Things To Do In SW Florida

By Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, The Seattle Times

The annual membership cost to enter Costco’s big-box warehouses and stock up on bulk groceries — not to mention the free food samples — has gone up. But that’s not stopping fans from becoming or remaining loyal members.

Since September 2024, individual members in the U.S. pay $65 per year, a $5 increase from past dues. Executive memberships have been $130 per year, up from $120.

But loyalists of the Issaquah, Washington-based retailer weren’t dissuaded: 68.3 million people held individual memberships by the end of fiscal 2025 — an upsurge from 63.7 million in 2024 and 58.8 million in 2023, according to Costco’s annual report filed this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The number of business memberships also increased to 12.7 million in 2025 from 12.5 million in 2024 and 12.2 million in 2023.

Despite the increases, the growth rate of total paid members has slowed slightly, with a 6% increase year over year, compared to a 7% increase in 2024 from 2023. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN and MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writers

OpenAI said Tuesday it is introducing its own web browser, Atlas, putting the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google as more internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions.

Making itself a gateway to online searches could allow OpenAI, the world’s most valuable startup, to pull in more internet traffic and the revenue made from digital advertising.

OpenAI has said ChatGPT already has more than 800 million users but many of them get it for free. The San Francisco-based company is losing more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit.

OpenAI said Atlas launches Tuesday on Apple laptops and will later come to Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s iOS phone operating system and Google’s Android phone system.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it a “rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about and how to use one.”

OpenAI’s browser is coming out just a few months after one of its executives testified that the company would be interested in buying Google’s industry-leading Chrome browser if a federal judge had required it to be sold to prevent the abuses that resulted in Google’s ubiquitous search engine being declared an illegal monopoly. read more

By JAMES POLLARD

NEW YORK (AP) — Young jobseekers, challenged by a rapidly changing labor market, are having a tough time.

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The U.S. unemployment rate for 22- to 27-year-old degree holders is the highest in a dozen years outside of the pandemic. Companies are reluctant to add staff amid so much economic uncertainty. The hiring slump is especially hitting professions such as information technology that employ more college graduates, creating nightmarish job hunts for the increasingly smaller number who do complete college. Not to mention fears that artificial intelligence will replace entry-level roles.

So, Citi Foundation identified youth employability as the theme for its $25 million Global Innovation Challenge this year. The banking group’s philanthropic arm is donating a half million dollars to each of 50 groups worldwide that provide digital literacy skills, technical training and career guidance for low-income youth. read more

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN

General Motors anticipates a smaller impact from tariffs and is boosting its full-year adjusted earnings forecast as its third-quarter performance topped Wall Street’s expectations.

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Shares surged more than 15% in afternoon trading on Tuesday, its biggest one-day jump since May 2018.

The automaker reduced its expectations for the full-year gross impact from tariffs to a range of $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion. Its previous guidance was $4 billion to $5 billion. GM anticipates its tariff mitigation actions will offset about 35% of the impact due to a lower tariff base. read more

By Robbie Sequeira, Stateline.org

Growing up in a religious family, Florida Republican state Sen. Alexis Calatayud has seen how many church communities are no longer anchored to a single building in the way they used to be. Her small prayer groups take place over chats these days, not necessarily in person or sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in pews.

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With churches in her Miami-Dade County district grappling with shrinking membership and aging buildings, Calatayud thinks those institutions can do good with their unused land, by acting as anchors of new housing rather than as bystanders in neighborhood redevelopment.

“When you look at someone sitting on a small church, on a 10-acre property with a dwindling congregation, the question becomes, ‘How can this entity continue to be the beating heart of the community?’” Calatayud said in an interview. read more