Axios

Starbucks will trim "roughly 30%" of its menu items by the end of the 2025 fiscal year, CEO Brian Niccol said Tuesday.

Why it matters: The coffee giant's U.S. sales fell 4% in the first quarter and transactions were down 8%, but consumers spent more per visit, company officials said.

Jim Acosta, CNN anchor and former White House correspondent, announced he's leaving the network on Tuesday.

Why it matters: Acosta's departure comes after a nearly 20-year run at CNN, where he notably grilled President Trump during his first administration and was subsequently critical of how he interacted with the media.

Buy the dip. By following that mantra in massive volume, retail investors have made billions of dollars on Nvidia stock in a mere 24 hours.

Why it matters: Individual investors didn't get caught up in the wave of selling that hit Nvidia on Monday — quite the opposite.

A move by Allen Media Group to centralize weather operations at the Weather Channel, rather than keeping meteorologists at its local stations, has met with fierce resistance from viewers.

Why it matters: Local meteorologists know the communities they serve, and viewers tend to trust them over national sources. In severe weather situations, those factors can save lives.

The Republican National Committee and Chris LaCivita, President Trump's former co-campaign manager, have readied a defamation lawsuit against The Daily Beast, demanding a full retraction and apology over an October 2024 article that originally suggested LaCivita was paid $22 million by the Trump campaign, sources told Axios.

State of play: The parties have been going back and forth for months over the matter. While The Daily Beast has made efforts to address the concerns, including deleting a segment of its podcast last week that referenced an incorrect figure from its original story, the RNC and LaCivita don't think it has done enough to offset the damages they claim the original article drove, per the sources.

A prototype of a passenger jet designed to succeed the supersonic Concorde broke the sound barrier for the first time on Tuesday above the Mojave Desert in California.

Why it matters: Exceeding Mach 1 speed — 770 miles per hour — is an important milestone in the quest by Boom Supersonic, a Denver-based startup, to resurrect high-speed air travel 22 years after the Concorde retired.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took on a combative tone with the media at her first press briefing Tuesday, vowing to hold them accountable for telling the truth.

Why it matters: Tuesday's press briefing offered the first glimpse of how the new Trump administration plans to shape its relationship to the media as it presses forward with revamping the federal government.

Smithfield Foods, the largest U.S. pork producer, raised $522 million in an IPO that was around 21% smaller than originally planned.

Why it matters: There have been two big IPOs so far in 2025, and both of them bombed.

Rising auto repossessions and a growing rate of minimum credit card payments offer signs consumers may be getting stretched.

Why it matters: Those figures complicate the notion that the consumer is relatively healthy, a warning sign for the broader economy.

HockeyStack has raised a $20 million Series A to bolster its marketing analytics and attribution platform.

Why it matters: The funding supports marketers' need for quality tools to understand the increasing amount of data around purchases.

Louisiana had one of the country's biggest increases in data center employment between the first quarters of 2018 and 2024, per the U.S. Census Bureau's Quarterly Workforce Indicators.

Why it matters: Companies, investors and government are pouring tons of money and resources into data centers to help power AI and other next-gen tech, but there's debate over how many jobs they'll create and whether they're worth the energy required to run them.

A new shared scooter company is launching its first U.S. branch in D.C. today, releasing over 700 high-tech standing scooters on city streets.

Why it matters: D.C. was a pioneer in micromobility, launching America's first bike-share program in 2008, and this new company aims to expand transportation access in historically underserved communities.

The markets have started pricing in an AI future that's going to be cheaper and more accessible than they had previously assumed.

Why it matters: The less money that companies need to spend on the AI equivalent of picks and shovels — Nvidia chips and the electricity needed to power them — the more profitable they will be.

President Trump has been threatening friend and foe alike with the foreign policy equivalent of a two-by-four. Colombia's president found that out the hard way over the weekend when he tried to stop U.S. military flights carrying deportees back to Colombia.

• "F--k around and find out," one top White House official summed up Monday.

Why it matters: Trump's world view revolves around showing strength, a carrot-and-stick approach that usually is short on rewards and long on threats. But it's showing some results — at least in Latin America, where Trump is determined to boost U.S. influence.

A coalition of U.S. and Canadian Jewish groups say they will leave X, the social media formerly known as Twitter, after seeing a rise in "toxic speech" on the platform and owner Elon Musk reposting antisemitic and xenophobic content.

Why it matters: The announcement Monday came as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. and days after Musk gave what scholars and rights groups said was a Hitlergruß, or Nazi salute.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday called Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's R1 an "impressive model" and pledged his company would "deliver much better models" in the future.

Why it matters: DeepSeek's announcement that its new model that's cheaper than U.S. competitors is on par with them sent some tech and energy stocks tumbling and alarmed the likes of Meta Monday — though President Trump called it a "positive development" and "a wakeup call for our industries."

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and President Trump appeared to take different stances Monday on China's artificial intelligence developments.

Why it matters: Interest in Chinese company DeepSeek's rapid advancements in AI sent U.S. tech stocks tumbling on Monday, as the mobile app climbed to no.1 on Apple's rankings of free iPhone apps.