• The Masters has released the “Official Masters Hospitality” brochure for 2026. A high-end experience for the golf tournament can run as high as $219,000. That includes luxury accommodations for 8 as well as transportation, a personal chef and tee times on the course.

The Masters is the hottest ticket in golf, but if getting a close up view of Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy isn’t good enough, Augusta National might have something even better – if you’ve got the money to pay for it.

Augusta National has issued its brochure for the “Official Masters Hospitality” program for 2026 and a top-tier experience at the 2026 Masters will run $219,000.

The Sports Business Journal reports that the program, entering its third year, not only offers a chance to watch the tournament but also allows up to eight people to stay at a luxury accommodation near the course, complete with transportation to and from Augusta National. You’ll also be able to take a clinic with instructors like David Leadbetter, have a reserved tee time at the course, and have custom catering from an in-house chef.

Augusta National will also dedicate a staff member to your stay full-time as well as two dedicated drivers and vehicles.

Here’s how pricing breaks down:

• Accommodations, which include the host house and a sleeper home, can run up to $98,000. You will get the sheets changed daily, however.

• Transportation will get you to and from Augusta National and all around town, but it will cost $29,000.

• Staffing costs can go as high as $13,000 for the dedicated staffer, drivers and people stocking the home.

• Catering, assuming you stay six nights and have eight guests, can hit $23,500.

• Tee Times come in at $13,500, assuming you play each of the three days with three friends (and enjoy lunch at the Augusta Country Club. Want to play at other clubs, like Sage Valley? That’ll run you another $7,000 (but playing Tree Farm will only run you $2,600).

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Trump called for the immediate removal of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan in a social media post Thursday. The post follows criticism of Tan by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who has questioned his ties to China. Tan was named CEO of Intel in March.

Intel shares were down more than 3% in mid-morning trading Thursday after Donald Trump called on social media for the company’s CEO to “resign, immediately.”

Lip-Bu Tan was named CEO of Intel in March, replacing Pat Gelsinger. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has questioned Tan’s ties to Chinese companies in recent days and has raised concerns about a criminal case at Cadence Design, where Tan served as CEO until 2021 in a letter sent to the company’s chairman Wesnesday.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!,” he wrote.

Intel did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment about Trump’s demand.

Reuters has reported Tan has invested at least $200 million in a number of Chinese companies, including some linked to the country’s military. That has led to previous criticism of him from the investment world.

“The simple fact is that Mr. Tan is unqualified to serve as the head of any company competing against China, let alone one with actual intelligence and national security ramifications like Intel and its tremendous legacy connection to all areas of America’s intelligence and the defense ecosystem,” Bastille Ventures partner Andrew King told Reuters.

He was also CEO of Cadence during a period when the company unlawfully exported semiconductor design tools to a People’s Republic of China military university. (Cadence pleaded guilty to those charges and paid a $140 million fine last month.)

Tan’s appointment as CEO at Intel was initially cheered by investors. Shares jumped 10% on the news earlier this year and he was seen as eminently qualified and was the first outsider to ever be named a leader at the company. He has overseen plans to cut 25,000 jobs this year, but the company did surpass analyst expectations in its most recent earnings.

Trump inserting himself into the affairs of leading a non-governmental company is unique, but not without precedent. In 2009, Barack Obama asked the CEO of General Motors to resign, but that was part of a government restructuring plan for the automaker that involved an aid package for GM.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Toyota is sounding the loudest warning bell yet about tariffs. The automaker said it expected its profits to be $9.5 billion lower this year because of the Trump tariffs on cars imported to the U.S. Other major automakers have also warned of multi-billion dollar hits.

As tariffs begin to roll out, Toyota is warning investors that the levies will cut deeply into its profits this year.

The world’s largest automaker on Thursday said it expected its profits to be $9.5 billion lower this year because of the Trump tariffs on cars imported to the U.S. That’s the highest impact estimate any company has given to date.

The company also said it was cutting its full-year operating profit forecast by 16%.

Toyota now says it expects an operating profit of $21.7 billion.

A trade deal secured last month cut the tariff on imported cars and parts from 27.5% to 15%, but that’s still six times higher than Toyota and other automakers were paying at the start of 2025.

Big automakers are more likely to absorb tariffs to keep the cost of their cars steady and avoid scaring off consumers.

“It’s honestly very difficult for us to predict what will happen regarding the market environment,” said Takanori Azuma, Toyota’s head of finance in a briefing.

While Toyota is predicting the largest profit loss due to tariffs, it’s hardly alone in reducing its forecasts. Honda, on Wednesday, said it expects tariffs to cost it roughly $3 billion in profits this year, which is lower than initial estimates. Nissan said it expects a $2 billion hit to profits.

GM, meanwhile, is projecting profits will be between $4 billion to $5 billion lower than expected this year. Ford says its full-year gross revenues will take a $3 billion hit. And Jeep maker Stellantis expects tariffs to increase expenses by $1.7 billion this year.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• PlayMonster games has bought Taco vs. Burrito for an undisclosed amount. The game was invented by a 7-year old, who, with his parents’ help, has steer it to over 1.5 million sold units. Creator Alex Butler says, despite its success, “It was never something that I’ve been attached to or anything.”

Alex Butler was just seven years old when he made his first million dollars. A game he had invented, called Taco vs Burrito, had made it to Amazon—and by the end of 2018, it had rung up sales of about $1.1 million.

Now, after overseeing the game’s empire with his parents, Butler has sold the rights to the game to PlayMonster, whose other well-known products include Spirograph, Farkle, and Yeti in my Spaghetti. Terms of the deal were not announced, but Taco vs. Burrito (which retails for $20 on Amazon) has sold 1.5 million copies life to date. The game also has two expansion packs.

PlayMonster says it will continue to expand the game and a version in a collector’s tin is coming later this year.

Butler, who is now 15, says he’s not especially sad to see his creation move on. It was, he says, never really something he wanted to keep doing for the rest of his life.

“It was never something that I’ve been attached to or anything,” he told The Seattle Times. “It’s not super important to me. I just kind of wanted to get the most money out of it.”

Alex’s mother is an entrepreneur herself, so when her son came up with the idea after playing card games like Exploding Kittens, she encouraged him. The family would walk to the neighborhood coffee shop/hangout to test the prototype, which would lead to Alex coming up with a new take on the rules.

To cover production costs, he mother launched an online fundraiser, which brought in $25,000. Alex’s parents set up a holding company for the game (of which Alex was the majority owner), found a manufacturer, and put the game on Amazon. It quickly took off and never slowed down.

While there have been buyout offers in the past, the family said they never felt right. When they began speaking with PlayMonster, things did.

Don’t expect another game anytime soon from Alex, though. His interests have shifted to music production, sports, and video games, he says.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• More families started their back-to-school shopping in early July than in the past seven years. Tariffs and inflation are being blamed for the behavioral shift. The average expenditure per student will be lower this year, but the overall totals are expected to rise slightly.

Reading and ’riting are still important, but as the 2025–26 school year draws near, parents are paying more attention to the third R—’rithmetic.

With tariffs looming and some (though not all) retailers warning that prices are bound to increase, back-to-school shopping began especially early this year. The National Retail Federation notes that more than two-thirds of families started buying pencils, pens, paper, and folders in early July.

Some 67% of families got an early start this year, compared with 55% last year. That’s the highest number of early back-to-school shoppers since the NRF began tracking the category in 2018. And it all comes down to price.

“Consumers are being mindful of the potential impacts of tariffs and inflation on back-to-school items, and have turned to early shopping, discount stores, and summer sales for savings on school essentials,” said Katherine Cullen, NRF vice president of industry and consumer insights. “As shoppers look for the best deals on clothes, notebooks, and other school-related items, retailers are highly focused on affordability and making the shopping experience as seamless as possible.”

To put that 67% statistic into perspective: In 2019, only 44% of parents started looking for school supplies and clothes that early. It’s worth noting that most schools have not issued their lists of which items are required at that time of year.

Families with students in elementary through high school plan to spend an average of $858.07 on clothing, shoes, school supplies, and electronics this year. That’s less than the $874.68 they spent in 2024.

Overall spending is expected to be higher, however, jumping from $38.8 billion to $39.4 billion as more consumers will be buying supplies. That doesn’t extend to lower-income families, though. The NRF says those households are pulling back in all back-to-school spending categories because of economic uncertainty.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• McDonald’s is reaching into its past to appeal to younger customers. The company will resurrect the characters of McDonaldland, including Birdie, Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese starting Aug. 12. A grownup version of the Happy Meal will also be offered.

Grimace’s return to McDonald’s was a viral hit. Now the company is bringing back a gaggle of characters from its past.

For the first time in 20 years, McDonald’s plans to incorporate Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Birdie, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, and the Fry Friends (a.k.a. the Fry Guys) into its marketing. Still MIA are Officer Big Mac, Captain Crook (basically a Hamburglar for the Filet-O-Fish), and Ronald’s Dog Sundae.

Starting Aug. 12, the chain will launch the McDonaldland Meal, an adult Happy Meal of sorts featuring either a Quarter Pounder with Cheese or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, fries, a collectible souvenir, and the new Mt. McDonaldland Shake, which features a mystery flavor the company is encouraging diners to figure out.

It’s a marketing push that could appeal to both Gen Z and Gen X.

“Over the past few years we’ve seen how fans flock to our characters, everyone from Grimace to the Hamburglar. But many, especially the new generation, don’t know that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Jennifer “JJ” Healan, McDonald’s vice president of U.S. marketing, brand, content & culture. “It’s a chance for us to give fans a new, modern way to experience this magical world.”

The meals will include one of six collectible tins that include postcards, stickers, and more, each inspired by the different characters.

The McDonaldland ad campaign dates back to 1971 and featured everything from Apple Pie Trees to Hamburger Bushes. The ads for it were…well, pure 1970s.

(Intrigued and or horrified? Here’s almost 10 minutes of the ads in a row.)

McDonald’s isn’t stopping with the meals. It’s also launching a line of McDonaldland merchandise, ranging from luggage tags to shirts and hats. The line is made in collaboration with Pacsun and will be available on Aug. 12. Another line with Away goes on sale Aug. 18.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© James Devaney—Getty Images

• Fujifilm is raising prices across the board on cameras and lenses. Included in the move are the X100VI, a TikTok favorite, which will cost $200 more. One camera will see an $800 price increase.

TikTok’s favorite camera is going to cost a lot more thanks to tariffs.

Fuiifilm has increased the prices on virtually all of its cameras and lenses, with prices jumping from $50 or so to $800. Included in the increase is Fuji X100VI, which has seen a big boost in popularity as TikTok influencers have talked it up. (There are more than 11,000 posts about the camera at present.)

The X100VI will now cost $1,799, a $200 increase. The company’s highest-end camera, the GFX100 II (body only) will receive the highest increase, jumping $800 to $8,299.

Fuji’s not alone. Canon has already raised prices once since the tariffs were first announced and has warned it could do so again.

Fuji is in a somewhat precarious position, though. Last year, the company moved its supply chain to China as TikTok love for the X100VI’s predecessor was just as strong, creating inventory issues. When Trump announced the first round of tariffs, however, it pivoted, bringing some manufacturing back to Japan.

Japan, subsequently, was hit with an additional 15% tariff.

The continued confusion over tariffs is causing all sorts of pricing whiplash for companies and consumers. It’s also causing economic agita. Stocks have yo-yo’d in recent weeks, with charts looking like a theme park rollercoaster track. And big financial names continue to sound warnings.

Danny Moses, founder of Moses Ventures and the subject of the book/film The Big Short, recently warned there are signs of stagflation in the market.

“There’s just so many moving parts right now that it’s really hard to decipher where you’re going to pinpoint,” Moses told Fortune. “Anyone can find a data point that says it’s inflationary, and someone can find a data point that says it’s not. So it’s just difficult. But bottom line … Is the [economy] going through a stagflationary period? It appears to me, it is.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Beverly, Massachusetts is the nation’s hottest ZIP code, according to a study by Realtor.com. Houses in the area sell in just 16 days. The Northeast boasts seven of the 10 hottest ZIP codes this year.

While the housing market, overall, has seen better days, some areas are still doing well.

Realtor.com has issued its study of the country’s hottest ZIP codes—and if you’re looking to sell and live in the Northeast, things could be a lot worse.

Beverly, Mass. is the country’s hottest area, particularly houses in the 01915 ZIP code, with houses only staying on the market for an average of 16 days (and selling for an average of $746,000). The Boston suburb has commuter rail access, appealing livability and its houses, while $250,000 higher than the national norm are 16% cheaper than the rest of the Boston metro area.

Seven of the 10 ZIP codes is in the Northeast, in fact. And none of the ZIP codes featured has a median days on market over 3.5 weeks.

Here’s how the 2025 list lines up.

1. Beverly, Mass. (01915)
2. Marlton, NJ (08053)
3. Leominster, Mass. (01453)
4. Ballwin, Mo. (63021)
5. Wayne, NJ (07470)
6. Strongsville, Ohio (44149)
7. Trumbull, Conn. (06611)
8. Cumberland, R.I. (02864)
9. South Windsor, Conn. (06074)
10. Bexley, Ohio (43209)

National housing inventory was 28.9% higher year-over-year in June of this year, but even with that boost, listings were 12.9% below where they were before the pandemic. In the hottest ZIPs, however, inventory averaged 58.9% below the 2019 levels.

This year marks the third consecutive year that the South and West did not make the list. The addition of Strongsville marks the first time a Cleveland suburb has made the list.

“Buyers are moving fast, thinking big, and choosing communities that offer the right blend of value, access, and quality of life,” wrote Realtor.com. “As mortgage rates remain high and inventory levels gradually recover, expect these kinds of high-performing, value-driven suburban areas to remain at the forefront of market activity.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• OpenAI has removed a feature allowing ChatGPT conversations to be indexed by the Google search engine. The action comes following a growing number of complaints about user privacy. The company called it a “short-lived experiment.”

OpenAI’s “short-lived experiment” with letting people share their ChatGPT conversations with Google’s search engine has come to a close.

The company has removed the feature after a report in Fast Company found thousands of conversations with the chatbot in search results on Google. While those did not have directly identifiable information, several did contain specific details that would aid in discovering who the human half of the conversation was.

OpenAI’s chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, in a post on Twitter/X announced the feature’s removal last week.

“This was a short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations,” he wrote. “Ultimately we think this feature introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to, so we’re removing the option. We’re also working to remove indexed content from the relevant search engines…Security and privacy are paramount for us, and we’ll keep working to maximally reflect that in our products and features.”

While users had to choose to make the chatbot chats shareable via a pop-up window, and OpenAI initially said it felt the labeling on the feature was “sufficiently clear,” there were some concerns raised in the Fast Company story that people could have made the information sharable in order to forward it only to friends or loved ones.

The change in discoverability comes as OpenAI says ChatGPT is set to hit 700 million weekly active users this week. That’s up from 500 million in March and quadruple what its usage was just one year ago.

OpenAI secured $8.3 billion in funding last week and is expecting revenues to top $20 billion by the end of 2025.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Trump Media & Technology Group lost $20 million in the second quarter. The parent company of Trump’s Truth Social saw share prices rise, however, in large part because of its broad Bitcoin holdings. Trump’s holding in the company is currently worth $2 billion.

Typically, if a publicly traded company announced sales of less than $1 million and a quarterly loss of $20 million, that might spook investors. At Trump Media & Technology Group, it’s giving the stock a slight boost.

The parent company of Trump’s Truth Social, in its quarterly earnings, reported $883,300 in net sales for the second quarter. That’s 5.5% higher than a year ago. The $19.7 million net loss compared to a $16.4 million loss in the second quarter of 2024.

Despite that, the stock was up 1.5% in mid-morning trading on Monday.

What gives? Despite the lackluster sales and notable loss, Trump Media is still a cash-rich company thanks to its significant Bitcoin holdings. The 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission lists financial assets of roughly $3.1 billion, an 800% year-over-year increase. Of that amount, $2.4 billion is in Bitcoin, which it bought in July.

“Among other benefits, the Bitcoin treasury strategy allows Trump Media to give its investors indirect exposure to cryptocurrencies, creates investment income, helps position the Company for expansion, and solidifies the Company’s financial freedom, including enhancing security against debanking and other acts of political discrimination,” TMTG said.

Trump owns 114.75 million of the company’s outstanding shares through a revocable trust. That works out to 52% of the company’s total outstanding shares, according to the company’s 2025 proxy statement.

As of Monday morning, that holding was worth $2 billion. That’s considerably less than the $4 billion it was worth on Jan. 1. Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group are down 50% year to date.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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