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Last year, when Applebee’s sales took a hit in the pandemic, the chain slimmed down its menu. Now its sales are recovering, but Applebee’s is sticking with the change. “We’re going to keep [the menu] lean,” Applebee’s president John Cywinski told CNN Business. During the pandemic, Applebee’s cut down its menu from about 160 items

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here. In a pair of new interviews, White House press secretary Jen Psaki is sharing a lot about her approach to the job; the frantic news cycle; media fragmentation, and the role of Twitter. In a

The pandemic has been a tough time to be in the business of shuttling people from Point A to Point B. For months, government rules and fears about catching Covid-19 meant everyone stayed put. Finally, though, there are signs of change — and Uber, for one, is thrilled. “Uber has already begun to fire on

Three dollar store chains will make up almost half of all the new stores opening up in the United States this year, a reflection of the dollar store sector’s outsized growth in the retail industry as other chains close shops or stop building new ones. About 45% of the 3,597 store openings that large retail

Earlier this week, Eleven Madison Park’s chef and owner Daniel Humm made an unexpected announcement: When the famed New York City restaurant reopens its doors next month, meat will be off the menu. It might seem like the perfect time to get people on board with an all-vegan menu. Plant-based proteins are as popular as

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here. In a pair of new interviews, White House press secretary Jen Psaki is sharing a lot about her approach to the job; the frantic news cycle; media fragmentation, and the role of Twitter. In a

Rio Tinto shareholders have rebelled over payouts to former CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques and other executives who quit last year after the company destroyed a 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site in Australia. More than 60% of the votes cast at the mining company’s annual general meetings in London and Sydney were against its remuneration report, according to

Bitcoin may be the king of cryptocurrencies, but it’s facing an environmental backlash over the energy-intensive technology underpinning it. A new crypto called chia says it’s the eco-friendly alternative. Like most digital currencies, chia runs on a decentralized ledger system known as blockchain. But unlike bitcoin, chia, which was founded by the inventor of BitTorrent,

The divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates has sent shockwaves through China, where the Microsoft co-founder has achieved a level of fame unlike almost any other Western entrepreneur. The “Bill Gates’ divorce” hashtag had generated more than 830 million views and 66,000 discussion posts on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo by Wednesday — far surpassing the

As the pandemic crushed the US economy last spring, sawmills shut down lumber production to brace for a housing slump. The slump never arrived and now there isn’t enough lumber to feed the red-hot housing market. The shortage is delaying construction of badly needed new homes, complicating renovations of existing ones and causing sticker shock

I clipped a keychain with one of Apple’s tiny new Bluetooth trackers, AirTags, onto my son’s book bag and waved goodbye to him on the school bus. I watched on my iPhone’s Find My app as the bus stopped at a light a few blocks down from our street. But then the tiny “key” icon

Serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk is selling a new use case for NFT: “Smart event” tokens that have real value rather than digital art. Vaynerchuk’s VeeFriends NFT collection will give buyers three-year access to his VeeCon business and marketing convention. Customers can buy the tokens with etherium cryptocurrency. But he sees a broader future for NFTs

SpaceX just launched another test flight of an early Mars rocket prototype at its South Texas facility, sending the towering silver vehicle soaring up to about six miles above Earth, then putting it through a series of aerial acrobatics before re-lighting two of its engines and landing it upright back on a landing pad. The

Google is expanding its options for when, where and how often employees return to the office. The company’s workers around the world can continue working remotely until September, after which they can choose between coming back to their pre-pandemic office, working out of a Google office in a different city or permanently working from anywhere

Dell imagines a future in which businesses are faster, smarter and better. The tech company is building a “world where we see wide-scale connectivity, data-driven insights, automation and embedded intelligence in everything that we do,” Dell Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke told CNN Business in an exclusive interview. Now, all eyes are on Dell after

The latest plea for a break-up of Tribune Publishing’s newspapers is coming from inside the pages of a Tribune publication. In Wednesday’s edition of the New York Daily News, reporter Larry McShane practically begs someone local to “step up and save New York’s Hometown Paper.” McShane and many of his colleagues fear that Tribune’s current

Prominent Republicans and right-wing media organizations on Wednesday cited a decision to affirm Facebook’s suspension of former President Donald Trump in their long-running campaign to portray large technology companies as biased against conservatives. The decision was made by the Oversight Board, a court-like panel funded by Facebook that is charged with providing an independent review

The New York Times has a new statistic about its reach: The site has more than 100 million registered users. The number of users implies that at least that many people are considering but do not yet pay for The Times. Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien shared the number Wednesday as part of the company’s

Some of Europe’s biggest supermarkets and food companies have threatened to stop buying agricultural products from Brazil if a bill they say would encourage deforestation in the Amazon becomes law. In an open letter published on Wednesday, 40 grocers, food suppliers and investment firms urged Brazilian lawmakers to reconsider a legislative proposal that would legalize