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During the first years of the pandemic, while many companies embraced remote work, the early employees of Whisper Aero, an aerospace technology startup, moved in together. 

“There was a big risk where we could have ended up hating each other,” said Mark Moore, the company’s founder and CEO. 

Prior to starting Whisper Aero, Moore ran engineering at Uber Elevate, a division at the ride-sharing company aimed at developing flying taxis that’s since been spun off into a separate company. 

“The last year that I was at Uber Elevate, I was doing a lot of traveling,” said Moore. While he was traveling in Tennessee and thinking about his next steps, a property in Cumberland County, Tennessee, caught his eye. 

“I saw this resort on a gorgeous lake right by the airport that was in foreclosure, and I’m like, ‘Man, that would be a really cool place to start the company,’” said Moore. “And so I bought it.”

He purchased the 20-acre resort for around $1.1 million, which is comparable to the median home price in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was living. “All the engineers just moved in, and we started Whisper Aero,” he said. 

“Marketplace” profiled Cumberland County as part of our series “The Age of Work” which is about the opportunities — and challenges — created by an aging workforce. Cumberland County has one of the oldest labor forces in the U.S., according to payroll processor ADP. It’s a retirement destination where about 1 of every 3 residents is 65 or older. It’s not the type of place you’d typically find tech startups with Silicon Valley roots. 

“We were sequestered kind of out in the boonies,” said Moore. “And I say that lovingly.”

The company eventually outgrew the resort and moved into a facility in downtown Crossville, the county’s biggest town. 

Moore said that convincing employees to stay in Cumberland County became increasingly difficult. “Look, small town living is not for everyone,” he said. “I love it. But, you know, we have a lot of single engineers who are, you know, Ph.D.s from Stanford and [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], and frankly, the dating life in Crossville was not too exciting for them.”

To make recruiting easier, Whisper Aero opened a satellite office in Nashville. “It’s about an hour and a half away between the two offices, but it really works well to give employees the maximum choice of what their lifestyle is,” said Moore. 

Click the audio player above to hear “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal’s conversation with Mark Moore and tour Whisper Aero’s facility in Crossville, Tennessee. 

There’s a hard and fast rule about bonds that you may notice every day when Marketplace does the numbers and talks about the 10-year Treasury note: bond prices and bond yields — the interest rates they pay — move in opposite directions. That means if interest rates go up, the value of existing bonds automatically goes down.

That was a big factor behind the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank two years ago. Interest rates rose and so the value of the bonds the bank was holding as assets tumbled.

Banks are still holding on to plenty of exactly those kinds of losses, according to a new report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In fact, those unrealized losses jumped last quarter by a third as interest rates rose.

When trillions of dollars of government relief aid went out early in the pandemic, a lot of it ended up being deposited in banks across the country. Banks then had to figure out what to do with that money.

“We sat on our deposits for quite a while, and then ultimately decided that well, the money’s sticking around, it’s a little bit stickier than we thought it was going to be, let’s put it to work,” said Chris Duncan, chief lending officer at La Salle State Bank in Illinois.

Duncan said there wasn’t much demand for loans at the time, so the bank decided to invest a big chunk of those deposits in five- to 10-year government bonds, which at the time were paying next to nothing in interest.

But then, the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. All of the sudden, those low-interest bonds the bank owned were worth less.

“You can imagine there is no one out in the market that is looking to purchase that very low interest rate-bearing security, when they could now go out on the market and buy a security that’s earning them a much higher interest rate,” Duncan said.

Duncan said he had hoped that interest rates might come down a bit more than they have. But they haven’t.

“We have not seen our unrealized loss position in our securities portfolio reduce as much as maybe we would have anticipated a year ago,” Duncan said.

If a bank needs to sell off any of those securities to scrounge up some cash, for instance, it’d have to do so at a loss, and take a chunk out of its profits.

“Your shareholders are upset, maybe it costs you more to borrow, maybe it’s harder for you to provide loans to your customers,” said Julie Hill, dean at the University of Wyoming College of Law.

But Hill emphasizes that’s only an issue if banks need to sell off their bonds. And right now, most of them are holding on to what they own.

“At some point, some of those securities are going to hit maturity and go away, and they won’t have been sold,” Hill said.

Once those bonds mature, the bank gets back the full amount that it invested.

Banks can afford to do that when they have plenty of excess capital they can use as a cushion.

Quentin Leighty, chief financial officer of First National Bank Colorado, said his bank has plenty of extra capital sitting around, in large part because he said his borrowers are paying back their loans just fine.

“That really is a driver for an environment where you’re building capital over time, because you’re not needing to put more aside for potential loan losses,” Leighty said.

Leighty said it also helps that most of the bank’s assets are invested in loans, rather than bonds. That’s because loans tend to have shorter terms and often allow banks to increase the interest rate.

“We get to experience the rising rate environment quicker with those,” Leighty said.

La Salle State Bank’s Chris Duncan said one strategy is to make more loans, in order to take advantage of today’s elevated interest rates. Another is to sell off some of its old low-interest bonds: taking the hit, and re-investing in new bonds with better yields.

“We feel, in five to 10 years, when rates have come down, those investments will still be earning much higher rates,” Duncan said. “And therefore, those securities will have value.” 

Hope is, Duncan said, that in five to 10 years, we’ll be talking less about unrealized losses, and more about unrealized gains.

Google is once again in the crosshairs of Republicans in Congress because of alleged censorship, Bloomberg writes. The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Google's parent company Alphabet and CEO Sundar Pichai for evidence of communication between the tech company and the Biden administration.

The subpoena specifically asks for documents covering communications between Alphabet and the executive branch, along with discussions Alphabet might have had internally or with third-parties about those communications. The Committee hopes to snowball the discovery that the Biden administration made requests to Meta to remove COVID-19 misinformation into a case for "new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users," the subpoena says. 

None of these concerns are particularly new. Pichai and other tech CEOs have been brought in front of Congress to explain things like content moderation, censorship and bias before. In the past, it's mostly seemed like a way for members of Congress to get sound bites, but the aggressive, retaliatory nature of the Trump administration might give these new demands more teeth. Helping to pay for Trump's inauguration and showing up for photos didn't get Google protection in the end, assuming it doesn't manage to wriggle out of the ongoing antitrust case against it.

Tech companies might be getting attention from Congress, but the idea that the current administration might want to make censorship demands doesn't appear to be a concern. President Trump has expressed interest in using the Take It Down Act, a bill designed to hold websites liable for hosting and not removing Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery (NCII), to eliminate any kind of speech he dislikes. The disastrous potential misuses of the law have been outlined by activists before, but the bill passed in the Senate and is now waiting to be taken up by the House.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/house-republicans-subpoena-google-over-alleged-censorship-212115140.html?src=rss

ChatGPT on macOS is about to become more useful for coding. With the latest update for the app (version 1.2025.057), ChatGPT can now edit code directly within an integrated development environment — no need to copy and paste. You can find the full list of supported IDEs on OpenAI's website, but some of the more notable inclusions are Apple's own Xcode, Visual Studio Code and offshoots of Jetbrains like Android Studio and PyCharm.       

According to OpenAI, IDE integration has been one of the most-requested features from macOS users since the company released its "works with app" framework back in November. If you're a Plus, Pro or Team subscriber, you can start using the integration today. As for Enterprise, Edu and Free users, look for the updated app to arrive next week. 

ChatGPT for macOS can now edit code directly in IDEs. Available to Plus, Pro, and Team users. pic.twitter.com/WPB2RMP0tj

— OpenAI Developers (@OpenAIDevs) March 6, 2025

Perhaps unsurprisingly this feature arrives just as "vibecoding" enters the popular lexicon. For the uninitiated, vibecoding is a form of coding that involves using AI tools like ChatGPT (and the power of vibes, of course) to program apps and games. While it might seem like a meme, vibecoding is very much a real thing. In a video titled "Vibe Coding is the Future," Jared Friedman, a managing partner at Y Combinator, said a quarter of the startup accelerator's W25 cohort have a code base that was 95 percent generated by AI. 

"This isn't a fad. This isn't going away. This is the dominant way to code. And if you are not doing it, you might just be left behind," Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator, added in the same video. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/chatgpt-for-macos-can-now-directly-edit-xcode-projects-201904659.html?src=rss

At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last June, Apple announced updates coming to its various operating systems, most of which focus on its own version of AI, dubbed Apple Intelligence. MacBooks will get macOS 15, aka Sequoia, that will support Image Playground, Apple’s image generation tool, and AI composition features that can rewrite, proofread and summarize text in Mail, Notes, Pages and more. But the AI smarts will only be available to Apple laptops with an M1 chip or newer. So if you have an older model (pre-2020), or want the latest chips to get the most out of macOS 15, you might want a new MacBook. This guide will help you pick which one makes the most sense for you.

After testing every model Apple makes, we think the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M3 chip and 16GB of RAM is the best choice for most people. But there are definitely reasons to consider the cheaper M2 Air and the fully featured Pro laptops. We’ve broken down all the options to help you decide which is the best MacBook for you.

Editor's note (3/6/25): Apple unveiled the new M4 MacBook Air earlier this week, featuring the new M4 processor, a base 16GB of RAM and a price cut to $999 for the entry-level model. Our current top picks here still stand, but we'll update this guide once we've put the new MacBook Air through its paces. You can currently pre-order the M4 MacBook Air, and it will become widely available on March 12.

Factors to consider when buying a MacBook

Compared to PCs, Apple computers tend to have more streamlined specifications. The company has long been known for this simplicity, and the M-series “system-on-a-chip” condenses things even further. It started with the M1 chip, which has since been retired in all models. The M2 and M3 chips can be found in current-generation MacBooks, but the latest Apple silicon, the M4 chip, is only housed in the new iPad Pro. All M-series chips combine, among other technologies, the CPU, graphics card and unified memory (RAM). Apple’s Neural Engine is included too, which is a specialized group of processor cores that handles machine learning tasks such as image analysis and voice recognition. 

While a unified chip means you have fewer decisions to make when picking a MacBook, there are still a few factors to consider, including specs like the number of CPU cores, amount of RAM, storage capacity, screen size, and, obviously, price. The finish color may be a minor consideration, but it's worth pointing out that the Pro come in just two colors (Silver or Space Gray) but the Air adds two additional hues (Midnight and Starlight).

CPU cores

Currently the lowest-specced chip in a MacBook is the M2 in the 13-inch MacBook Air. It comes with an 8-core CPU and either an 8- or 10-core GPU. At the other end of the spectrum, the M3 Max chip is built with up to a 16-core CPU and a 40-core GPU. Cores are, in essence, smaller processing units that can handle different tasks simultaneously. Having more of them translates to the computer being able to run multiple programs and applications at once, while also smoothly processing demanding tasks like video editing and high-level gaming. In short, more cores allow for more advanced computing and better performance. But if your processing power needs fall below professional-level gaming and cinematic video and audio editing, getting the highest number of cores is likely overkill — and after all, more cores equals higher cost and more power usage.

RAM

Your options for RAM, or in Apple’s terminology, Unified memory, varies depending on the chip you choose. The M2 and M3 chips can be paired with 8, 16 or 24GB of RAM. The M3 Pro chip has 18 or 36GB memory options, while the most powerful M3 Max chip supports 48, 64 or a whopping 128GB of RAM.

You’ve likely heard the analogy comparing memory to the amount of workspace available on a literal desktop surface, whereas storage is the amount of drawers you have to store projects to work on later. The larger the worktop surface, the more projects you can work on at once. The bigger the drawers, the more you can save for later.

More RAM is ideal for people who plan to work in multiple apps at once. And the more demanding each program is, the more RAM will be required. Extra memory can also come in handy if you’re the type who likes to have infinite numbers of tabs open on your browser. If your daily workflow doesn’t involve simultaneously using a vast number of memory-intensive programs, you can save yourself money and buy the RAM configuration that you’re most likely to actually use.

For casual users, 8GB may be enough, however, if you can afford an upgrade to 16GB of RAM, we recommend going doing so, as modern browsers tend to be pretty memory-hungry. Investing in more RAM now will give your new MacBook a longer lifespan of reliable use. It’s also important to keep in mind that, unlike most PCs, the RAM in current-model MacBooks is not user-upgradable, so you’ll want to get what you plan on needing at the outset.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget Storage capacity (SSD)

Storage options range from 256GB of SSD for the M2 MacBook Air and 8TB of storage for the MacBook Pros with the M3 Max chip. If you want to rotate between a long roster of game titles or keep lots of high-res videos on hand, you’ll want more storage. If you’re mostly working with browser- and cloud-based applications, you can get away with a smaller-capacity configuration. That said, we recommend springing for 512GB of storage or more, if it’s within your budget. You’ll quickly feel the limits of a 256GB machine as it ages since the operating system alone takes up a good portion of that space. Having 1TB will feel even roomier and allow for more data storage over the life of your laptop.

When Apple announced the iPhone 15, the company also announced new iCloud+ storage storage plans, with subscriptions that allow up to 12TB of storage. You could also transfer files to an external storage device. But if you don’t want to pay for a monthly subscription and prefer the convenience of having immediate access to your files, it’s best to get the highest amount of storage space your budget allows for at the outset.

Screen size

MacBooks come in 13-, 14-, 15- and 16-inch sizes. That might not seem like a huge difference, but, as Engadget’s Nathan Ingraham noted when he reviewed the now-retired 15-inch M2-powered MacBook Air, a larger screen "makes a surprising difference.” That’s especially true if you plan to use your laptop as an all-day productivity machine and won’t be using an external monitor. More space means you can more clearly view side-by-side windows and have a more immersive experience when watching shows or gaming.

But screen size is the main factor influencing weight. The 13-inch MacBook Air M2 weighs 2.7 pounds, whereas the top-end 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs 4.8 pounds. If you plan to travel a lot or swap your work locations regularly, a smaller screen will make life easier in the long run.

All MacBooks feature IPS LCD panels (in-plane switching, liquid crystal display), which Apple markets as Retina displays. The MacBook Air M1 has a Retina display. A Liquid Retina display comes with the M2 MacBook Air and the Liquid Retina XDR display comes with the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros. “Liquid” refers to the way the lighted portion of the display “flows” within the contours of the screen, filling the rounded corners and curving around the camera notch. “XDR” is what Apple calls HDR (high dynamic range).

Compared to most other laptops, MacBook displays are notably bright, sharp and lush. But one feature worth pointing out is another Apple marketing term: ProMotion. It’s the company’s term to describe a screen with a higher, 120Hz refresh rate, which results in smoother scrolling and more fluid-looking graphics. Only the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros offer ProMotion; the other models max out at 60Hz, which is perfectly fine for everyday browsing and typical workdays. But if you want buttery-smooth motion from your display, you’ll have to shell out more money for an upgrade.

Price

When the MacBook Air M3 came out, Apple dropped the price of the base-model, 13-inch, M2-powered Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. With a $999 starting price, it’s now the least expensive new MacBook you can get. Alternatively, you can spend up to $7,199 for the 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 Max with 128GB of RAM and 8TB of storage. Chip type, screen size, memory and storage capacity all influence the final price, which is why guides like this can help you determine just what you need (and what you don’t) so you can get the most cost-effective machine for you.

We recommend the MacBook Air M3 for most people, the MacBook Air M2 for students and those on a budget, and the 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pros for professionals. If you have extra money to spare once you’ve picked your machine, we recommend upgrading to at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage to make your machine as future-proof as possible.

Best MacBooks 

MacBook FAQs What's the difference between MacBook Air and Pro?

The MacBook Air comes with a standard M3 or M2 chip. MacBook Pro models have the option of more powerful M3 Pro or M3 Max chips. The Pro has a higher resolution screen with a higher peak brightness that supports XDR (extreme dynamic range). The battery life on most Pro models is longer than on the Air models. Pro models also have more ports and more speakers. In short, the MacBook Air is aimed at everyday users looking for good productivity and entertainment capabilities, while Pro models are aimed at professionals who need a high-performance computer.

What's the difference between macOS and Windows?

MacOS is the operating system developed by Apple and used in all of its desktop and laptop computers. It can only be found in hardware made by Apple including MacBooks and iMacs. Microsoft’s Windows operating system can be found in the company’s own Surface laptops as well as computers made by a wide array of manufacturers, like Acer, Asus, Dell and Razer.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/best-macbook-140032524.html?src=rss

If you own one of Victrola's high-end, Sonos-ready turntables from the last few years, your techie record player is about to get more versatile. The company said on Thursday that all of its "Works with Sonos" vinyl turntables will support Bluetooth, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and hi-fi Roon streaming through a software update.

The update will dramatically increase the streaming versatility of the Stream Carbon, Pearl and Onyx turntables. Meanwhile, Victrola says the ultra-premium Sapphire player, which also supports those standards, has already received the update. The company says it will install automatically, and the new options will appear in the section of the app where you previously only saw the option to pick a default Sonos speaker.

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

While the new capabilities are good news for anyone who spent anywhere from $600 to $1,500 on a hi-tech vinyl player, it seems curious (if not infuriating) that the premium gear launched without these capabilities despite having all the requisite hardware. And while the company framed the update as a natural continuation of its mission to help vinyl lovers, you could look at Sonos' calamitous year and speculate that Victrola calculated that hitching too many horses to that post might not be the best idea.

An incomprehensibly botched Sonos app update in May led to months of downward spiraling. Despite numerous attempts to plug holes, the debacle culminated in two rounds of layoffs and the departure of its CEO and chief product officer in January. Although Victrola launched cheaper Sonos-less alternatives to the same turntables months before Sonos' plummet began, it's easy to imagine it nervously eyeing that mess and deciding now is a good time to awaken the Sonos variants' dormant wireless capabilities.

"This update is a major step forward in our mission to blend the warmth of vinyl with the convenience of modern wireless audio," Victrola Scott Hagen wrote in a press release. "The Victrola Stream turntables have been the best option for Sonos users, and now we're extending that same effortless streaming experience to even more audio ecosystems. Vinyl lovers can now enjoy premium wireless flexibility without compromise."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/victrola-adds-more-wireless-options-to-its-sonos-compatible-turntables-181634084.html?src=rss

It's Thursday, which means there are some more PC games that Amazon Prime members can claim for free. Amazon has also revealed the entire slate of freebies that subscribers can snag throughout March, as well as the games they can stream at no extra cost on Amazon Luna.

Arguably the highest-profile additions of the month are available today in the form of Saints Row: The Third Remastered and Mafia II: Definitive Edition. As ever, nearly every game on the list is for PC, but since Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is claimable via the Microsoft Store, you'll be able to play that one on Xbox as well.

Mortal Shell is an RPG from a few years back that I'd been meaning to check out, so I'll be sure to pick that one up. Elsewhere, The Forgotten City is a mystery RPG that was originally a Skyrim mod. The standalone version debuted a few years ago to critical acclaim.

You typically have about a month to claim each of the games before they leave the lineup (meaning that you can still snag many of the February additions) Here's what you can snap up and when, along with the launcher you can play each game on:

Now

• Saints Row: The Third Remastered (GOG)

• Mafia II: Definitive Edition (GOG)

• Crime Boss: Rockay City (Epic Games Store)

• Naheulbeuk's Dungeon Master (Amazon Games App)

March 13

• Wall World (Amazon Games App)

• Syberia: The World Before (GOG)

• Endling - Extinction is Forever (Amazon Games App)

• Dark Deity: Complete Edition (GOG)

• Beholder 3 (Amazon Games App)

March 20

• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (Xbox and PC via Microsoft Store Code)

• Mutazione (GOG)

• Figment 2: Creed Valley (Amazon Games App)

• Legacy of Kain: Defiance (GOG)

• Mortal Shell (Epic Games Store)

March 27

• The Forgotten City (Amazon Games App)

• Deus Ex: Invisible War (GOG)

• Session: Skate Sim (Epic Games Store)

• Let's Build A Zoo (Epic Games Store)

• Gamedec - Definitive Edition (GOG)

• The Wisbey Mystery (Legacy Games Code)

Along with those games that Prime members can claim and keep forever (even if they cancel their plan), subscribers can stream a bunch of other titles via Amazon Luna. Along with staples like Fortnite, Trackmania and a couple of Fallout games, members can stream WRC Generations Fully Loaded Edition, Spitlings, The Jackbox Party Pack 3, Strange Horticulture and the utterly brilliant Overcooked! 2 throughout March. As a reminder, only Prime members in the US, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and Poland have access to these games on Luna.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/prime-gamings-march-freebies-include-saints-row-the-third-and-mafia-ii-remasters-180008526.html?src=rss

The Nintendo DS is one of the toughest consoles to emulate, for an obvious reason. It’s the two screens. This is even an issue with ports. Some developers avoid the problem by mushing everything together onto a single traditional screen, like the recently-released Castlevania Dominus Collection. However, gamers may finally have an affordable emulation solution, thanks to the MagicX Zero 40 handheld console.

On its surface, it’s yet another handheld emulator, but this one features a four-inch vertically-oriented 800x480 touchscreen display. This should allow players to accurately recreate the experience of playing DS games. That’s great news, as replacement parts for any of the DS's iterations are difficult to come by these days.

The MagicX Zero 40 runs on a 64-bit Android operating system and features 2GB of RAM and a battery that lasts for four to seven hours. As for storage, it supports flash cards up to 512GB. What about 3DS emulation? The specs sheet indicates there’s no support for Nintendo’s follow-up dual-screen handheld, but the Zero 40 will emulate games from all of the standard single-screen systems. These include the PSP, NES, SNES, Dreamcast and many more.

The Zero 40 is expected to be released this April, with an asking price of $75. Pre-orders were open, but are sold out for the time being. There’s another option for a dual-screen emulation, if you have deep pockets. The Ayaneo Flip DS will run Nintendo DS, 3DS and Wii U games, but starts at $739.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-magicx-zero-40-handheld-features-a-vertical-display-for-ds-emulation-175820385.html?src=rss

Everything about Sorry We’re Closed sets my little punk heart ablaze, from its low-poly 3D graphics and banging original soundtrack, to its casually epic storyline starring heartbroken club kids and horny demons. Sorry We’re Closed takes place around a bustling city of neon-splattered nightmares, and if I could, I’d move there immediately.

Michelle, an existentially lost and effortlessly cool twenty-something, is introduced to the spiritual world by The Duchess, an archdemon with thigh-high boots and a threatening allure. Michelle is marked as The Duchess’ love interest and cursed with a powerful Third Eye. The Duchess is cruel and desperate for love, and Michelle — still reeling from a breakup that rocked her world three years ago — has a limited amount of time to discover why she’s been chosen and how to escape the curse with her life intact.

The characters in Sorry We’re Closed are raw, funny and authentic, and their relationships are relatably messy. There's Oakley, the diner owner; Marty, the record shop manager; Clarissa, the dancer; Robyn, the local adventurer; Darrel, Oakley’s boyfriend and resident douchebag; and of course a cast of otherworldly beings. I feel like I know some of these people in my real life, and as for the rest, I’d love to meet them and help them chase their weird fantasies. Everything in this game is super stylish, from the blocky 3D avatars to the detailed, painterly icons that accompany their dialogue boxes. The city is populated by a diverse blend of genders and sexualities, and it feels both perfectly natural and deeply welcoming, like a stunning fever dream of what could be if The Gay Agenda finally got its way.

Again, it’s a world I’d love to live in.

Akupara Games

Michelle spends her time exploring the underworld and chasing the ghosts of The Duchess’ former victims — er, lovers — while gathering the strength to fight the archdemon head-on. There are four different endings in Sorry We’re Closed, and your decisions to help or hinder your friends will determine how things shake out in a tangible way. Many of the demons and angels in this world have sadistic streaks, and there are multiple scenes of bloody dismemberment and extreme body horror along Michelle’s journey. Choose your path forward wisely.

The game plays out in a fixed-camera perspective for exploration scenes, and switches to a dual-stick, first-person view for combat. Using a DualSense controller, you enter first-person view by holding down LT, and then shoot or swing with RT, using the right stick to aim. Michelle ends up with three weapons: a wolf-faced axe, a pistol and a shotgun. She also gets a powerful Heartbreaker attack, which builds up as she does damage and eventually allows her to unleash a devastating shot directly at an enemy’s heart. Collecting ammo and health is a constant task in Sorry We’re Closed, and first-person view is useful here, allowing Michelle to break and loot vases.

Akupara Games

Transitioning between third and first person feels nice and smooth, and the game does a great job of infusing classic Resident Evil-style gameplay with modern sensibilities. When it’s engaged, Michelle’s Third Eye lets her see and interact with an alternate reality, which appears in a circular pool around her. Demons that get caught in the Third Eye are briefly stunned, and their weak points become visible as stained-glass hearts. You’re only able to shoot weak points when Third Eye is engaged, but you can drop it at any time to attack with impunity. The length of the Third Eye stun can be extended by spending yowzas, the game’s currency, at the shop, which is run by a floating goat head. There are other basic upgrades for ammo and health capacities, which Michelle carries in the form of water bottles.

As Michelle travels deeper into The Duchess’ dimension, the environments become more M.C. Escher-like, and there are a series of puzzles to solve when you’re not actively battling demons. There’s nothing too tricky here, but there are little fetch quests and physical riddles to solve, and the reality-shifting mechanic of Michelle’s Third Eye keeps things interesting. There’s a perfect amount of variety in this game, with plenty of space to mess around with each new idea.

Akupara Games

I adore the way Sorry We’re Closed plays with perspective. It has standard top-down scenes, sure, but there are also cinematic shots peeking through the gaps in a chandelier, wide angles that show off the scale of some environments, head-on running scenes, and instances of beautiful but impossible physics, especially when The Duchess is involved. In case you couldn’t tell, I kind of fell in love with The Duchess, even though I know they would destroy me. Maybe because of that, even.

Sorry We’re Closed is campy, relatable, gruesome and gorgeous. You could say the same about The Duchess.

With today’s console launch, all versions of the game are getting rebalanced combat areas, improved controller sensitivity, aim assist options, fresh difficulties, a Time Attack mode and New Game+. Sorry We’re Closed is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, and there’s a premium physical edition for Switch and PS5 due out later this year, available to pre-order now. Sorry We’re Closed is the debut title from à la mode games, a two-person team based in Bournemouth, UK, and it’s published by Akupara Games.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/sorry-were-closed-ps5-review-oops-i-fell-in-love-with-an-archdemon-170040845.html?src=rss

If your subscriptions are getting out of control, you’re not alone. I feel it too: I pay for news sites, video streaming, music services, online magazines, my cat’s special food, charities and lots more — and that’s not including the stuff I’m forgetting about. Companies love the subscription model because it’s a reliable revenue stream. On the consumer side, auto-payments are certainly more convenient than sitting down with a checkbook to pay bills each month like a homemaker in the olden times. But in exchange for that convenience, everything you signed up for slowly and silently carves away at your bank account each month, possibly without you noticing.

It’s true that signing up for something is far easier than canceling — that’s by design. The FTC passed a rule that went into effect in January of 2025 requiring companies to make cancelling a subscription as easy as it was to sign up for it. It won’t go into effect until May 2025, and telecom companies immediately fired back with a lawsuit, so whether the rule will actually be enforced is anyone’s guess. That means it will still take some effort to get rid of the services you don’t use, but there are a couple of tactics that might make your efforts more effective. Here’s our advice on finding and cancelling your unneeded subscriptions.

First things first: Find out what subscriptions you have

Before putting this post together, I had no idea how many subscriptions I was paying for. Surprises included a coding game for my kid (that he no longer plays) and a British streaming app I’d gotten for one show (that I finished nearly a year ago). You, too, may not know what subscriptions are stealthily subtracting dollars from your accounts. One of the most comprehensive ways to see what you’re paying for is to look at your bank and credit card transactions, generating a search that includes every transaction in the previous full month. It may be a lot to scroll through, but each monthly subscription will appear at least once in that time frame.

Annual subscriptions can be tricker to track down. I was able to find most by searching for introductory emails, since most services send out an initial message confirming a new subscription. You can use the advanced search with the words “welcome” or “thank you” in the subject field, plus variations on the words “annual” “subscribing” and “membership” in the general or keyword search fields. You should get a decent idea of the things you’ve signed up for, but may have to wade through lots of promotional emails before you find the services you actually subscribed to. It could save you some time over searching through a year of bank statements.

Sometimes it’s helpful to simply see a list of common subscriptions people pay for (and often forget about). Here are a few:

Entertainment
• YouTube Premium
• Amazon Prime Video (or Prime in general)
• Netflix
• Disney+
• Pandora Premium
• Twitch Subscriber
• Crunchyroll

Gaming
• PlayStation Plus
• Xbox Game Pass
• Nintendo Switch Online

Work/Productivity
• LinkedIn Premium
• Adobe Creative Cloud
• Microsoft 365
• ToDo
• Evernote

Dating
• Tinder
• Grindr
• Bumble
• Hinge
• Raya

Food
• Hello Fresh
• Green Chef
• Blue Apron
• Doordash DashPass
• Uber Eats Uber One
• Monthly coffee, hot sauce and jerky boxes

How to cancel subscriptions

For the most part, the way you sign up for a subscription is the way you’ll cancel it. If you signed up for Strava or Minecraft Realms from your iOS device, you’ll need to cancel it through your Apple account. If you signed up for Netflix through its website, you’ll cancel there. Sometimes even the device you use matters. For example, if you signed up for Paramount Plus via your Fire TV Stick, you’ll go through your TV to cancel instead of through the Amazon mobile app.

Once you’ve determined where to go, the cancellation processes will nearly always involve logging in to your account and navigating to your profile, then your account settings so you can view and end your subscription.

Here are steps to cancel a few of the most popular subs.

From the Apple App Store or Google Play Store

When you pay for a subscription through an app store, the transaction will likely be listed as a payment to either Apple or Google, so it’s harder to see what you’re paying for using the banking suggestion above. Here’s how to see what you’ve subscribed to using the two major app marketplaces, plus how to cancel.

How to cancel subscriptions through Apple’s App Store
1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap your profile box at the top.
3. Tap on Subscriptions. Here, you’ll see your active and inactive subscriptions listed.
4. Tap the one you want to cancel and follow the prompts.

How to cancel subscriptions through Google’s Play Store
1. Open the Google Play app.
2. Tap your profile circle in the upper right.
3. Tap on Payments & Subscriptions.
4. Tap on Subscriptions.
4. You’ll see your active subscriptions and can decide which ones you no longer want.

How to cancel Amazon Prime Amazon

Amazon most recently raised the price of a Prime membership in 2022, bringing it to $15 per month or $139 per year. A membership gets you things like free shipping and access to Prime Video — though as of 2024, you’ll pay an additional $3 per month if you want to stream ad-free. If Prime isn’t worth it for you any longer, here’s how to cancel.

Through the Amazon app:
1. Tap the person icon at the bottom of the screen.
2. Tap on the Your Account button at the top of the screen.
3. Scroll down to and tap Manage Prime Membership under the Account Settings section.
4. You’ll be taken to a Prime page; tap Manage Membership in the drop-down menu at the top.
5. Select the Update, Cancel and More option, and tap End Membership. Here, you can also opt for a reminder to be sent three days before your next renewal if you don’t want to cancel right away.

Via a web browser:
1. Sign in to Amazon.
2. Hover over Accounts & Lists to the right of the search bar up top.
3. Click on Memberships & Subscriptions under Your Account.
4. You’ll see your Prime membership listed; click on the Prime Membership Settings button.
5. Click on Update, Cancel & More under Manage Memberships.
6. In the pop-up menu, click the End Membership button.

How to cancel Paramount Plus

Paramount Plus is one of the cheaper video streaming subscriptions out there, going for $6 per month for the ad-supported version or $12 for the ad-free version with Showtime. But if you just signed up to watch the Super Bowl and haven’t canceled yet, here's how to stop your sub. Remember if you signed up for Paramount Plus through Prime Video or through the App Store, you’ll need to cancel through the same platform.

1. Log in to your Paramount Plus account on a web browser.
2. Select the username in the upper right corner.
3. Click on Account and scroll down to Cancel Subscription.
4. Click on Cancel Subscription.

How to cancel Apple TV+ Apple

Probably the best thing about Apple TV+ is how lean it is. Sure, you may not want to watch everything on there, but the ratio of really good stuff to so-so fluff is far better than on most other services. But once you’ve gotten through Severance and Silo and Slow Horses, you may decide to save yourself the $10 per month.

Apple TV + requires an Apple ID to sign up, so the easiest way to cancel is through the Settings app on your Apple device. If you didn’t sign up through a Mac, iPad or iPhone or don’t have an Apple TV box, follow the PC instructions.

On an iPhone or iPad:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap your profile box at the top.
3. Tap on Subscriptions.
4. Tap either Apple TV+ or Apple One membership, depending on how you first signed up.
5. Select the subscription you want to cancel, then click the Cancel Subscription button.

On a Mac:
1. Open the App Store app.
2. Click on your name and profile image at the bottom left.
3. Click on Account Settings at the top of the screen.
4. In the pop-up window, scroll down to the Manage section and click the Manage link to the right of the word Subscriptions.
5. Select the Edit link next to the subscription you want to cancel, then click the Cancel Subscription button.

On an Apple TV box:
1. Open the Settings app from the home page.
2. Click on Users & Accounts.
3. Click on Subscriptions.
4. Find the subscription you want to cancel and follow the prompts.

On a PC:
1. Go to tv.apple.com and sign in.
2. Click on the account icon at the top of the page.
3. Click on Settings and scroll down to Subscriptions, then click Manage
4. Choose Cancel Subscription.

How to cancel an Audible membership

If you downloaded Audible as part of a free trial or grabbed it for a 12-hour road trip but haven’t used it much since, here’s how to stop paying $8 per month. If you didn’t sign up via Amazon or Audible and instead went through Apple’s App Store or Google Play, follow the instructions for how to cancel subscriptions through Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play store above.

Through Amazon:
1. Sign in to your Amazon account.
2. Hover over Accounts & Lists to the right of the search bar.
3. Click on Memberships & Subscriptions under YourAccount.
4. You’ll see your Audible membership listed; click the Audible Settings button.
5. Scroll down to Membership Options & Help and click on Cancel Membership.

Through Audible:
1. Sign in to your Audible account.
2. Hover over the link that says Hi [your name] and select Account Details from the menu.
3. You’ll see a box with your membership details; click on Cancel Membership.
4. Answer the “reason for canceling” question and follow the prompts.

How to cancel Spotify Premium Spotify

We still haven’t seen the "Supremium" lossless tier from the music streaming service, but a price hike did materialize. If you just want to go back to the free version, here's how.

You can change which tier you pay for through the app. But to cancel, you’ll need to go through a web browser. You can technically cancel through the app, but that involves deleting your account and all its data. If you want to preserve your playlists and just switch to the free version, do so with a mobile or desktop browser.

1. Head to Spotify on a web browser and log in.
2. If you haven’t logged in via the web before, you’ll see a button for Web Player or Account Overview; select Account Overview.
3. If you’re already in the Web Player, click either the gear icon (mobile browser) or your profile image (desktop browser) in the upper right corner and select Account.
4. Your subscription will appear in a box labeled Your Plan; click that box or scroll down to Manage Your Plan and click.
5. You’ll see your plan details, click the Cancel subscription button.

How to cancel YouTube TV

Pretty much every live TV streaming service has raised its prices over the past couple years. YouTube TV is no different. After starting at $35 per month at launch, it went up nearly every year to finally land at $83 with the latest price hike in December of 2024. If that’s edging too close to cable pricing, you can always cancel (after all, not requiring a contract is still one of streaming’s major advantages). And YouTube TV actually lets you cancel through the app.  

On an Android device:
1. Open the YouTube TV app.
2. Tap your profile circle at the top right.
3. Tap on Settings, then tap on Membership.
4. Under your membership details, tap Manage.
5. Click on Cancel Membership and follow the prompts.

Via a web browser:
1. Head to YouTubeTV.
2. Log in and click your profile circle in the top right.
3. Tap on Settings, then tap on Membership.
4. Under your membership details, tap on Manage next to Base Plan.
5. Click on Cancel Membership and follow the prompts.

Apps that can help

Some finance apps will track and manage your subscriptions for you. We looked into the bigger ones to see how they can help. One of our previous recommendations, Mint, shut down, but ones from Experian and Monarch Money have cropped up to take its pace. We tried out Rocket Money to see how the process works and detailed it below.

Just note that these apps cost money to handle subscription cancellation on your behalf — and adding another paid service to your life can feel absurd when you’re trying to do the opposite. You’ll also need to give the apps your banking information and your data may, in turn, be sold or shared with third parties for marketing.

A couple of other apps we tried don’t ask for your banking info. Instead you manually enter your subscription details. That’s certainly more private, but might not be saving you much effort in the long run.

Rocket Money

Owned by the same company as Rocket Mortgages, Rocket Money is a finance app that connects with your bank account and offers to help you budget and track your overall spending, in addition to managing your subscriptions. You’ll pay for the app using a sliding scale from $3 to $12 per month for the premium version, which includes automated cancellation and other features. To access the free version at sign-up, move the slider to the left until you reach $0.

Once you’ve linked your account, navigating to the Recurring tab gives you an overview of your subscriptions. I liked that you can access this using either the mobile or desktop app. After linking my accounts, it reminded me of an upcoming renewal for a magazine I don’t read and hosting fees for a website I no longer need. Canceling both of those would save me nearly $200 in a year. Unfortunately, my monthly Apple One payment and the Max access that I pay for through my Samsung TV didn’t show up as recurring subscriptions. That could be due to how my bank lists the transaction, but I’d like to have seen those on the list, too.

Next to each transaction is a three dot menu, which includes an option to “cancel this for me” for Premium subscribers. Click and you’ll see contact methods to handle it yourself or a button to have Rocket Money do it. After you provide your username and password for the service, you’ll get an email confirmation that tells you the process could take up to ten days to complete. When I had Rocket Money cancel Paramount Plus for me, I got an email later that night saying the cancellation was complete.

While it’s not a magic program that zaps your subscriptions away, Rocket Money could save you a few steps. Seeing (most of) your recurring charges together is also helpful for staying on top of things. It’s up to you whether the Premium charge (and taking on another subscription) is worth the cancellation service.

Reminder apps

There are other apps, like Bobby (iOS) and Tilla (Android), that don’t connect with your bank account. Instead, you enter the details of the subscriptions you already have and add new ones as you go. The apps will remind you about upcoming renewals and let you quickly see what you’re paying for, all in one place. Both are free to use but limit the number of subscriptions you can track until you upgrade, which costs a flat $4 for Bobby and $2 for Tilla. I feel like if you possess the diligence to keep apps like these up to date, you could just as easily use a spreadsheet or native apps like Apple or Google’s Reminders, though these are more colorful.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/how-to-find-and-cancel-your-unused-subscriptions-130036314.html?src=rss

Apple’s recently-released M4 Mac mini has dropped to a new record-low price. You can scoop one up for $529 via Amazon, which is a discount of 12 percent. This version ships with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. Other models are also on sale, as the one with 16GB/512GB now costs $700 and the beefy 24GB/512GB will now set you back $900 instead of $1,000.

We called the M4 Mac mini "shockingly small" and "incredibly powerful" in our official review, and that stands today. The chip is fast, which makes sense as it's Apple’s latest effort, and the smaller design doesn’t take up much desk space. That leaves plenty of room for a monitor, mouse and keyboard.

We like that these desktops don’t go any lower than 16GB of RAM, so any version will excel with music production, light video editing and other creative tasks. For real-deal video editing, you may want to pony up for the extra RAM or go with a model that’s been outfitted with the M4 Pro (which aren’t on sale.)

There are front-facing USB-C and headphone ports, which are nice, and plenty more connection options on the rear. On the downside, there’s no SD card reader, which is something that many teensy PCs include. The fan can also get pretty loud during heavy workloads.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-m4-mac-mini-drops-to-a-new-record-low-price-161333489.html?src=rss

Reddit has announced several new tools that seem like they were designed to encourage more lurkers to participate in discussions on the website. One of the new tools called Rules Check will make it easy to see if what you're posting potentially goes against a subreddit's rules. Before submitting your post, you can click the wand icon in the lower right-hand corner of the post composer, which you can see in the photo above. Doing that will highlight anything in your post that may be breaking a subreddit's rules. Reddit will start testing the feature on iOS and Android before giving it a wider release. 

Another new tool called Post Recovery will show you a prompt if your post has been removed due to community rules. The prompt will contain a notice of removal, along with a link that will enable you to quickly share your deleted post to a more appropriate subreddit. To make sure you're posting in the right community in the first place, Reddit will now suggest relevant communities based on what you write through a drop-down menu on the upper left corner of the composer screen. It will now also show you if a community has requirements, such as account age or minimum karma points, before you can post. 

The last tool is perhaps most useful if you promote products and services on Reddit. Post Insights will show you how many views, upvotes, shares and crossposts your posts have gotten, giving you an idea on what works when it comes to post engagement. All these tools other than Rules Check are now available on Reddit's website and mobile app. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/reddits-rule-check-feature-will-help-users-avoid-breaking-subreddit-rules-160001398.html?src=rss

We love a good deal on a great laptop around these parts and that's exactly the case with Apple's M3-powered MacBook Air. The 2024 machine is on sale at Amazon with discounts of up to $300. The base model can be yours for $899, which is $200 off and close to a record-low price. This 13-inch variant has 16GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage.

You'll find the steepest discount on an M3 MacBook Air with 24GB of RAM and double the SSD storage at 512GB. That's $300 off at $1,199.

The M3 MacBook Air is our pick for the best MacBook and our top recommendation for the best laptop overall. (I own one personally and am very happy with it.)

We gave the system a score of 90 in our review, lauding it for fast performance, as well as the sleek and study design (including a great trackpad and keyboard). It looks and sounds great too thanks to the Liquid Retina display and quad-speaker array. What's more, the M3 MacBook Air supports Apple Intelligence features. Ultimately, the blend of performance and portability is hard to beat.

While this is an attractive deal, there's one important factor to bear in mind. Apple just this week announced the M4 MacBook Air. We've yet to review the latest system, so we can't say for sure how it stacks up against last year's model.

But it's worth considering that an upgraded model is right around the corner before you take the plunge on this deal — especially given that Apple has dropped the starting price of the base M4 Air to $999. That's $100 less than the current regular price of the M3 and $100 more than you can get the laptop for through this deal.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-m3-macbook-air-is-up-to-300-off-right-now-153346492.html?src=rss

Nearly 50 years after they were first launched, Voyager 1 and 2 are still traveling around interstellar space — though they've faced some setbacks over the years. Now, NASA has announced that the twin Voyager spacecraft are losing some of their features in a bid to extend their lifespans in the face of a diminishing power supply. 

On February 25, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) turned off Voyager 1's cosmic ray subsystem experiment and on March 25, it will shut down Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument. 

"The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible," said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at the JPL. "But electrical power is running low. If we don’t turn off an instrument on each Voyager now, they would probably have only a few more months of power before we would need to declare end of mission."

Each probe will continue to run three science instruments, but hold another seven instruments which have turned off over time. Just last October, NASA shut down Voyager 2's plasma science instrument. However, both spacecraft have experienced recent issues. Last June, Voyager 1 finally starting running properly again, following seven months of technical issues, including unreadable data. It had a similar issue two years prior. In 2023, Voyager 2 went dark for two weeks after requiring technical assistance three years earlier. 

NASA still puts a lot of value in the Voyager probes. "Every minute of every day, the Voyagers explore a region where no spacecraft has gone before," said Linda Spilker, Voyager project scientist at JPL. "That also means every day could be our last. But that day could also bring another interstellar revelation. So, we’re pulling out all the stops, doing what we can to make sure Voyagers 1 and 2 continue their trailblazing for the maximum time possible." Maybe at least until they hit 50 years in 2027? 

The slightly more cynical take on NASA “pulling out all the stops” to keep them going is that they'd certainly love for the probes to be functional for their 50th anniversary in 2027 — which feels like a tall order despite the agency’s best efforts.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-is-shutting-down-parts-of-voyager-1-and-2-to-extend-their-lifespan-151322570.html?src=rss

The Labor Department releases the February jobs report Friday morning, and to say it’ll be “closely watched” is an understatement.

It’s the first jobs report to fall fully under the new Trump administration, and a lot has happened since Trump took office a second time that could majorly impact the labor market: from mass federal-government layoffs and downsizing being pursued by DOGE, to new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, to big drops in consumer confidence and the stock market.

How much all that will show up in Friday’s report is an open question.

January was a weird month: bad winter weather and fires in California kept job creation low, while the unemployment rate actually fell. February could also be weird — or at least, packed with surprises — but not for the reasons one might expect, noted Dan North at credit insurer Allianz Trade North America. 

“It’s not so much the DOGE firings or layings-off— that’s going to show up in the next couple of months,” he said.

Those happened too late to be captured in February’s jobs report. Rather, with tariffs and inflation and market volatility, “uncertainty has reached a magnificent scale under this administration. If corporations feel that much uncertainty, I think that’s going to cool the hiring process,” said North.

Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research agrees.  

“The two strongest sectors for job growth have been health care and state and local governments,” he said. “Think of someone operating a hospital or a city counting on government grants — they’re going to be very cautious. So I expect that a lot of hiring won’t show up in February.”

We already know one weak spot last month: small business employment, according to data from Intuit, crunched by University of Chicago economist Ufuk Akcigit.

“Businesses that employ at most nine workers — down by 0.99%, which is a substantial decline,” he said.

Akcigit said they’re suffering from inflation, high interest rates and — again — uncertainty.

“Businesses are forward-looking,” he said. “They would be more risk-averse in new hires. But at the same time, whenever they lose workers, they are not replacing them either.”

The gloom for February’s jobs report is not universal, however.

“We represent the largest health systems in the country, some of the largest tech organizations in the world attract talent, and we’re seeing a lot of investment right now,” said Adam Stafford at Recruitics says.

He said that private sector employers are getting ready for an influx of newly-unemployed but highly-skilled federal workers — like “talent that works in tech, in particular mathematical sciences and economics.”

Stafford worries most about federal clerical workers who could be laid off. The private sector has already offshored most of those jobs or replaced them with automation, he noted.

After the closing bell Thursday, warehouse membership club Costco will release its second quarter earnings. While some retailers and grocery chains have backed away from commitments related to diversity, equity and inclusion, Costco has very publicly dug in.

The move has led some consumers and groups to promise to spend more at the big box stores, but will that impact the bottom line?

When it comes to shifts in consumer spending — particularly at specific retailers — it can be hard to parse exactly what’s behind it.

“I think we’ll see that some consumers have shifted more purchases to Costco, because they are in favor of the DE and I announcements,” said Katie Thomas, who leads the Kearney Consumer Institute.

But at the same time — and for the same reason — some consumers have shifted their shopping dollars away from Costco.

So, “I don’t think you’ll see an effect,” said Ivan Feinseth, director of research at Tigress Financial Partners. “I think guidance may be more impacted by the potential tariffs.”

But over time, “I do think that we will be able to see indicators for corporate success in the next few months,” noted Deidre Popovich, who teaches marketing at Texas Tech University.

And that will tell us just how consumers are voting with their wallets when it comes to companies and their DEI commitments.

This is a big week for labor market data. Friday, when the national unemployment rate for February is released, is the biggest day. But we’re already starting to get a sense of what’s happening.

First-time unemployment claims inched up last week, and we’ll see Thursday whether that trend continues. On Wednesday, we learned from payroll-processing company ADP that hiring in the private sector slowed to its lowest pace since July and that small businesses cut jobs last month.

This week, Elizabeth Pancotti at the Groundwork Collaborative is not expecting a rosy jobs report.

Recent federal layoffs aren’t even the reason — it’s too soon for most of them to show up. Instead, she’s looking at all the data points coming out from ADP, unemployment claims, consumer sentiment surveys and more.

“They are coming together to tell a similar story, that there is a considerable risk for softening in the labor market,” Pancotti said.

Some softening has already been apparent. Michele Evermore at the National Academy of Social Insurance has seen it in one of the indicators she keeps tabs on: continued weekly unemployment claims.

“That means people who are unemployed and continue to file claims after they become unemployed,” Evermore said.

That number has been rising, which indicates it’s getting harder for people who were laid off to find jobs. 

In part, this cooling was engineered by the Federal Reserve as it raised interest rates to bring inflation down and tried to steer the economy to a “soft landing.”

“I think we kind of stuck the landing, but I think that there’s been a lot of new uncertainty in the past month or two,” Evermore said.

Almost every economist I’ve talked to lately has used that word: “uncertainty.”

Guy Berger at the Burning Glass Institute said that’s because “uncertainty is disruptive, and it’s very high right now.”

For instance, are tariffs happening or not? Are billions in federal spending frozen or not? 

“We don’t exactly know, even when policies are implemented, exactly how they’re going to be implemented,” Berger said.

And if you’re an employer, that’s a tough landscape to operate in. Ron Hetrick, senior labor economist at Lightcast, said for many businesses, it’s easier right now to just pause. 

“If you were a company and you were saying, ‘I’m looking to expand, or I’m looking to hire,’ you would have investors in those companies saying, ‘Are you crazy?'” he said.

They’d probably say something like, “This is not the environment to do that in,” he added.

Last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that the Donald Trump administration is interested in bringing down yields on 10-year Treasury bonds. As we reported at the time, that might be tough for the administration to do. 

But as of Wednesday, yields on 10-year T-notes have fallen about half a percentage point from highs in mid-January. 

“This is a good news/bad news package,” said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. 

Ten-year Treasury bonds have a direct relationship to the cost of borrowing. What consumers pay for mortgages, auto loans or business loans are tied to those rates. 

The good news is, falling bond yields can make it cheaper for households and businesses to borrow. 

“I, unlike my family members, have a very high interest rate on my mortgage,” said Nicole Cervi, an economist with Wells Fargo.

Like many people who purchased homes over the past few years, Cervi’s mortgage rate is above 6%. Most people who purchased homes a few years earlier or refinanced while rates were low are hesitant to give up those mortgages, which has led to a slowdown in the housing market.

“They’re not going to move right now,” Cervi said. 

Now that 10-year yields are falling, Wachter said more potential buyers might be able to get into the housing market. Lower borrowing costs could also make it easier for businesses to invest in new projects or factories.

“Of course, it does matter … what is causing the rate to decline,” she said. That’s where the bad news comes in.

“What appears to be causing the 10-year Treasury rate to decline is slower expectations on economic growth and perhaps increased risk of a recession,” Wachter said.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta recently projected a slowdown in U.S. gross domestic product growth in the first quarter of this year — the biggest contraction since pandemic lockdowns. 

Meanwhile, consumer confidence has dropped, retail sales are shrinking, and U.S. tariff policy is shifting by the hour. Investors weigh all of these factors when buying and selling U.S. Treasury bonds. 

“I think we’re likely to get a few months of soft data, both in terms of how the economy is growing, but also how the labor market is doing,” said Blerina Uruci, chief U.S. economist for T. Rowe Price.

That’s likely driving some investors to sell equities and buy bonds.

“I think the growth-scare narrative is partly driving the 10-year yields lower,” Uruci said. “Slower growth expectations mean that the Fed can cut, or might be forced to cut, interest rates down the road — I think that’s definitely part of the story.”

We have a tale of two service sectors today. Two surveys measuring service sector activity in February came out Wednesday, one from the Institute for Supply Management and the other from S&P Global.

But while the ISM survey showed strong growth in services, the S&P survey showed “a worryingly weak picture of service sector business conditions.”

“It’s some healthy, healthy improvement,” said Steve Miller, chair of the ISM Services Report on Business, about his group’s optimistic report.

Meanwhile, Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, had a more pessimistic outlook based on his firm’s survey. “It’s now reporting the weakest output growth since November 2023.”

Two reports, two seemingly different outcomes. The discrepancy could be caused by several things, including who’s answering the surveys. Gary Schlossberg, global strategist with Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said ISM mostly checks with corner office-type purchasing and supply executives.

“The S&P Global number, they also survey people on the shop floor, so it’s a little closer to the action,” he said.

Then there’s the question of timing. The glass-half-full ISM report allowed companies to respond throughout the month. The glass-half-empty S&P survey took answers only in the second half of the month, when the stock market was dropping and tariffs were looming.

“Especially at times like this, things can look good early in the month and collapse late in the month,” Schlossberg said.

Once-a-month data drops aren’t always enough to keep up with changing conditions, he added.

“It’s for that reason we keep an eye on the high-frequency data to corroborate what we’re seeing in the monthly numbers,” he said. That data includes weekly reports on retail sales and mortgage applications.

There was at least one common thread between the two surveys, which both Miller of ISM and Williamson of S&P Global noted: the impact of tariffs.

With those tariffs in effect now, next month’s surveys could have answers everyone agrees on.

In addition to the new tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China that went into effect on Tuesday, President Donald Trump alerted American farmers to another round of tariffs coming early next month. On social media, he wrote, “To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!”

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with April Hemmes about the new and upcoming tariffs and what they’ll mean for her corn and soybean farm in Iowa. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: I want to know what you’re thinking about the news and everything.

April Hemmes: Oh my god, everything? Well, I heard our TV guy say, “Just as soon as I say this, something’s gonna change.” And it’s so true. I got the social media whatever that the president sent out to farmers, and you know, “It’s gonna hurt, but it’s gonna be fun.” And all I have to say is his definition of fun is way different than the farmers’ definition, because tariffs are not fun.

Ryssdal: Let’s talk about that for a minute. First of all, this is not your first rodeo with tariffs and President Trump, right? It wasn’t fun last time. Are you more prepared this time somehow?

Hemmes: No. Well, like I say, same song, it’s not the second verse, it’s a whole chorus this time. Because he’s including Mexico and Canada, and the consumers are going to get hurt. Usually it’s the [agriculture] people that get hurt, but now it’s going to be a lot more of the consumer things. But more prepared? No, actually, we in the ag community are worse off now because the interest rates are higher than they were before, and our cost of production is way up. But it’s an interesting world we have.

Ryssdal: It is indeed. So there was a speech last night, and you know, it’s “There’s going to be disturbance, but we’re OK with that,” although I don’t think he probably called you to check if you were OK with that. The other thing he did yesterday on social was “get ready to sell only domestically starting April 2.” And that doesn’t seem to me to make a whole bunch of sense.

Hemmes: No, I’m glad you said that. Yes, 60% of our soybeans are exported. Twenty to twenty-five percent of our corn is exported. So you don’t build those markets domestically overnight. We just can’t. You have to build, you know, plants and things like that, there’s a whole lot that goes into it. So it’s not going to happen overnight. And I’ve heard some interviews with farmers that said, “Oh, it’s OK if these tariffs only last a couple months, but if it’s more than that, it’s not OK.” And I went, “Pull your head out of the sand, buddy, it’s gonna last more than that.”

Ryssdal: I talked to a guy the other day who used to run, because it’s about to be shut down, something called the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois. And in the middle of that conversation, I got to thinking about you, and soybeans, and just the work that the government does or has done in building markets for all American farmers. But the mechanisms by which you all find markets is being dismantled.

Hemmes: Right, I never hardly engage on Twitter, X or whatever it’s called. But there’s these people out there that are smack-talking USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] only thinking it’s USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture], and I’ve been on two USAID trips to Uganda and did great work there. And people don’t understand the work and then the products they buy from farmers to feed the world. So it’s very disheartening to see all of this going on.

Ryssdal: You and I have been talking for a long time, and every now and then, I ask you, why you do it. But this does seem to be a turning point, and I will say this to you only because I’ve met you and we’ve been talking for a long time. You ain’t no spring chicken. And I guess I wonder if there’s a point at which this could get so bad that you would just say, “The heck with it. I’m done, I’m out. I’m gonna sell off.”

Hemmes: Oh, yeah, no. This is my 40th year farming. I’m going to be planting my 40th crop, and I’m very proud of that, you know. So I have seen the ups and downs, and what we’re going through now is — what did they call it? A revolution? The president and Mr. [Elon] Musk want to be revolutionaries. Well, you know, we’ll see. You know, hopefully this is better for everyone, but it’s, I don’t know. I think my farm will weather this. I just hope other younger farmers get through this. It’s very scary. But, I mean, I had a grandpa who lived to be 101 years old, and started farming with three horses and lived to have an auto-steer tractor. So that really is my guiding light. You know, he went through a lot, and this farm will go through more, but I’ll still be here.