Once the butt of jokes, the town of Dubuque, Iowa, has emerged as an unlikely hub of Midwest cool. David Farley's family fled Dubuque for Los Angeles in 1978, just before manufacturing took a nosedive. In the early ’80s, the population dropped by 10% and unemployment shot up to 23%. One popular T-shirt at the time asked “Will the last one leaving Dubuque please turn out the lights?” A few years ago, Farley's sister returned from a high school reunion singing Dubuque’s praises. The lights were not just back on but shining bright, she claimed. Farley had to see for himself, and on a recent trip, his first in 25 years, he was shocked by what he found. The once-derelict Downtown neighborhood buzzes with energy. Thanks to enterprising locals and more than a few newcomers, the city has transformed into an ideal long-weekend destination. Travelers looking to step away from the usual escapes will find much to love. But so will anyone looking to see how a largely abandoned industrial hub can reinvent itself. At the link in our bio, discover how to make the most of three days in town. 📷: @rly_riel for @wsjphotos
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Jun 21, 2025Instagram
Coca-Cola has long looked to Hispanic consumers for sales growth—a group the company has said holds an annual $2.1 trillion in spending power. Now Coke and other brands are discovering what it means to lose them. Fear and uncertainty are driving changes in shopping behavior. The Trump administration’s sweeping deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally have made many Latinos—including those with legal status—fearful of being stopped by immigration officers. Many consumers say they are retreating from public life, forgoing their regular shopping trips and restaurant meals. Beyond deportation fears, job losses in industries like construction have left Hispanics with less money to spend. And inflation has squeezed their monthly budgets. Across America, consumer goods companies, food and beverage makers, restaurants and retailers are taking a hit. Coca-Cola’s sales volume in North America fell 3% in the first quarter of the year, partly because of the pullback by Hispanic shoppers, company executives said. Coca-Cola’s ties to Hispanic spenders span to Latin America, which is a stronghold for the brand. Its classic red cans are ubiquitous in Mexico and other Latin American countries, and Latin Americans who immigrate to the U.S. often bring with them their dedication to the brand. Coke is a top seller at Let’s Go Market in Cleveland, Texas, northeast of Houston, said Dennis Kim, owner of the convenience store. On the glass door of a refrigerator case, a decal says “Who will you share a Coke with?” alongside a picture of bottles with the names Luis and Sofia. In nearby Plum Grove, Texas, immigration raids have spawned widespread fear, residents and retailers said. Convenience store owners said they regularly see ICE agents in their parking lots, which often scares away customers. Parents have sent their U.S.-born children out to buy eggs, milk and other essentials, store owners said. Read more at the link in our bio. 📷: Danielle Villasana for @wsjphotos
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Jun 21, 2025Instagram
Transgender people have become visible in ways that were unthinkable five years ago, yet the political and legal tides are shifting in a different direction. A Supreme Court decision this week allowing states to restrict transgender care for minors was the latest setback for a movement that has found itself in retreat in recent months. Read more at the link in our bio.
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Jun 21, 2025Instagram
A federal judge in New Jersey ordered the release of Mahmoud Khalil, more than three months after the former Columbia student was first detained by immigration officials. U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Friday granted Khalil’s request for release while his case proceeds. The ruling opens the door for the green-card-holder to return to his wife and newborn son in New York City, where the family lives, for the first time since his March 8 arrest. Read more at the link in our bio. Photo: Ted Shaffrey/AP
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Jun 20, 2025Instagram
Israel risks exhausting its supply of high-end Arrow 3 interceptors in the coming weeks if its conflict with Iran isn’t resolved and Tehran continues to launch volleys of missiles, a U.S. official said. Watch the full video at the link in our bio.
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Jun 20, 2025Instagram
Floor-to-ceiling floral installations. Performances by pop megastars. Catering by Carbone. A security guard just for the gold-plated cutlery. For the wealthiest people on earth, it’s no longer enough to have a luxury wedding. Today, the new normal is a “super-wedding,” with costs running into the millions. One planner said they’ve worked on weddings that cost eight figures. Details about the Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sanchez wedding have remained largely under wraps. The couple hired the wedding planner Lanza & Baucina, a discreet London-based group that planned George Clooney’s 2014 wedding, and is reportedly tying the knot on a Venetian island. “Luxury weddings have turned theatrical,” said Preston Bailey, an event designer who has planned weddings like Ivanka Trump’s and last year’s Ambani wedding. A luxury destination wedding takes a village to produce. Read more at the link in bio. Writer: @chavielieber Photos: BOTTEGA53 and David Bastianoni for Sarah Haywood Illustration: Michael Byers
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Jun 20, 2025Instagram
Every second counts. Points are at stake. Controversies are brewing: Should anaerobic processing be allowed? How about yeast fermentation? Welcome to the competitive barista circuit, where coffee reputations are made and destroyed in 15-minute routines. Events that began around 2000 have mushroomed into cutthroat competitions grading everything from espresso shots to bespoke beverages. Now, the company that made craft coffee mainstream wants in on the action. Starbucks is holding a global competition exclusively among its baristas to showcase their skills and pump up the brand. The coffee giant has held regional contests for around a decade, but now it wants to crown its own world champ. In Las Vegas this month, tension was high after 84,000 entrants were winnowed down to 12 contestants who sought to dazzle clipboard-toting judges with decades of coffee know-how. Hosts narrated the moves for cheering audience members. Starbucks paid for coaches for its competitors to refine their skills ahead of the Vegas showcase. The final four contenders came from China, Japan and Jordan. During the battle royal, held before more than 14,000 ecstatic Starbucks store leaders, attendees gasped when they heard about some of the drink additions, like apple juice and a secret sauce of Japanese yuzu. Japan’s Nobuki Shimode took the top prize with his “Blooming Yuzu Espresso” and called to the judges to “please take a cup and smell it.” “I think you are destined for the Food Network next,” Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said to Shimode after his win. Read more at the link in our bio. 📷: @mikaylawhitmore for @wsjphotos
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Jun 20, 2025Instagram
Costco's CEO Ron Vachris told WSJ why he initially said "no" to the Kirkland Signature bacon-egg-and-cheese. Vachris also discussed how Costco's $86 billion Kirkland Signature brand runs and why it allows Costco leverage over many big brands. Watch more at the link in our bio.
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Jun 19, 2025Instagram
Red Lobster CEO Damola Adamolekun said the company's axed unlimited shrimp promotion was a disaster partly because of "how it was managed—or not managed, on purpose to some degree." Adamolekun was hired in 2024 to lead the restaurant chain’s revival after it filed for bankruptcy. He told WSJ's Global Food Forum about the challenges posed by regaining lost guests, tariffs and a shift away from China. Watch more at the link in our bio.
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Jun 19, 2025Instagram
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Jun 19, 2025Homepage
Val Valentino spent years enduring boos and the occasional death threat as a magician bent on exposing the secrets behind the world’s most popular tricks. Today the 68-year-old from California is treated like a hero. It’s not because he stopped violating the magician’s code. He just moved to Brazil. Residents of the South American country live in constant fear of being taken advantage of—by corrupt politicians or scheming criminals—and don’t take kindly to being tricked, by magicians or anyone. They can’t get enough of Valentino. The Masked Magician—or Mister M, as Valentino is known here—rose to fame in the 1990s through his hit American TV series “Breaking the Magician’s Code,” showing audiences how to levitate and saw a woman in half. U.S. magicians labeled Valentino a traitor. They accused him of spilling trade secrets, bankrupting their shows, and stripping magic of its wonder. But Valentino is now living his best life in balmy Brazil. He has become one of Latin America’s most unlikely heroes. He has staged sold-out performances, appeared on talk shows and gotten engaged to a Brazilian political aide more than 20 years his junior. Carnival-goers have taken to wearing his distinctive black-and-white mask and Brazilian rappers have composed songs in his honor, celebrating Mister M as a legend who “keeps it real” even when society pressures you to lie. Read more at the link in our bio. 📷: Tommaso Protti for @wsjphotos
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Jun 18, 2025Instagram
For more than a decade, Tim Friede collected dangerous snakes at his home in Richfield, Wis., milking their venom and injecting himself with the toxins. The goal? To immunize himself against the world’s deadliest snakes. “I just wanted to know if I could beat the bite,” he said. Now, his blood has been used to create a prototype for a universal antivenom. Over two million people a year are bitten by venomous snakes globally, and more than 100,000 die of the toxins, which can rot tissue, paralyze muscle or stop the heart. Existing antivenoms work only against specific species or closely-related snakes. The new cocktail described in the journal Cell in May fully protected mice against a lethal dose of venom from 13 deadly snake species, including the black mamba and king cobra, and offered some protection for venom from six other species. Study authors Jacob Glanville, the founder and chief executive of San Francisco-based Centivax, and Peter Kwong, a vaccine researcher at Columbia University, had studied vaccines that targeted multiple strains of a virus for years and were looking to apply their know-how to a universal snakebite antidote when Glanville heard about Friede. Friede, 57, was bitten by more than 16 different species and said he went into anaphylactic shock a dozen times. “I would love to get my hands on your blood,” Glanville recalled telling the former construction worker. Read more at the link in our bio. Photo: Centivax/AP
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Jun 17, 2025Instagram
New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by authorities at immigration court in Manhattan, becoming the latest official to be detained amid rising tensions with the Trump administration. Read more at the link in our bio. Photo: Olga Fedorova/AP
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Jun 17, 2025Instagram
The U.S. economy, which weathered false recession alarms in 2023 and 2024, is entering another uncomfortable summer. Job growth held steady in May, with the economy adding 139,000 jobs. The unemployment rate has stayed in a tight range, between 4% and 4.2%, over the past year. But there are cracks beneath the surface. Policy uncertainty has unfolded against the backdrop of an economy with slower job growth and a cooling housing market. Compared with last year, the Federal Reserve is more reluctant to cut interest rates because officials are worried about new inflation risks. Whether the economy again bends, rather than breaks, turns on how the U.S. consumer handles the latest curveball—this time from President Trump’s desire to reorder America’s trading relationships and reduce reliance on imported goods. For months, the president has announced one large tariff increase after another, at times wavering from escalation to temporary resolution. Economists largely agree that for the U.S. economy to slide into recession, the American consumer needs to falter. Most economists think the prospects of a recession are higher than they were at the beginning of the year but lower than in April and early May, when tariffs on China had been increased by 145%. Three risks loom large. Read more at the link in our bio.
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Jun 17, 2025Instagram
Israel struck buildings belonging to an Iranian state-owned media in Tehran during what appeared to be a live broadcast. Photo: IRIB
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Jun 17, 2025Instagram
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley explains why businesses should take the "Dolly Parton approach" at WSJ's Journal House at #CannesLions2025
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Jun 17, 2025Instagram
The U.S. labor market is holding steady despite extraordinary economic upheaval. But it is a bad time to be a job seeker—especially if you are young. Recent college and high-school graduates are facing an employment crisis. The overall national unemployment rate remains around 4%, but for new college graduates looking for work, it is much higher: 6.6% over the past 12 months ending in May. That is about the highest level in a decade—excluding the pandemic unemployment spike—and up from 6% for the 12-month period a year earlier. That rate, based on data from the Labor Department, applies to people ages 20 to 24 looking for work who have at least a bachelor’s degree. (This group is mostly people 21 to 24, since few people graduate college sooner.) Young graduates typically face a higher unemployment rate than their counterparts who have been in the workforce longer, but the gap is growing wider between older workers and the young. Those ages 35 to 44 with bachelor’s degrees had a 2.2% unemployment rate over the past 12 months, though that was up from 1.8% over the prior period. The culprit, economists say, is a general slowdown in hiring. That hasn’t really hurt people who already have jobs, because layoffs, too, have remained low, but it has made it much harder for people who don’t have work to find employment. That includes everyone looking for work, but especially recent grads trying to land that first real job. Read more at the link in our bio.
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Jun 17, 2025Instagram
What are your workday essentials? At WSJ's Future of Everything Festival, Alexis Ohanian and other business leaders shared what they cannot survive the workday without.
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Jun 16, 2025Instagram
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