“The Simpsons” is officially returning for a second movie spin-off — almost exactly 20 years after the original. And, in typical prophetic “Simpsons” fashion, it seems that this episode from 2007 already predicted the premiere date for the upcoming movie. We’ve charted the ratings of all 790 episodes to quantitatively pinpoint the “Worst. Episode. Ever.” But who knows what adventures they’ll have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable?

A surprise drop in private payrolls boosted traders’ confidence in two more rate cuts this year despite the federal government shutdown, which could delay key economic data, including Friday’s jobs report.

The S&P 500 notched a fresh all-time high, crossing above the 6,700 level for the first time. The Nasdaq 100 also closed at a new all-time high, while the Russell 2000 powered higher in the final hours of the session.

When Meta rolls out a new product, the company usually waits until that product has a billion users before turning on the ads. For Meta AI, that time has arrived, so get ready for those ads. 

But what if you’re asking Meta AI how to deal with your depression or other sensitive topics? The company says it doesn’t plan on using those discussions as grist for the advertising mill: “When people have conversations with Meta AI about topics such as their religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as always, we don’t use those topics to show them ads.”

Still, Meta has a spotty record when it comes to protecting sensitive personal information from leaking into its ad platform. In the past, Meta’s pixel-tracking technology has been found to pick up sensitive information regarding mental health crises, financial information, and medical information.

The company said users will start to see notifications about the changes this month, which will go into effect on December 16, 2025. If anything, it’ll be an important moment for the AI industry as a whole, and investors in lots of different companies, public and private, will likely be closely eyeing what the company reports if and how AI has juiced its advertising business. If the playbook is as profitable as Meta hopes it is, lots of other players are bound to copy it, after all.

Shares of Lithium Americas finished Wednesday up more than 23% after the miner announced a nonbinding agreement for the US government to receive an equity position in the company in exchange for providing accelerated funding of a loan and offering more favorable repayment terms.

This planned pact comes on the heels of separate deals earlier this year that saw the government receive an equity stake in MP Materials and Intel, which has helped spur massive gains in those stocks.

As we’ve written, why follow the Fed when you can just follow the feds?

“This proposed stake is another example of the Trump Administration taking equity stakes with American companies to promote industries seen as critical to national security with the majority of lithium reserves coming from foreign adversaries, especially China with the Thacker Pass Facility Buildout seen as crucial to national security,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote. “This is important as the Trump Administration is now looking far and wide (globally) for stakes in strategic companies, not just US names.”

The behemoth data center plan once had the code name “Project Ludicrous,” and in the eight months since Stargate was announced, the scale and ambition of the project have only grown seemingly more, well, ludicrous. How will the companies backing it raise all that cash? How many gigawatts of power will it provide? We pulled together what’s known, what’s still developing, and made a time lapse of the build so far, too.

A timeline of the project to date.

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What are Americans’ favorite and least favorite business sectors?

Answer here.

The longest government shutdown in history began in December 2018 and lasted 34 days. 

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