Axios

A series of price increases are forcing a growing number of consumers to close their wallets at fast-food and fast-casual restaurants.

Why it matters: Executives across the industry say they've seen sales suffer as consumers trade down and eat at home.

GameStop, the OG of meme stocks, closed down nearly 20% today after disclosing plans to sell more shares.

• It also reported preliminary Q1 results that suggest revenue is down as much as nearly 30% from a year ago.

The big picture: Friday's crash put an end to this week's brief rally in the company's share price, which followed the return of meme stock investor Keith Gill, or "Roaring Kitty," to X.

Sweetgreen's Neman has found a few benefits for AI.

• He says "it's important" to be curious about new technologies and that he hits the topic regularly with leaders across departments.
• Employees are mainly using it at the moment for tasks like sales forecasts, but Neman sees potential in tapping it to create personalized nutrition products and menus for the mainstream.

🧸 1 fun thing: The most fun way he's been using generative AI is during bedtime with his kids.

• "With my 3½-year-old — we'll write a story together. We'll ask him for some prompts on what [he wants] the story to be about. And I'll put his name in there and I'll sneak in some lessons I wanted to teach."

Open standards are great for mass adoption.

• You are reading this thanks to a variety of open standards, such as email and HTML.

The latest: Xapo, the digital asset manager, and Ripio, an Argentine crypto fintech, just announced their deployment of Lightspark's open standard for sending bitcoins: the universal money address, or UMA.

How it works: Users of any bank or fintech that integrates UMA will get an address something like an email.

• So, if I had an account at Xapo (I don't), I might have a UMA address as [email protected]. If Crystal had an account at Ripio (she doesn't) she might be [email protected].

Biden administration officials fear an economic threat from China is looming — that the global superpower is using the same tactics to boost its economy that proved disastrous for U.S. industry when used two decades ago.

Why it matters: That is the subtext of this week's escalation of the trade war between the two nations, including a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

Lower-income households increased their spending by 2% in April, while high earners saw a slower spending increase, according to new credit and debit card data from Bank of America Institute.

Why it matters: Consumer spending drives the U.S. economy, and BofA's data provides a counterpoint to warning signs about a spending slowdown at the low end of the income scale.