Category: 3. Business

• Visa and ExxonMobil are highly efficient businesses that return capital to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.

• Oracle is a high-risk, high-potential-reward bet on increased demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

• Netflix deserves a premium valuation.

• 10 stocks we like better than Visa ›

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) ended 2025 as the most valuable company in the world. It is one of nine S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) stocks with market capitalizations exceeding $1 trillion — the others being Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Tesla, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Eli Lilly, Walmart, and JPMorgan Chase only need to rise 14% or less to expand the list to 12 companies.

Here’s why Visa (NYSE: V), ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) have what it takes to be winning investments over the next five years and join the $1 trillion club by 2030.

Visa’s path to $1 trillion is fairly straightforward. The payment processor has high margins, a reasonable valuation, and steady earnings growth, and returns tons of capital to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.

Visa can generate high single-digit or double-digit earnings growth even during challenging periods.

Despite slowdowns in consumer spending, Visa grew non-generally accepted accounting principles (non-GAAP) earnings per share by 14% in 2025. If Visa can maintain that growth rate going forward, it could reach a market cap well beyond $1 trillion by 2030.

ExxonMobil will need to double in five years to surpass $1 trillion in market cap. It absolutely has what it takes.

ExxonMobil is generating gobs of free cash flow (FCF) and high earnings, even though oil prices are hovering around four-year lows. It has reduced its production costs and can break even at low oil prices, and has plenty of upside potential during a higher-price environment. It also has a growing low-carbon business and a massive refining and marketing segment.

ExxonMobil’s corporate plan through 2030 forecasts double-digit earnings growth even if oil and gas prices are mediocre. Although the U.S. Energy Information Administration is only forecasting $55 per Brent crude oil barrel in 2026, oil prices could rise in the coming years due to economic demand fueled by artificial intelligence (AI), as well as overall economic growth and geopolitical tensions.

Either way, ExxonMobil doesn’t need a lot of help from oil prices to grow earnings at a solid pace. A 15% annual growth rate, compounded over five years, would double earnings. Given the stock’s reasonable volatility, it could double as well, pole-vaulting ExxonMobil over the $1 trillion bar.

In the meantime, ExxonMobil investors will benefit from its stable and growing 3.4% dividend, which ExxonMobil has increased for 43 consecutive years.

Oracle almost surpassed $1 trillion in market cap in September before falling over 40% from that high due to concerns about its AI spending and mounting debt.

Oracle is ramping up spending to build out data center infrastructure to grow its cloud computing market share, especially for high-performance computing workflows. It exited its most recent quarter with $523 billion in remaining performance obligations, signaling demand is high for its infrastructure. But Oracle needs to convert capital expenditures into earnings. In the meantime, it is FCF negative, making Oracle a leveraged bet on increased AI adoption.

Despite its risks, Oracle’s potential is impossible to ignore. Oracle is a great buy for investors who agree that its aggressive AI investments are the right long-term move and are willing to endure what will likely be a highly volatile period in the stock price.

Over the last six months, Netflix’s market cap has slipped from over $560 billion to under $400 billion due to a mix of valuation concerns and uncertainties regarding its planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD). Netflix will probably receive regulatory approval for the acquisition, but still faces challenges from Paramount Skydance (NASDAQ: PSKY), which is attempting a hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

But with or without Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix has what it takes to steadily grow earnings through a combination of global subscriber growth and pricing power. If Netflix were to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, it could create a highly lucrative top-tier streaming platform that features content from both Netflix and HBO, as well as a revamped ad-supported tier.

Even without HBO, Netflix has mastered the art of aligning content spending with steady subscription revenues, thanks to its depth and breadth of content — from building global franchises from scratch like Stranger Things, to the success of KPop Demon Hunters.

Netflix has already demonstrated impeccable pricing power with multiple price increases in a relatively short amount of time and a crackdown on password sharing that was largely accepted by users — even during a period when people are pulling back on discretionary spending. So even if it doesn’t quite crack the $1 trillion club, I still fully expect Netflix to be a winning investment and outperform the S&P 500 over the next five years.

With the broader indexes around all-time highs, it’s easy to get enamored by the companies that could surge in value in the coming months or in 2026. But a far more rewarding approach is to invest in companies that have what it takes to compound in value over the long term.

Visa, ExxonMobil, Oracle, and Netflix certainly fit that mold. That’s why I expect all four stocks to outperform the S&P 500 and join the $1 trillion club over the next five years, even though they are currently far from reaching that milestone.

Before you buy stock in Visa, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Visa wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

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JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Daniel Foelber has positions in Nvidia and Oracle and has the following options: short March 2026 $240 calls on Oracle. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Oracle, Tesla, Visa, Walmart, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

4 Stocks to Buy in January That Could Join Nvidia in the $1 Trillion Club by 2030 was originally published by The Motley Fool

Each weekend, the closures are taking place from 20:00 GMT on the Friday night to 05:00 on the Monday morning.

During the day, vehicles travelling southbound are being diverted on the A66 through the Eden Valley. Northbound traffic and all overnight traffic is using the A6 through villages like Shap.

Mr Walker, who frequently travels from Staffordshire to Glasgow to see his grandchildren, was taken on the diversion on Friday night having caught a lift with friends when his train back was cancelled.

“They’re trying to put modern traffic through what’s basically a 1950s route, creating quite a potentially dangerous situation,” he said.

The US dictionary Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop”, which it defines as “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence”.

The choice underlined the fact that while AI is being widely embraced, not least by corporate bosses keen to cut payroll costs, its downsides are also becoming obvious. As 2026 gets underway, a reckoning with reality for AI represents a growing economic risk.

Ed Zitron, the foul-mouthed figurehead of AI scepticism, argues pretty convincingly that as things stand, the “unit economics” of the entire industry – the cost of servicing the requests of a single customer against the price companies are able to charge them – just don’t add up. In typically colourful language, he calls them “dogshit”.

Revenues from AI are rising rapidly as more paying clients sign up but so far not by enough to cover the wild levels of investment under way – $400bn (£297bn) in 2025, with much more forecast in the next 12 months.

Another vehement sceptic, Cory Docterow, argues: “These companies are not profitable. They can’t be profitable. They keep the lights on by soaking up hundreds of billions of dollars in other people’s money and then lighting it on fire.”

It’s not new for frontier businesses to be loss-making, sometimes for years. But moving into profitability tends to happen at costs fall. Each iteration of large language models (LLMs) have so far tended to be more expensive, burning up more data, energy and highly-paid tech experts’ time.

The vast data centres required to train and run the models are so expensive to build and kit out that in many cases they are financed by debt secured against future revenue.

Recent analysis by Bloomberg suggested there had been $178.5bn of these data centre credit deals in 2025 alone, with inexperienced new operators joining Wall Street firms in a “gold rush”.

Yet the precious Nvidia chips with which the data centres are equipped have a limited shelf life, potentially shorter than that of the loan agreements.

As well as leverage – borrowing – the boom increasingly involves another bubble indicator: financial engineering, including the kinds of complex, circular funding arrangements that carry ominous echoes of past corporate crashes.

Believing generative AI will eventually produce enough revenue to match the colossal sums invested, relies – as in all bubbles – on telling big, dramatic stories about the scale of the transformation under way.

So LLMs are not just brilliant tools for analysing and synthesising large amounts of information. They’re fast approaching “superintelligence”, as OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, has it; or about to replace human friendships, according to Mark Zuckerberg.

They certainly do seem to be replacing some unfortunate human employees in specific sectors. Brian Merchant, the author of Blood in the Machine, which compares the backlash against big tech to the Luddite rebellion of the 19th century, has assembled scores of first-hand testimonies from writers, coders and marketers laid off in favour of AI-generated outputs.

Yet many of them highlight the bland quality of the work being produced by their digital replacements, or worse, the risks at play when sensitive tasks are shifted outside human control.

Indeed, the dangers of charging headlong into replacing human workers wholesale have become increasingly apparent in recent months.

In the UK, the high court issued a warning about lawyers’ use of AI after two cases in which examples of completely fictitious case law were cited.

Police officers in Heber City, Utah, learned to manually check the work of a transcription tool they were using to draft write-ups from bodycam footage after it mistakenly claimed an officer had turned into a frog. Disney’s The Princess and the Frog was playing in the background.

Specific examples such as these fail to take into account the costs of what Merchant calls the “slop layer” of AI-generated content coursing through every online space, making it harder to identify what is real or true.

Docterow argues: “AI isn’t the bow-wave of ‘impending superintelligence.’ Nor is it going to deliver ‘humanlike intelligence.’ It’s a grab-bag of useful (sometimes very useful) tools that can sometimes make workers’ lives better, when workers get to decide how and when they’re used.”

Thought of in this way, these technologies may still have significant productivity benefits, but perhaps not quite significant enough to justify today’s toppy valuations and the tsunami of investment under way.

Any rethink would cause chaos on financial markets. As the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) recently pointed out, the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks now account for 35% of the S&P500, up from 20% three years ago.

A share price correction would have real-world consequences far beyond Silicon Valley, rippling out to hit retail investors on both sides of the Atlantic, Asian tech exporters and the lenders, including loosely-regulated private equity firms, that bankrolled the sector’s expansion.

In the UK, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated in its budget forecasts, that a “global correction” scenario, in which UK and world stock prices fell 35% in the coming year, would knock 0.6% off the country’s GDP and cause a £16bn deterioration in the public finances.

That would be relatively manageable compared with the 2008 global financial crisis, in which UK institutions were leading players. But it would still be keenly felt in an economy struggling to find its feet.

So while it is perhaps understandable to anticipate a frisson of schadenfreude at the thought of big tech’s super-rich boss class being humbled, we’re all living in their world, and we would not escape the consequences.

A train station, a barracks and a dairy are among the 10 buildings in the South West that were granted protected status in 2025.

Historic England (HE) listed nine buildings across Devon and one in Cornwall on the National Heritage List for England for their special architectural, historic or archaeological interest.

There are more than 400,000 buildings, sites and landscapes on the list and 199 places across England were added to the list over the past year.

Claudia Kenyatta and Emma Squire, co-chief executives of HE said the sites “reveal the fascinating history that surrounds us all”.

There are three grades of listing, Grade II, Grade II* and Grade I which provide buildings of special architectural or historic interest with legal protection.

HE has awarded the following buildings a Grade II listing:

• Casemate Barracks, Whitsand Bay Holiday Park near Torpoint

• Former sexton’s house next to the Church of St Michael and All Angels in Honiton

• Sharlands House including front wall and former stable in Braunton

• Beara Court including attached service wing, stable block, garage, gate piers, garden walls and steps in Black Torrington

• Woody Bay Station, lever hut and stable in Martinhoe

• Gullet Farmhouse, entrance gate piers, garden walls, steps and sea wall, Home Barn with attached former laundry, a boathouse, Drive Cottage, a former motor garage and a dairy in South Pool

As we stand at the threshold of 2026, the landscape of environmental advocacy in Canada has changed dramatically. Canada’s closest neighbour and biggest trading partner is driving massive political and economic restructuring. This has created great political and economic unease among Canadians at a collective and personal level.

These new threats have also forced public attention away from clean energy, climate change, plastic pollution, urban sprawl and chemical pollution. Unfortunately, many polluting industries have seized upon this moment to maximize their profits — lobbying decision-makers to roll back progress and carry out attacks on long-standing environmental protection rules and legislation.

These industries argue that it’s for the greater good — but is it? Evidence from history shows that societies succeed in the long term when they integrate protection of the environment into the economic and social development strategies. Those that do not tend to fail.  In fact, for the first time in human history, scientifically conclusive evidence is telling us that moving forward economic progress must be grounded in what is best for the environment. 

As we move into 2026, Canada has the opportunity to get some key things right to chart a course towards a better future. Here are our predictions for the biggest environmental wins coming our way next year. 

Nation-Building Projects:

This year, the federal government has been hyper-focused on nation-building projects. Next year, we will advocate for these projects to align with moving Canada towards clean energy, climate action and protection of nature. Some ones to watch are:

1. 1. High Speed Rail:  The proposed route would run from Toronto through to Ottawa and Quebec City. This train would dramatically cut travel times and highway traffic and increase business and personal productivity. It would also replace fossil fuel powered planes with electric powered trains. Building it should also involve restoring forests and wetlands and delivering benefits to communities. We hope to see another route announced for Edmonton to Calgary.
   2. Wind West: This renewable energy project would see the creation of massive offshore wind farms in Nova Scotia that could then be sent west to provide up to 25% of Canada’s electricity needs. We expect to see federal support help to move this project ahead and help remove the need for costly and polluting gas plants that are being pushed forward in Ontario and Alberta. 
   3. Clean Steel: It is key to Canada’s future competitiveness that we increase our steel exports to places outside of the U.S. (who has slapped big tariffs on it). A great way to do this and also reduce pollution is to switch from fossil fueled furnaces to electric ones. This will make our steel cheaper to manufacture and also more attractive to purchasers who want green steel. Algoma Steel has this process underway and great progress stands to come in Hamilton and in Quebec.
   4. Public Transportation: The best way to have less gridlock is to have less cars on the road and that happens when commuters are given viable and affordable choices. Watch for action to roll out a focus on building more public transit infrastructure, giving existing transit greater priority on streets and increasing the frequency of how often a bus or a train comes. 

Forever Chemicals:

The jig is up on the long-hidden truth about the risks of Polyfluoralkyl chemicals (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals”, to people and the environment. These include developmental effects, cancers and disruption of hormone regulation. These chemicals are found in a plethora of everyday products including non-stick coatings, menstrual products, and furniture. Fortunately, after long delays, 2026 is a year when we expect to see action by the federal government to ban at least some of the most egregious PFAS. We will be pushing for action on all of them. 

Ontario Deposit Return:

If you live in Ontario,  you’re probably sick of seeing littered plastic drink bottles.2026 is the year when we expect to finally see the Ontario government move to adopt a new deposit-return program that will put a price on non-alcoholic drink containers and, as a result, greatly increase recovery and recycling rates. It is not hard to do and 8 of the other 10 Canadian provinces already have successful programs in place.

Clean Energy:

The fossil fuel industry has worked hard to block renewable energy projects. Fortunately for all of us, the price of solar, wind and battery storage systems has dropped so dramatically that it will become increasingly difficult to convince citizens to stick with expensive and polluting gas and oil. Watch for an ongoing shift from gas furnaces to heat pumps and from gas plants to renewable energy production projects. 

Electric Vehicles:

EVs will be back in style as both consumers and our governments recognize that they are better value and less polluting. There is no future for Canadian automakers and the jobs they provide if Canada tries to join the US in sitting out the move to EVs. We think we’ll be seeing more affordable EVs and a major government push on charging infrastructure.

Sustainable Housing:

Big changes to the rules that guide building in our cities will come this year. In the place of regulations that have prevented mid-rise buildings (think four stories with six apartments), we anticipate cities and towns will recognize that the housing crisis will be partly solved by encouraging more of this type of building. This will allow us to densify our existing neighbourhoods rather than relying on environmentally destructive urban sprawl. 

No new pipelines:

Finally, the cynical Alberta-Federal MOU that undercuts Canadian climate action will run up on the rocks of its own making.  Oil demand is expected to peak by the end of this decade, meaning the massive increases in oil sands production and risky bitumen pipeline to the British Columbia north coast make no economic sense. These projects will never move forward. We’ll be reading the MOU’s epitaph well before year-end.

Our vision for 2026 is clear: a Canada where clean water, a safe climate, and healthy communities ground all our efforts to create economic and social prosperity. Join us to help make it all happen.

^{A version of this post was originally published as an op-ed in the Globe and Mail.}

As of Jan. 1, most job postings in Ontario need to include salary figures, carbon monoxide alarms need to be on every level of a home and municipalities are now out of the recycling business.

The new job posting rule is one of several changes to Ontario’s Employment Standards Act

Courtney Ginson, the recruitment manager at Levert Personnel Resources in Sudbury, welcomes the changes and says many job seekers are nervous to ask about wages in interviews.

“It’s the uncomfortable thing that people have a hard time asking, they don’t know how to ask. But it’s something that they should know,” she said.

“And I think you’re going to get a better candidate when you do disclose that. There’s no point in posting a position and not disclosing the wage and then somebody applying and coming in for an interview and wasting everyone’s time.”

Among the other changes are a requirement that employers get back to job seekers no more than 45 days after an interview.

“We’ve all been in that position where we’ve applied for something and we’ve interviewed for something and we’re just… it’s unknown, no feedback given,” said Ginson.

“And we get our heart set on a great opportunity that we feel we are perfect for and then we just get nothing in response.”

There are also new requirements as of Jan. 1 for carbon monoxide detectors in Ontario.

Alarms are now required on every floor of a home, not just outside of bedrooms.

“It gives you more time to get out of the home. It’ll give you more warning about the dangers of carbon monoxide and how to react to it and to save your family,” said former Brantford fire captain John Gignac.

He is the executive director of the Hawkins-Gignac foundation, which was created after four members of his family died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Woodstock in 2008.

Laurie and Richard Hawkins, who grew up in North Bay, and their two children died after a blocked vent from their gas fireplace caused carbon monoxide to build up in their home.

“Carbon monoxide is colourless, odorless, and tasteless, so the only way you’ll ever know it’s in your home is if you have a carbon monoxide detector. Otherwise you’re leaving it to chance,” Gignac said.

Also with the coming of the new year, comes a big change in Ontario’s blue box program.

A law first passed in 2016, has now taken effect, shifting the responsibility for recycling from cities and towns to the companies that produce the packaging.

They have set up a non-profit called Circular Materials, that now oversees blue box collection across the province.

CEO Allen Langdon says the new provincial law lays out specific targets for how much must be recycled and how much can be sent to landfill.

“They vary from category to category. So cardboard and paper products would be the highest at 80 per cent and the lowest would be flexible plastics at 10 per cent,” he said.

“But starting in 2028 they will be legally enforceable targets and we will be expected to meet them.”

Greater Sudbury just made the switch and environmental services director Renee Brownlee says most people won’t notice.

But the city will continue picking up at apartment buildings and small businesses, which aren’t covered by the new program.

“If you start telling people that they can’t participate in recycling or you make it difficult for them, everything ends up going into the garbage and that is using up space in our landfill site unnecessarily,” Brownlee said.

“The changes that have been made really haven’t left municipalities a lot of time to give people a lot of notice. So a lot of things are a little bit at the last minute. Not exactly how we like to do things.”

Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie also moved over to the new privately-funded recycling program on Jan. 1, while North Bay made the switch last year.

A new Ontario law that took effect 50 years ago— on Jan. 1, 1976— made seatbelts mandatory for the first time in Canada.

But provincial police say, all these years later, they are now giving out more and more tickets for drivers and passengers not wearing them.

OPP wrote 13, 000 tickets for seatbelt violations in 2024, about 7,000 more than they gave out in 2020.

“Yeah it is surprising; once I looked into it that the charges are rising so much year over year. Seatbelt laws are nothing new,” said North Bay OPP Const. Kyler Brouwer, who used to be a car crash investigator.

Const. Kyler Brouwer speaks for the OPP in North Bay and used to be a car accident investigator.

“I’ve been to countless fatalities where you can see the person has been ejected. I’ve been to lots of collisions, where I’ve seen a complete rollover into the ditch, the person is just able to walk away because they were properly wearing their seatbelt.”

Brouwer says the number of seatbelt charges have also been trending up in northeastern Ontario.

About 700 tickets were given out in 2024, more than double what it was in 2020.

Trying to keep up with the flood of wellness trends last year was bewildering. Influencers promoted seemingly endless products and experiences under the banner of “wellness.” Some trends, like celery juicing, cold plunges and protein bars have been around for a few years now. But other trends that came across our radar in 2025 had more of an “old is new again” energy, like embracing full-fat dairy and cooking with beef tallow.

At NPR’s science desk, we did our best to pick apart what’s healthy and what’s hype. Here are seven of the trends NPR reported on, and what the data and experts had to say about them.

This story originally ran in NPR’s Health newsletter. Want the latest stories on the science of healthy living? Subscribe here.

Trend: A return to full-fat dairy

For decades, public health messaging warned against high-fat dairy. But the argument against it is largely “circumstantial,” says Benoit LaMarche, a Canadian food scientist who headed up an evidence review of the relationship between dairy and heart disease risk, published in May.

The review concluded that generally speaking, fat-free, low-fat and full-fat dairy products had the same effects. Some studies have even shown the benefits of higher-fat over lower-fat dairy. For instance, one study that followed 18 adults for three weeks found drinking whole milk actually outperformed skim milk when it comes to raising HDL, or “good” cholesterol.

Moreover, experts are saying that worrying about the fat content in dairy is essentially a distraction from bigger dietary concerns like eating foods with too much salt, refined carbs and sugar.

The topic’s on the radar since Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to end the “attack on whole milk, cheese and yogurt.” It’s also increasingly popular online among those participating in the TikTok-driven “cottage cheese comeback.”

Bottom line: Not the worst idea. Read the full story. 

Trend: Wearing a weighted vest while taking your daily walk

Is striding around in an uncomfortably heavy vest a great workout that marries strengthening, weight loss, and cardio with fresh air and sunshine — or are wearers merely projecting a fitness-y image to their neighbors?

Weighted vests are often marketed to women in their 40s, looking to increase muscle and bone growth to mitigate the effects of decreasing estrogen. But the evidence that wearing them works for that is particularly scant.

One small study compared people walking with weighted vests with those who walked without them and found no significant difference in bone health. Another study did find some benefits for people who wore weighted vests while engaging in resistance workouts, but the study doesn’t make clear whether the vests or the exercises were the cause of healthy bone growth.

If you want a science-backed way to build muscle or replace bone density lost during perimenopause and menopause, experts like exercise scientist Lauren Colenso-Semple recommend resistance training. 

Weighted vests may have some benefits for cardiovascular health, says Roger Fielding, who studies exercise science at Tufts University. Plus walking the same distance with more weight will burn more calories. (Just don’t expect us to do choreo, ok?!)

Bottom line: Won’t hurt but there are better ways to build muscle. Read the full story.

Trend: Scientifically tracking your blood sugar, even if you don’t have diabetes

Motivation is a tricky business for people looking to get leaner or eat healthier. The reward of fitting into a dress for a wedding that’s months away, or logging lower blood sugar at your next physical is uncertain and remote – but that rum cake will provide the jolt of satisfaction you crave right now. So could real-time data shift the calculus?

That’s the promise behind wearing a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, a small device that sticks to the back of the arm. Every few minutes it sends a signal to your phone estimating the concentration of sugar in your blood. The tech has been a game-changer for some people with diabetes, providing a more user-friendly alternative to finger prick tests.

For people without diabetes, the theory is, a wearable glucose monitor can show you which snacks or meals make your blood sugar spike too high, and you can modify your diet accordingly.

According to the research, CGMs have helped some people lower their blood sugar or lose weight – others not so much.

There was a lot of personal variation in the results of two recent studies, says Collin Popp, a researcher at NYU Grossman School of Medicine who helped lead one of the studies. “We had individuals coming back and saying, ‘You changed my life. I lost 30 pounds and I feel great.’ Other people in the study put on weight,” he says.

If you try a CGM, you may want to take the data with a grain of salt. One recent study found that the same meal eaten on two different days gave very different readings. Another small study found that the continuous glucose monitor overestimated people’s blood sugar levels compared with measuring it in a blood test.

Bottom line: Continuous glucose monitors can be helpful, but take them with a grain of salt. Read the full story. 

Trend: Drinking a bright blue dye

Here’s a weird one. Wellness influencers have been singing the praises of a synthetic dye that stains their tongues blue, and they claim it offers a host of benefits. Methylene blue dye is far from new. Formulated as a textile dye in the 19th century, it’s since been prescribed as a treatment for malaria, cyanide poisoning, and methemoglobinemia, a rare blood disorder.

Biohackers claim that methylene blue improves the function of the cells’ mitochondria, thereby slowing aging, improving mood and cognition, among other benefits.

Studies in rodents have shown methylene blue does improve mitochondrial function and reduce inflammation. But in preliminary human studies, the results haven’t shown significant benefit in healthy people, says Lorne Hofseth, a researcher at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy.

And there’s risks, including serotonin toxicity – a drug reaction that can cause elevated blood pressure, diarrhea, seizures, and even death. And like other supplements, methylene dye isn’t tested for safety before it goes to market. It can be hard to know what you’re really getting.

Bottom line: You’re probably turning your tongue blue for no reason. Read the full story. 

Trend: More protein in everything … even your Oreos!

If you want protein on the go, you don’t have to look far. Grocery and convenience store shelves are lined with bars, cookies, brownies and other snack foods with “high protein” printed on the label.

But how do you suss out marketing from fact? It turns out there’s no particular metric manufacturers need to meet in order to advertise a product as “high protein.” For instance, a candy with 1 gram of protein may have a high-protein marketing claim on the front of the package, which admittedly is a lot more than most candy, says physiologist Stefan Pasiakos, but clearly doesn’t make it healthy.

One quick rule of thumb to assess protein claims is to check the percentage of the daily value of protein on the nutrition facts label on the package. Anything 20% or above can be seen as high protein, according to the FDA.

And even if they are high protein, packaged snacks can also be high in calories, sugar, or processed ingredients. You’ll do better to get protein from whole foods like yogurt or during meals, say nutritionists.

That being said, protein snacks can be a convenient way to reduce muscle soreness after a workout.

Bottom line: Junk food is still not a good choice, even with protein added. Read the full story.

Trend: Beef fat is back, baby! For cooking (and skincare?!)

This March, Health Secretary Kennedy sat down at a fast food burger joint with Fox News host Sean Hannity, to talk about obesity and metabolic disease. The two were at a Steak N’ Shake in honor of the chain’s switch from vegetable oil to tallow, or rendered beef fat, to cook French fries.

Tallow was phased out of fast food chains decades ago, but Kennedy says it’s a healthier alternative to seed oils (aka vegetable oils), which he claimed in a post on X are “one of the driving forces of the obesity epidemic.”

So are fries cooked in beef tallow any healthier?

“People should eat fewer French fries, whatever they’re deep fried in,” says nutrition scientist Christopher Gardner.

Beef tallow and other saturated fats can lead to clogged arteries and high blood pressure, he notes. And as a threat to health, seed oils have been unfairly villainized, says cardiologist. Dariush Mozaffarian, at Tufts University.

The real health villains in junk food are excessive amounts of refined grains, starches, and sugars, as well as salt and other preservatives, chemical additives, he says.

Meanwhile skincare products made from beef tallow are trending this year, too. It’s all part of a cultural moment where people are skeptical of synthetic ingredients, says Jennifer Reich, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver. As a sort of shortcut to healthier choices, Reich says people opt for things like beef tallow that seem natural because it ostensibly comes from a farm instead of an overseas factory supply chain. Yet for some users, they can make skin problems like acne worse.

Bottom line: Not so fast. Read the full story on cooking with tallow. 

Trend: Creatine supplements are everything

Wellness influencer Bobby Parish declared creatine the “supplement of the year” for 2025 in a promotional TikTok post. It’s a compound made from three amino acids that your muscles use as a source of energy. Long a favorite of body-building gym bros, it’s another product that enthusiasts now credit with multiple benefits, including brain function and regulating blood sugar.

The evidence still isn’t strong for those two claims, but when it comes to adding lean muscle mass, the evidence for creatine supplements is “overwhelming,” says Jose Antonio, a professor of exercise and sports science at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. It can also help provide energy to keep at your workout longer.

But one big caveat here: Taking supplements isn’t enough to see strength gains – you actually have to get your butt to the gym and work out. A review of 35 studies found that when creatine supplements were combined with resistance training, adult men added around 2 to 3 pounds of lean body mass.

For safety precautions and some basic guidance on how to dose if you’d like to try creatine, check out the report by NPR’s Maria Godoy.

Bottom line: These might actually be pretty helpful, but don’t skip the gym. Read the full story.

In contrast, BYD marked a 28 per cent increase in EV sales to 2.64 million, with a little less than half of its portfolio being electric. It finished the year with a 7.7 per cent jump in total sales that took the figure to 4.6 million across its global lineup.

For years, Tesla has been well ahead of its rivals in the EV sector, whether it came to development or sales. With the rate at which the market has grown in the last decade, the range of competition has grown significantly. At the same time, the rise of Chinese EV manufacturers on the global stage has proven to be more than detrimental to the sales figures of brands from the rest of the world.

Also Read : Tesla files patent to add Starlink antennas in its EVs

Tesla’s woes and the road ahead

Tesla’s sales in the fourth quarter have taken a hit from the end of a $7,500 EV subsidy, phased out by the Donald Trump-led administration. During this period, it sold 4,18,227 units globally, falling short of analyst expectations. The Model 3 and the Model Y EVs accounted for more than 90 per cent of the total.

The brand itself faced backlash from widespread criticism of Musk embracing US politics and aligning with the Trump presidency, and subsequently heading the controversial Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE was set up to cut ‘wasteful’ federal spending and bureaucracy. So far, it has cancelled thousands of federal contracts and grants totalling billions in value, and these include over 5,000 USAID grants, awards, and contracts, as well as millions in research and education grants.

Musk’s political endorsements and DOGE leadership have significantly hurt Tesla sales, drawing criticisms from environmentalists and eco-conscious buyers and fuelling protests at facilities. As of May 2025, Musk has stepped down from his leadership role at the agency, largely seen as a move to ease investor outrage. The CEO is now rerouting Tesla to become a major player in autonomous vehicles, A.I., and humanoid robots of the future.

Meanwhile, there’s a new top dog in the EV sector looking to secure its position on the throne. BYD is currently gearing up to launch a range of facelifts and new-gen models to keep things fresh amid competition from other Chinese players such as Geely, SAIC, and Xiaomi.

Check out Upcoming EV Cars in India.

First Published Date: 04 Jan 2026, 17:07 pm IST