide this next-generation fiber, and Weeks has set a target of adding more than $3 billion in annual sales over the next three years. “We were right that ultimately there’d be a lot more fiber required,” Weeks says, laughing. “We were just off by a decade or two.”

The company’s ordeal at the turn of this century forged Weeks’ leadership style, observed Amazon founder Bezos, who met and befriended the Corning CEO when he joined Amazon’s board in 2016. “My gut is that Wendell was greatly shaped by Corning’s near-death experience,” Bezos tells Fortune. “And it has made him a much better leader.”

From Scranton to Corning

Weeks joined Corning 132 years into the company’s 173-year history. Founded in 1851 by a merchant named Amory Houghton Sr., it began as the Bay State Glass Co., a small company in Massachusetts. Houghton moved it a few years later to Brooklyn before settling upstate in Corning in 1868 and changing the company’s name to match the town’s. The company spun off the Pyrex and CorningWare businesses in 1998, but the names and tech they’ve created remain. The Houghton family took the company public in 1945 and sold its controlling stake in 2005.

Weeks’ path to becoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company wasn’t a straight line. He was born in Scranton, Pa., where his father was a plumber and his mother a secretary at the local elementary school. Neither went to college, and both were alcoholics, he says. 

Looking for a way out of the chaos, Weeks enrolled at Lehigh University, studying finance and accounting, he says, because his “dad went bankrupt, and I wanted to make sure I always understood financial stuff, even though I wasn’t particularly adept at it.” After graduating in 1981, Weeks started as an auditor at the firm Price Waterhouse, where Corning was a client. He soon realized that the people he was interacting with at Corning were exactly the type of people he wanted to be—stable, committed, kind, and family-oriented. In 1983 he was hired as a controller at Corning, where he took on the painful job of helping to shut down an old factory and restructure the industrial business. In his own words: “I much prefer hiring people versus firing them.”

Lauren Petracca for Fortune

After a short detour to Harvard for business school, Weeks came back to Corning in 1987 to develop a strategy for specialty glass and ceramics, studying science textbooks in his off hours to gain the technical knowledge the job required. He was appointed CEO in 2005 and chairman of the board in 2007.

Weeks never received a degree in the sciences, but in his time at Corning, he has earned 44 U.S. patents in his own name. These include patents for Valor Glass Vials–the crack-resistant vials that played a key role in enabling the delivery of COVID vaccines—and for the bendable glass used in interior automotive displays. 

Weeks’ approach to problem-solving is what sets him apart, says Samsung executive chairman Jay Y. Lee, who developed a close friendship with Weeks thanks to the tech giant’s more than 50-year partnership with Corning, which has made LCD monitors and foldable smartphone glass, among other inventions, for the company.

Courtesy of Corning

“He doesn’t hesitate to roll up his sleeves and work alongside his colleagues when there’s a complex problem to solve or a tough issue to be faced,” Lee says via email. “He inspires everyone to bring their best game to the table in the search for the best solutions.”

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he relies upon Weeks for directness and fresh perspectives. “He tells it to you straight,” Jassy tells Fortune. “I’ve had many instances over the years where I’ve called Wendell for input and advice, and where I started a conversation was very different from where I ended up.”

Picking up the pieces

Former Corning CFO Jim Flaws, who was by Weeks’s side during the dotcom disaster, sees in Weeks a kind of “you broke it, you fix it” mentality. He tells a story to illustrate: The office dress code was very casual at that time, but to show their dedication to righting the company in the wake of the crash, Flaws and Weeks vowed to wear suits and ties every day until the company was successful again. “We were going to show the seriousness of this,” Flaws said. (Weeks still wears a suit and tie daily, though the company’s dress code has remained more casual.)

That’s one of Bezos’s favorite anecdotes about Weeks too. “It was a very deliberate, internal thing to say, ‘We are going back to the basics. We are going back to the future. We are returning to our roots,’” Bezos says. “We are not a startup in Silicon Valley. We are an important, 100-plus-year-old company. We are innovative, but buttoned-down too.”  

After the massive hit the company took when the dotcom bubble burst, Weeks and Flaws made three big bets in 2002 that are still paying off today: They doubled the amount of money Corning was pouring into research and development. They invested in developing LCD, flat-screen TV displays. And they created new ceramic filters to trap smog and exhaust from trucks.

Five years later, they got their next big break. In 2007, Apple founder Steve Jobs cold-called Weeks after being introduced briefly by a mutual friend. Jobs explained he was creating a new type of cell phone, called the iPhone, where the whole front face would be a display. He was having trouble finding glass to cover it that wouldn’t easily break or scratch. Jobs asked if Corning could make a super-resilient glass–and deliver it in under six months. The Corning board balked, but the CEO pushed ahead anyway—and pulled it off. 

Gorilla Glass, the glass still used on the screen of the iPhone and almost every smartphone in the world, was one of the most consequential inventions in modern history. Without it, the smartphone revolution would not have been possible.

“Back then, we thought in total we’d sell maybe $50 million worth of product to the iPhone,” Weeks says. “Steve didn’t actually think it was going to be that big either.” Since then, Gorilla Glass has generated more than $20 billion in revenue for the company, and is used globally on more than 8 billion devices made by Apple and other companies. 

Lauren Petracca for Fortune

Corning’s next big bet

Now, with its buzziest innovation nearly two decades old, Corning is pivoting yet again, this time to build the “pipes” for the rise of generative AI. 

In 1970, the company created optical fiber, a highly pure optical glass, as thin as a strand of human hair, that could transmit light signals over long distances. Prior to that, copper was the dominant cable material—and it’s still used today to power the internet for many households. Today, if you stream a movie, post to a social network, or pose a question to a generative AI application on your mobile phone, you’re able to do so because of optical fiber connectivity in a data center.

Earlier this year, Corning rolled out its “next-generation optical cable,” and it inked a multimillion-dollar deal with Lumen Technologies to reserve 10% of Corning’s global fiber capacity for each of the next two years to power data centers for customers like Microsoft. 

How are these fibers different from the ones Corning has produced in the past? It all comes down to density. Gen AI requires 10 times the fiber currently used, but needs to fit in the same space, Weeks says. These new, thinner fibers will allow Lumen and other customers to fit two to four times the amount of fiber into their existing ducts. Unlike copper, fiber has virtually limitless data capacity. In one fiber pair (one sending and one receiving), half of the humans on earth could be talking to the other half simultaneously, Weeks says.

But while there’s a whole lot of fiber out there, the market for it is unlikely to die down anytime soon. “Since we invented fiber, there’s now been enough installed in the world to go back and forth to the sun 20 times,” Weeks says. “And still some 50% of Americans aren’t connected directly by fiber… You think of all that copper cabling that you see—all that ultimately will fall to fiber optics for communications. So we’re still at the beginning of this long-term technology curve.” 

Lauren Petracca for Fortune

Corning may have invented the stuff, but it’s not the only player in the market for the original optical fiber now: Weeks is keeping his eye on competitors in Asia, including Japan’s Sumitomo Electric and Furukawa Electric Co. Corning’s new fibers and designs for AI applications are still under patent, however.

The situation shows how essential it is that the company keep breaking new ground. Ford CEO Jim Farley says he has learned more from Weeks than any other CEO. (Corning provides much of the exterior and interior glass for Ford’s vehicles.) “He’s in a thermonuclear war of innovation, and we all know that the IP getting created in places like China, Vietnam, and India and around the world is real,” Farley tells Fortune. “He has to stay in front of it, so constantly fueling the innovation, constantly making the right bet on which innovations, that’s a risk for him.” 

William Kerwin, an equity analyst at Morningstar, says the biggest risk he sees ahead for Corning is how capital-intensive its products are to produce—in terms of both manufacturing and research and development. But he thinks Weeks’ three-year, $3 billion sales plan is realistic, thanks to Corning’s diversification.

“It’s a company that is not confined to one product or one market,” Kerwin says. “Glass can sound so boring, but the things they’re able to do with it in terms of durability or the iPhone screens or data-center connectivity with optical fiber is really impressive. They’re really stretching material science to its limits.”

Weeks says he’s betting on gen AI and a trend toward full-screen interior car displays to drive profits going forward. And after decades in the business, he focuses more on finding the right innovation than on predicting the timing of the next blockbuster market for a product. 

“If you understand innovation deeply, you understand that getting the timing right is almost impossible,” Weeks says. “You’ve got to be able to instead go to work on s–t that matters early, and then just scale it fast when all of a sudden it ends up you’ve got to be fast. And that’s what we’re doing now.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Good morning. Huntington Bancshares Inc. is marking its 160th year by showing that traditional branch banking and digital growth can advance together, not at each other’s expense.

Founded in 1866, Huntington (No. 351 on the Fortune 500) operates more than 1,000 branches nationwide and is leaning into expansion. CFO Zachary Wasserman described 2026 as a “major” strategic year, with a focus on integrating recent partnerships while keeping core businesses growing faster than the industry.
 
A visible piece of that strategy is the Southeast build-out. “Our expectation is opening one branch almost every two weeks this year in North Carolina and South Carolina,” Wasserman said.

Huntington opened five branches across the two states in 2025 and plans roughly 24 more this year, putting it on track for about 55 locations by the end of 2027. Beyond physical expansion, the bank views each new branch as a talent opportunity. “We’re putting a major organizational focus around this, and the results have been encouraging,” Wasserman said.

The rollout has been supported by heavy pre-launch marketing, with many branches surpassing full-year deposit targets before opening, he added.

At the same time, Huntington has become increasingly digital-first in new customer acquisition. The bank now brings in more customers digitally than through branches—an approach Wasserman described as “very unusual” for an institution of its size. Most new relationships now begin online, even if customers later turn to branches for more complex needs.

Crucially, the digital and physical footprints overlap. About 80% of new digital customers live within five miles of a Huntington branch, underscoring that local presence still matters even when accounts are opened online, Wasserman said. The bank is using that proximity to deepen relationships and drive growth in higher-value businesses such as commercial payments, wealth management and capital markets, he said.

Huntington reported on Thursday solid fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, driven by loan and deposit growth, higher fee income, improving margins and strong credit quality. Fourth-quarter EPS was $0.30, or $0.37 on an adjusted basis, up 9% year over year and ahead of estimates. Goldman Sachs reiterated its buy rating and $21 price target on the stock following what it called a “decent quarter and mixed outlook.”

Behind the branch and digital push is a broader integration agenda. Wasserman said Huntington is “well down the track” on integrating two recently announced bank partnerships—its merger with Veritex Holdings and a definitive agreement to acquire Cadence Bank. The bank is applying lessons from the Veritex deal, including early leadership decisions and clear communication around systems conversions, to retain employees and customers during transitions.

Wasserman framed Huntington’s strategy as a long-term effort to win market share through steady, multi-year investment rather than stop-start growth cycles. Consistent spending on branches, digital platforms and specialized businesses, he said, is key to fully realizing the benefits of the bank’s expansion over time.

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

During the Gold Rush, legend had it that the best way to get rich wasn’t by panning for gold, but by selling “picks and shovels” to the miners. And there’s no better example of that strategy in action today than at Caterpillar. There, the maker of massive mining and earthmoving equipment and iconic yellow construction site gear is capitalizing on the AI boom and seeing record stock highs and solid revenue growth.

Shares of the company have climbed to record levels in recent weeks, pushing its market capitalization sharply higher—from $270 billion at the end of 2025 to approximately $364 billion as of Feb. 13, 2026. The stock, which has more than doubled over the past 12 months to an all-time high of $775, has vastly outperformed such tech behemoths as Apple (up 8%) and Microsoft (up about 1%) during that time period. And investors are betting that Caterpillar’s growing exposure to data centers, energy infrastructure, and AI-related demand hasn’t peaked yet. In fact, over the past 12 months, Caterpillar has ranked as the No. 1 best performer in the Dow.

While Caterpillar is well known for its bright yellow construction site vehicles, it has greatly broadened its business mix to include energy and power systems, and resource and mining equipment. Caterpillar CEO Joseph Creed first joined the company in 1997 and has served in various roles, including CFO for the energy and transportation segment and interim CFO. Creed was named Caterpillar’s chief operating officer in 2023 and became CEO in May 2025.

The company’s strategy is “centered on three pillars for profitable growth: commercial excellence, being the advanced technology leader, and transforming how we work—all built upon a foundation of continued operational excellence,” Creed said on a Jan. 29 earnings call.

Caterpillar (No. 64 on the Fortune 500) reported fourth-quarter and full-year results that exceeded Wall Street expectations. Full-year sales and revenue reached a record $67.6 billion, the highest in the company’s history, driven by solid demand across its construction, resource, and energy businesses. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) for the year totaled $19.06, while fourth-quarter adjusted EPS came in at approximately $5.16, above analysts’ forecasts in the mid-$4 range.

The company also reported a record order backlog of $51 billion, up about 70% year over year, highlighting strong demand visibility entering 2026. Total full-year sales increased 4% compared with the prior year, and Caterpillar generated robust free cash flow, further strengthening its balance sheet.

“Caterpillar shares have risen dramatically over the past year as investors contemplate the company’s exposure to burgeoning demand for artificial intelligence,” Morningstar equity analyst George Maglares wrote in a recent note.

Rather than developing AI technology itself, Caterpillar supplies critical equipment needed to power and support AI-driven infrastructure. The company provides turbines for on-site primary power at data centers, generator sets for backup power, and integrated microgrid systems that can combine traditional energy sources with renewables and battery storage, Fortune’s Jordan Blum reported.

Maglares noted that Caterpillar’s construction industries and resource industries segments are both showing signs of cyclical recovery. The company exited the year with double-digit growth across all major segments, suggesting solid momentum heading into 2026. Management has guided to mid-single-digit revenue growth of roughly 5% to 7% for the current year, a forecast that Morningstar views as potentially conservative given current demand trends.

Infrastructure spending in North America remains a key driver, particularly as public-sector projects and private investment in energy and digital infrastructure continue to expand, he said. Reflecting these trends, Morningstar recently raised its fair-value estimate for Caterpillar shares into the low-$600 range, citing improved guidance and stronger end-market demand. 

The company’s evolving revenue mix also underscores its shift toward energy and power solutions. In 2024, Caterpillar’s energy and transportation segment generated about $28.8 billion in annual revenue, surpassing the company’s $25.5 billion reported by its traditional construction industries business for the first time, Fortune noted. The change highlights the growing importance of power generation and energy systems within Caterpillar’s portfolio.

Caterpillar, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, is still fundamentally a cyclical business that rises and falls with the global economy. But for now, Caterpillar might be the most surprising beneficiary of a boom that doesn’t look like it’s ending anytime soon.
 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Shoppers increased their spending in February before gasoline prices spiked because of the attacks on Iran by the U.S. and Israel.

Retail sales rose a better-than-expected 0.6% in February, from a revised 0.1% decline in January, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

Retail analysts say it was a strong showing given that inflation has rattled American households, but that the war in Iran may have dented the psyche of consumers with spending on gasoline racing higher over the past five weeks.

“While the overall numbers are good and suggest a continued trajectory of reasonable expansion for retail, they do not reflect the problems that have arisen since the start of the Iran conflict,” wrote Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData. “Since the start of March our own numbers show that consumer sentiment has soured and that rising gas prices are starting to spook consumers.”

This week the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline eclipsed $4, the first time it’s done so since 2022, and it jumped another 4 cents overnight to $4.06, according to motor club AAA.

Yet before the Iran war began, sales at motor vehicle and auto parts dealerships rose a solid 1.2% in February. Excluding that sector, retail sales rose 0.4%

Business at clothing and accessories stores rose 2%, while sales at electronics and appliance stores were up 0.5%. Sales at online retailers rose 0.7%. And business at health and personal care stores were up 2.3%

The snapshot offers only a partial look at consumer spending and doesn’t include things like travel and hotel stays. But the lone services category – restaurants – registered an increase of 0.4%.

“This was a solid report,” Ksenia Bushmeneva, economist at TD Bank Group, wrote in a report published on Wednesday.

He noted that higher gas prices at the pump will likely lift overall sales in March since the government retail sales figures are not adjusted for inflation. But he said “real spending might take a hit as consumers look to offset higher fuel costs with reduced spending discretionary items, with spending on travel and recreation the most likely areas to be cut.”

The Iran war began Feb. 28 and has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, is up more than 45% since the start of the war. The cost of diesel fuel has risen faster than gasoline, driving up the cost of transportation for companies. Economists expect a related bump in inflation, potentially as soon as this month.

Economists had believed that an unusually large jump in tax refunds would kick start spending at the start of the year. But spiking gas prices will take a bite of that money.

“The hit to real incomes from higher gas prices is especially regressive, hurting lower-income households disproportionately, while the lift from tax refunds is more evenly spread,” Samuel Tombs, chief economist at Pantheon Economics, wrote in a recent report. “Moreover, refunds will slow to a trickle by late April, providing little protection if high prices persist.”

Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy, which tracks fuel prices, noted that the way to gauge the impact of gas prices is how much gas expenditures account for a shopper’s income. He said that gas prices are approaching 3% of household medium income.

“When that gets up to about 4, 4 1/2, 5%, that’s really when people really start trimming back on some of their discretionary purchases,” he said.

Some retailers are already warning of the impact on their customers if gas prices keep rising.

Daniel Erver, CEO of Hennes & Mauritz, said last week that the Swedish fast fashion chain expects energy prices will have a “significant impact on the consumer behavior” if the war is prolonged.

And Darren Rebelez, CEO of the convenience store chain Casey’s General Stores, told investors last month that a significant pullback in customer spending is unlikely unless gas approaches $5 per gallon.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A quadruple amputee professional cornhole player acted in self-defense when he shot and killed a passenger in his car during a heated argument, his attorney said Wednesday.

Dayton James Webber, 27, appeared in Charles County District Court via videoconference for the bail review Wednesday, where Judge Patrick Devine noted that he left Maryland after the March 22 shooting of 27-year-old Bradrick Michael Wells and ordered Webber to remain jailed without bail.

Webber, who was extradited from Virginia and is charged with first- and second-degree murder, hasn’t entered a plea yet and is due in court for a May 6 preliminary hearing. He also faces assault and firearm charges.

Defense attorney Andrew Jezic told the court that Webber acted in self-defense and that he anticipates “a lengthy trial” to prove it.

After the hearing, Jezic told reporters that his client was “terrified.”

“The truth here is that he would have been a murder victim if he had not acted immediately in defense of his life,” Jezic said.

Family members of Webber declined to comment after the hearing.

Webber, whose arms and legs were amputated when he was 10 months old to save his life after he contracted a serious blood infection, is accused of shooting Wells, of Waldorf, twice in the head during an argument, according to police charging documents.

Karen Piper Mitchell, a deputy state’s attorney, said witnesses in the car told authorities the argument was over a gun that a friend of Wells had stolen from Webber, and that Webber was upset Wells was still friends with the thief.

In arguing that Webber should remain in custody, Mitchell noted that he drove to Virginia after the shooting and owns firearms.

According to the charging documents, Webber pulled over after the shooting in La Plata, Maryland, and asked two backseat passengers to help pull the victim out, but they refused, got out of the car and flagged down police officers.

Webber fled with the victim still in the car, the Charles County sheriff’s office said. Two hours later, a resident in Charlotte Hall, about 10 miles (16-kilometer) away, found Wells’ body in a yard along a road and notified officers.

Detectives tracked down Webber’s car in Charlottesville, Virginia, and found Webber at a hospital where he was “seeking treatment for a medical issue,” the sheriff’s office said.

Webber was featured by ESPN in 2023 in a story of inspiration, noting he rode dirt bikes, wrestled and played football before becoming a professional cornhole player. The same year, he wrote an essay for the “Today” show about how he became a professional competitor. He said he learned to grab the bean bag by the corners and throw it using his amputated arms.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Tiger Woods said Tuesday he is stepping away to seek treatment, four days after his vehicle crashed in Florida and he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. He will miss the Masters for the second straight year.

“This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery,” Woods said in social media posts.

Woods pleaded not guilty in his driving under the influence case in Florida on Tuesday, hours after a sheriff’s report said deputies found two pain pills in his pocket and he showed signs of impairment after his SUV clipped a trailer and rolled over on its side.

The online court docket for Martin County showed Woods entered a written plea of not guilty and planned to waive his April 23 arraignment hearing.

It’s the second time Woods has taken a leave following a car crash. In 2009, after his SUV plowed into a fire hydrant and tree outside his home near Orlando, he took a leave of absence to work on being a better person. That lasted four months and he returned at the Masters.

Woods showed signs of impairment

Woods’ eyes were bloodshot and glassy, his pupils dilated and he had opioid pills — identified as hydrocodone — on him when interviewed at the scene of the crash, according to the arrest report released by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office.

Woods’ movements were slow and lethargic, he was sweating as he talked to deputies in the back seat of an air-conditioned car and he told them he had taken prescription medication earlier in the morning, according to the report.

Woods told deputies he had been looking at his phone and fiddling with the radio moments before he hit the trailer, the report said.

Woods has not played an official event since the 2024 British Open. He was recovering from a seventh back surgery in October and was trying to return at the Masters, where he is a five-time champion.

“I’m committed to take the time needed to return in a healthier, stronger and more focused place, both personally and professionally,” Woods said in his statement.

Woods will not be in Augusta, Georgia, where he was to appear with Masters chairman Fred Ridley to celebrate the opening of a refurbished municipal course that involved Woods, or for the prestigious Masters Club dinner for champions.

“Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament fully support Tiger Woods as he focuses on his well-being. Although Tiger will not be joining us in person next week, his presence will be felt here in Augusta,” Ridley said in a statement.

He is taking a break from the PGA Tour board

That means a break from more than just golf. He serves a key role on the PGA Tour board by leading its Future Competition Committee reshaping the schedule. A tour spokesman said Woods did not take part in Tuesday’s meeting, and the work would continue in his absence.

“Over the last year, I have come to deeply appreciate Tiger not only for his impact on the game, but for his friendship and the perspective he has shared with me as I joined the golf industry,” said PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, who started last summer. “My thoughts are with him and his family as he takes this step, for which he has my full respect and support.”

Woods’ defense attorney, Douglas Duncan, didn’t respond to an email and phone call after the plea was entered Tuesday.

Woods was traveling at high speeds on a beachside, residential road on Jupiter Island with a 30 mph (nearly 50 kph) when the accident occurred. The truck had $5,000 in damage, according to the report.

The truck driver and another person helped Woods out of his vehicle through the passenger window. Neither Woods nor the truck driver were injured.

The failed sobriety test

During a field sobriety test, deputies noticed Woods limping and that he had a compression sock over his right knee. Woods explained he had undergone seven back surgeries and over 20 surgeries on his right leg, and that his ankle seizes up while walking.

Woods, who was hiccupping during questioning, continuously moved his head during one of the sobriety tests and deputies had to tell him several times to keep his head straight, the report said.

“Based on my observations of Woods, how he performed the exercises and based on my training, knowledge, and experience, I believed that Woods normal faculties were impaired, and he was unable to safely operate the motor vehicle,” the deputy wrote after the tests.

Woods, 50, is the most influential figure in golf and has become as recognizable as any athlete in the world. The first person of Black heritage to win the Masters in 1997, he has captivated golf fans with records likely never to be broken.

But his injuries have kept him from accomplishing more, including those suffered in the 2021 car crash in Los Angeles that damaged his right leg so badly he said doctors considered amputation.

At this latest crash, Woods agreed to a Breathalyzer test that showed no signs of alcohol, but he refused a urine test, authorities said. He was arrested and released on bail eight hours later.

Woods, who has been involved in four crashes over the years, is charged with driving under the influence with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test.

Under a change to Florida law last year, refusing a law enforcement officer’s request to take a breath, blood or urine test became a misdemeanor, even for a first offense.

___

AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson in Jacksonville, Florida, contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

You’re probably sick of reading about artificial intelligence, maybe especially from this byline. But amid all the discussion, hype, and hysteria, Goldman Sachs economists Sarah Dong and Joseph Briggs have a sobering dose of reality in the data: Fewer than 19% of U.S. establishments have adopted it.

The Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey, as reported in Goldman’s March 2026 AI Adoption Tracker, shows that the figure is essentially flat from the prior month, though it is expected to rise to 22.3% over the next six months. It shows that adoption, while growing, has yet to reach the tipping point that would make AI a standard workplace tool rather than a competitive advantage reserved for early movers. But the data also suggests that, when used correctly, it saves a huge amount of time.

Enterprise workers who use AI are getting back nearly an hour a day, according to data from OpenAI dated December 2025. Specifically, Goldman reported that employees at companies with ChatGPT enterprise accounts save an average of 40 to 60 minutes per day thanks to AI, and 75% say they can now complete tasks they previously couldn’t do at all. The catch, of course, is that almost no one is doing this yet.

“We continue to observe large impacts on labor productivity in the limited areas where generative AI has been deployed,” the Goldman economists wrote, going on to essentially agree with the OpenAI disclosure. “Academic studies imply a 23% average uplift to productivity, while company anecdotes imply slightly larger efficiency gains of around 33%.”

Put simply: The companies using AI are pulling ahead, and most of their competitors aren’t even in the race yet.

The adoption gap is widening

The adoption divide isn’t just between industries—it’s also stark by company size. Firms with more than 250 employees report an AI adoption rate of 35.3%, more than double that of smaller establishments. But smaller businesses are starting to close the gap: Companies with 20 to 49 employees saw the largest recent increase in adoption, jumping 2.1 percentage points to 21.5%.

The sectors leading adoption are predictable—information services, professional services, finance and insurance, and education. Computing and web hosting firms top the list at 60% adoption. But broadcasting companies are expected to see the biggest surge over the next six months, according to Goldman’s analysis of Census Bureau data, signaling that the media and content industries are on the verge of a significant AI-driven transformation.

What most companies are missing

To be sure, the picture isn’t uniformly rosy. As Fortune reported last month, AI tools are also adding significant cognitive load for many workers, with time spent on some tasks increasing by as much as 346%, and deep-focus work hours dropping 2%. The time savings, it turns out, are often immediately reinvested in more work, not less.

Fortune also previously reported that some firms deploying AI are now completing product cycles that previously took 24 to 36 months in as little as six months—a compression of time-to-market that’s difficult to reverse once a rival has achieved it.

For the roughly 81% of U.S. firms not yet using AI, the data suggests they are leaving a substantial productivity dividend on the table. OpenAI’s enterprise figures show that its business users are now sending 30% more messages than they were just months ago—a signal that once workers start using the tools, engagement compounds quickly.

These stakes aren’t lost on the C-suite. A Fortune survey of CFOs published last week found that executives privately expect AI-attributed layoffs to be nine times as high in 2026 as current public figures suggest—even as many of those same CFOs acknowledged a persistent gap between the productivity gains they expected from AI and what they have actually measured so far.

The Goldman Sachs data, which shows real productivity acceleration in industries with higher adoption rates, suggests that the gap may be closing—but only for firms that have actually deployed the tools and done so correctly. To that point, Fortune reported last week that 77% of enterprises are actively pursuing AI initiatives—but many don’t know how to evaluate, procure, or deploy the tools effectively, leaving significant spending without measurable return.

The barriers to adoption are well-documented: insufficient employee skills, data security concerns, and difficulty identifying the right use cases, according to surveys from Deloitte, Gartner, and Bain & Company. But those barriers are softening. Bain found that more than 80% of reported AI use cases now meet or exceed expectations—a figure that undercuts the skepticism still common in many boardrooms.

For executives still evaluating whether to invest in AI tooling, Goldman Sachs’ data offers a clear warning: Firms that have already deployed AI are beginning to show measurable productivity gains relative to those that haven’t.

The 40 to 60 minutes a day that AI saves isn’t just a worker convenience. Across a team of 50, that’s roughly 33 to 50 hours of recovered productivity—every single day. The companies already capturing that aren’t waiting for the technology to mature. They’ve decided the risk of waiting is greater than the risk of moving.

There’s a more human dimension to that calculus, too. As Fortune reported in January, many workers whose productivity has genuinely improved with AI still describe a quiet sense of loss—of craft, of autonomy, of the slower rhythms that once defined skilled work. That hour they’re getting back, some say, doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to them anymore.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

After a four-year hiatus, Warren Buffett will once again host his annual charity lunch auction, and this time, he’s got some high-profile names to help him co-host. 

Stephen Curry, four-time NBA champion of the Golden State Warriors, and his wife, Ayesha Curry, a best-selling author and lifestyle entrepreneur, are partnering with Buffett for the exclusive lunch this year.

Buffett is reviving the auction, which has raised more than $53 million since it began in 2000, offering bidders a chance to win a lunch with the famed billionaire investor, this year dubbed “A Seat at the Table.” Buffett stepped away from the auction in 2022 after raising $19 million that year alone. The proceeds will be equally split with Buffett’s longtime partner GLIDE, a San Francisco-based social justice nonprofit that aids homeless individuals, and the Currys’ Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation. 

“Over the years, I’ve seen how the business community and innovative nonprofits can work together to create real change, and I’ve always believed in supporting organizations that are making a meaningful difference,” Buffett wrote in a statement. “This event is about coming together again—in a new way—with people I admire, to support work that truly matters. Partnering with Stephen and Ayesha to help launch something new in support of these communities is something I’m very happy to be part of.

Bidding starts on eBay on May 7 at 7:30 p.m. PDT and will close on May 14. The winner and up to seven guests will join Buffett and the Currys for lunch in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 24, 2026.

Previous winners include Ted Weschler, now a top investment manager at Berkshire Hathaway, and hedge fund manager David Einhorn. Every winning bid since 2008 has surpassed $1 million, but in the auction’s earlier days, $25,000 could buy you lunch with the Oracle of Omaha. 

Building a partnership

Buffett reached out to the Currys over the holidays after their foundation caught his attention, Eat. Learn. Play. CEO Chris Helfrich told Fortune. 

“For us, this is about using the platform we’ve been given to create something bigger than ourselves,” Stephen and Ayesha Curry said in a statement. “With this incredible auction, we are excited to turn this moment into real impact for students and families throughout the Bay Area community. Eat. Learn. Play. was built on the idea that every child deserves the chance to thrive, and by partnering with Warren and his incredible team alongside GLIDE, together we can extend our efforts and impact even further.” 

In just seven years, the foundation has distributed more than 25 million meals to kids and families in Oakland, the Currys’ adopted hometown. 

Only about a third of Oakland’s public school students read at grade level, which has inspired Eat. Learn. Play. to invest heavily in early literacy programs. The organization provides one-on-one professional tutoring to thousands of students three to five days a week, Helfrich said. The foundation is also remodeling more than 25 public elementary schoolyards in the Oakland Unified School District and has completed 15 new playgrounds, so far.  

“It’s safe to say that if this becomes an annual thing, that would be a dream for us,” Helfrich said. 

Continuing a legacy

The charity lunch has become one of Buffett’s signature philanthropic events, but it all started with his first wife, Susan Thompson Buffett. 

Susan volunteered at GLIDE, which is home to a host of social justice and community services, including daily free food assistance, helping people transition out of homelessness, and addiction recovery programs. 

“None of us knew who she was. We knew her name was Susie. She would come in, and she served meals in the kitchen,” GLIDE President and CEO Gina Fromer told Fortune. Volunteering turned into a years-long partnership before Susan passed in 2004, and Buffett continued the auction for years afterward. 

After stepping away from the auction in 2022, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took over the lunch for two years, raising $1.5 million in 2024.  

“I just think he came back, because he never left,” Fromer said. “He always watched and saw that the community of San Francisco, the revitalization coming back from COVID [and] how important GLIDE’s role has been in that.” 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

One of the most influential investors in crypto wants a bigger slice of the burgeoning prediction markets space. Venture capital firm Paradigm is developing a prediction markets trading terminal, according to sources familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity to talk about private business dealings. Arjun Balaji, a partner at the venture firm, is leading the initiative, which will cater to professional traders and market makers, according to the sources, who say he’s been working on the project since late 2025.

Balaji did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Paradigm declined to comment.

The trading-terminal project comes at a time when mainstream financial institutions are scrambling to take advantage of the growing popularity of prediction markets, which let traders speculate on the results of sports games, elections, and even the price of Bitcoin. 

Paradigm has also mulled whether, in addition to creating a trading terminal, it should establish an internal market-making desk in the prediction markets space, said two sources. 

In addition, a third source familiar with Paradigm said the venture firm is working with researchers to explore the feasibility of creating prediction market indexes. This would entail bundling multiple prediction markets together into one tradable package, much like the S&P 500 combines the stocks of 500 companies into one index. The venture capital firm has already begun collecting prediction market data into a public dashboard.

Kalshi and Polymarket

Paradigm has been a prominent backer of Kalshi, one of the two leading prediction markets. The venture capital firm joined three successive raises for Kalshi in 2025 and led the funding round in December that valued Kalshi at $11 billion. Now, Kalshi has raised at least $1 billion in a new financing round that values the business at $22 billion.

Matt Huang, the venture firm’s cofounder and managing partner, is on the startup’s board of directors. Paradigm’s development of a prediction markets trading terminal isn’t competitive with Kalshi’s platform, said a source.

Archrival Polymarket has also exploded in growth and is in talks to raise a new round of funding at a roughly $20 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, there is even a new venture firm focused solely on prediction markets, backed by the CEOs of both prediction markets.

Paradigm’s push into prediction markets also comes as the firm continues to expand beyond its historical remit of digital assets into other sectors in tech. The firm is raising as much as $1.5 billion for a new fund that will not only focus on crypto but also AI and robotics, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

The venture firm has a history of incubating its own projects. In 2024, Paradigm CTO Georgios Konstantopoulos launched the crypto software development company Ithaca and served as the startup’s CEO. And more recently, Paradigm has partnered with fintech giant Stripe to build Tempo, a high-speed blockchain designed for stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets like the U.S. dollar. 

Huang, the venture firm’s managing partner, is leading the project. Tempo employed around 70 staffers in early March, said a source familiar with the business.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Who ever said that younger generations were impulsive spenders?

RTB House’s 2026 US consumer study “Before They Buy” reveals that 50% of Gen Z customers dwell on what’s in their cart for two or more days before committing to a purchase. Meanwhile, only 24% of boomers reported mulling over their purchasers for that long.

Overall, 40% of new shoppers visit e-commerce sites with a clear item in mind, while the other 60% are simply browsing or have a more flexible intent, suggesting most consumers simply do not know what they want to buy.

And although the younger cohort was giving its purchases a fair amount of thought, the survey, which recorded responses from 1,000 shoppers across the US, also found that both Gen Z and millennials are 50% more likely to spend more in the future versus older generations.

“Everything in today’s e-commerce environment is being driven by increased intensity of the research phase and true generational divides during the current macroeconomic environment,” Jaysen Gillespie, VP of product marketing and analytics at RTB House, said in a statement. “Marketers can no longer rely on broad assumptions about their potential customers. To win, brands must meet their customers across all devices and out-maneuver competitors during the critical research phase.”

The proclivity for research among Gen Zers also extends beyond their computers. Per a 2025 YouGov survey, 69% of Gen Z said they started their “decision-making” process when considering a purchase online, but 53% actually still went to a store to browse.

The findings come in light of rising costs and tightening consumer budgets. Recent reporting from USA Today found that shoppers were exhausted by inflation and tariff-driven price increases.

This report was originally published by Retail Brew.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Shake Shack is adding more artificial intelligence to the burger chain’s menu. 

On Wednesday, the company announced “Project Catalyst,” a four-pillar initiative that will prioritize technology investments on digital systems, AI, and data to improve service speed and accuracy, generate insights that will make it easier for operators to run their restaurants, and offer more AI-driven personalized promotions to lure diners. Shake Shack says these investments are critical to help the business as it plots an expansion of the concept to 1,500 company-operated locations. 

“We’re opening a lot of new Shacks,” says Justin Mennen, who has served as chief information and technology officer at Shake Shack since January 2025. “What brought the company from one to 400 Shacks is probably a little different than what’s going to bring it from 400 to 1,500. We need to have a very efficient technology stack to power operators.”

Mennen says he’s especially focused on what he calls practical AI, which will include use cases that can simplify workflows for the corporate team, eliminate manual tasks, and help restaurant operators make better decisions. These new tools include Ask Shack, an internal knowledge-based AI chatbot that’s currently in pilot. One way that Ask Shack is currently being used is to help the real estate team analyze new restaurant locations.

Within the restaurant itself, Mennen says he intends that AI will be used to monitor data from disparate parts of the business—drive-thru orders, the queue at the kiosk, and in-store demand—and then make recommendations to shift labor to prioritize the most urgent tasks. When making these investments, Mennen says he wants to see a better guest experience, more accurate and faster orders, and more precise promotions through Shake Shack’s newly launched loyalty program.

Ideally, restaurant team members won’t even know that they’re working closely with AI. “They shouldn’t have to understand whether it’s an AI agent,” says Mennen.

Another pillar of Shake Shack’s Project Catalyst involves integrating a new vendor, Qu, a restaurant technology company that sells a consolidated, cloud-based point of sale system to handle all orders across online, app, and kiosks. Mennen says that Shake Shack tested Qu in the company’s restaurant labs in its Atlanta and New York offices, where the chain tests various technology solutions. He’s now piloting the technology to ensure all POS use cases are covered and anticipates making adjustments before Qu is fully rolled out.

Qu’s technology will make it easier for Shake Shack to add limited-time menu items to the chain’s digital menu boards, give operators more visibility into order flow, and help handle the massive swell in orders that are made at kiosks. Shake Shack, like many restaurant chains, made a big investment in kiosks after the pandemic and that channel is now larger than in-person ordering with a cashier.

The two remaining areas of focus for Project Catalyst are the chain’s new loyalty program rollout and an effort to unite operational data, guest behavior, and analytics. Mennen declined to quantify whether the investments in Project Catalyst were an increase from Shake Shack’s baseline IT spending.

Shake Shack’s efforts to lean on technology to more efficiently run restaurants comes as the broader industry faces increased expenses that have been exacerbated by tariffs, higher rents, and increased wages. Over the past two years, restaurant and takeout costs have climbed at a faster pace than grocery channels, according to consulting giant McKinsey.

Larger chains including Starbucks, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King have also unveiled AI initiatives that have included AI-enabled headsets, using the technology to help predict when equipment maintenance issues occur, and to support drive-thru orders. The latter has been a particular popular AI use case, though results have been very mixed.

Another technological area of focus for the industry has been robotics, autonomous systems that can whip up fries or salads, serve as a waiter, or more commonly, be used for food delivery. Shake Shack has explored some partnerships in this space, including leveraging Serve Robotics’ autonomous robots to handle online deliveries from apps like Uber Eats in select markets like Los Angeles and Jersey City, New Jersey. But Mennen says that robotics aren’t a core priority.

“Project Catalyst is really, from an AI standpoint, focused on practical use that’s going to drive more immediate ROI for us,” says Mennen.

John Kell

Send thoughts or suggestions to CIO Intelligence here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

A judge on Wednesday granted Luigi Mangione only a slight delay of his federal trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, moving it from September to October instead of next year, as his lawyers had wanted.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett tied her decision to the schedule of Mangione’s state murder trial, which is set to begin June 8 and take four to six weeks. She rejected a defense request to postpone the federal case until January or February 2027 so that it could then seek to delay the state case until September.

Mangione’s lawyers had argued that back-to-back trials on a compressed timeline would violate his constitutional rights. However, Garnett said their proposal to push the federal case into 2027 and slot the state case in its place doesn’t “solve any of these problems because it shifts the very same problems from the summer to the fall.”

Jury selection in the federal case will begin on Oct. 5 instead of Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 26 instead of Oct. 13, Garnett said. The schedule could change again if the state trial is delayed, she said.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty. He faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted in either case.

“There really is no way around taking into account the events in the state case,” Garnett said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court. However, she said, “I am skeptical of moving the (federal) trial wholesale into 2027 when the state trial has not been adjourned. it is a little bit of a tail wagging the dog.”

Along with the new trial date, Garnett compressed preparations for jury selection in the federal case so that they don’t overlap with the state trial, giving Mangione more time to review questionnaires filled out by hundreds of potential jurors.

The judge in the state case, Gregory Carro, previously raised the possibility of moving the state trial to September — but only if federal prosecutors appealed Garnett’s decision barring them from seeking the death penalty. They declined to do so.

Garnett’s ruling on Wednesday leaves Carro little room to delay the state trial, and pushing it until after the federal trial could raise double jeopardy concerns.

The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. The cases involve different charges but the same alleged course of conduct.

At a court hearing in February, Mangione spoke out against the prospect of two trials, telling the judge: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind.

Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used by critics to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later after he was spotted eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

His lawyers have argued that authorities prejudiced his case by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle, including by having armed officers parade him up a Manhattan pier after he was flown to New York and by publicly declaring their desire to seek the death penalty before he was indicted.

In January, Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge — murder through use of a firearm — that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it legally flawed.

The judge, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, also threw out a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com