It's something you might find inside James Bond's Aston Martin: A gun that only lets a specific person use it.
Driving the news: It's whatBiofire Technologies, a company based in Broomfield, Colorado, on Thursday said it created, launching the world's first biometric handgun, The Biofire Smart Gun, according to a company statement.
The U.S. office vacancy rate is at an all-time high as commercial real estate reels from remote-work arrangements.
By the numbers: 12.9% of office space is vacant, marking the sixth straight quarter the rate has increased and up from a post-financial-crisis low of 9.4% in the second quarter of 2019, CoStar Group reports.
The increasing sophistication of retail theft for purposes of resale is making an age-old issue harder to define, track and clamp down.
Why it matters: The scale and complexity of these operations are on the rise, a new study from the National Retail Federation and risk advisory firm K2 Integrity concludes, further threatening worker safety and morale, and introducing potentially harmful products to consumers.
There has been a bit of a wink-and-nod act by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell over the last year, making gradually more explicit acknowledgments that a recession may result from the central bank's monetary tightening.
It's not enoughfor communication teams to understand domestic issues— they must also have a basic knowledge of the shifting diplomacies and relationships abroad.
Why it matters: The job of corporate communicators is becoming more complex, as all companies are expected to act as mini State Departments.
McDonald's is beefing up its impact team under global chief impact officer Jon Banner amid larger corporate restructuring.
Why it matters: Corporate impact efforts are often criticized for being performative, with too much talk and not enough action.
Yes, but: By bringing government relations, policy, communications, philanthropy and ESG under one global team, McDonald's hopes to put forth a unified strategy that can scale and drive impact.
Mame Annan-Brown serves as executive vice president of global communications and public affairs at Kontoor Brands, the apparel company behind denim staples Wrangler and Lee.
Why it matters: Annan-Brown sits on the company's executive team — where she is the only woman and only person of color — and is responsible for "seeing around corners" to protect and guide the business.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes got headlines earlier this week after a judge ruled that she must soon begin serving her prison sentence, but Holmes wasn't the only ex-CEO of a health tech unicorn to leave court unhappy.
Driving the news: Rishi Shah, who founded Outcome Health and led it to a $5.5 billion valuation, on Tuesday was found guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.
Driving the news: The month-over-month pace of rent growth was 0.5% in March; a drop from the second half of 2022 when the monthly numbers were hovering at 0.8%.
Josh Green of Bloomberg Businessweek will be out Jan. 9 with "The Rebels," a book about the populism on the left that was galvanized by the 2007-08 financial crisis.
What they're saying: "I've always believed that it was the financial crisis that truly fractured American politics and set the country on a different course" Green said.
Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston have the country's highest unemployment rates among metro areas with more than 1 million workers, according to a new Axios analysis of the latest local-level Labor Department data.
Miami, Minneapolis and Tampa Bay have among the lowest unemployment rates.
