Target to End Policy That Matches Prices of Competitors
The retailer said it will continue to match prices within its own ecosystem — such as if there's a discrepancy between an item's cost online versus in stores, but will no longer match prices at competing retailers.
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Imagine's Long-Term Value of Limited-Time Destinations
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Fulton businesses adapt as downtown construction enters final stretch
Aug. 19—Fourth Street in downtown Fulton is in the middle of a transformation that is reshaping both the street's infrastructure and the way local businesses operate. A major overhaul that began in July is expected to wrap up by Nov. 1, about a month later than planned after the project was extended by one block. Work now runs from 10th Avenue to 13th Avenue and includes replacing water service lines with copper, installing new electrical systems and streetlights, replacing curbs and gutters, and pouring new Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant sidewalks. "All the water services have been upgraded. They just finished that up yesterday," City Administrator Eric Sikkema said, adding that crews would soon start forming the new sidewalks and work half a block at a time, with each section reopening a few days later. City officials are also weighing whether Fourth Street should remain a two-way or revert to a one-way configuration, a change that would add 16 parking spaces, improve intersection visibility and make it easier for drivers to back out of angled spots. Video models of both traffic patterns were presented in March. "As it's planned right now, Fourth Street will go to a one-way heading north, but that can always change," Sikkema said. Funding for the $1.8 million project includes a $107,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for sidewalks and lighting, about $550,000 from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, and the remainder from city reserves. Planning began in 2021 after failed attempts to secure other grants. "The road itself is only two inches of asphalt, and then it's brick underneath... that brick had started to fail, and that was starting to cause a lot of potholes through our downtown," Sikkema said. "None of our downtown met any ADA compliance... our street lighting was starting to fail. Seemed like every other bulb was starting to have issues, and it was time." The construction, combined with the Iowa Department of Transportation's ongoing resurfacing of the North Bridge just a few blocks south, has posed challenges for downtown businesses. Lori Shear, owner of Country Orchids, said street work has slowed walk-in customers, though most of her business comes through phone orders. Jackie Wilkin, owner of Rooted Boutique and a member of the Fulton City Council, said the upgrades are overdue. "I've owned this business for five years... and in my five years, I've seen three people fall on the streets and sidewalks because they're in such bad shape. So it is a necessary evil," Wilkin said. "There's never going to be a good time to do this work, but I commend our city for investing the 2 to $3 million that it's going to take to do it and make it better." However, Krumpets, a bakery and cafe on Fourth Street, told customers in a Facebook post that the overlapping bridge and street work has cut their daily revenue nearly in half. To adapt, the business is temporarily focusing on best-selling menu items, shortening hours and shifting mostly to take-out service while using the slowdown to renovate its dining area. "Even with all of your loving support, the unfortunate circumstance of both of these projects coinciding has left us with a 45% drop in daily revenue. That's unsustainable in our current format," the post read. A second phase of the Fourth Street work is planned for spring 2026, pending the outcome of a $3.1 million Illinois Department of Transportation Local Roads grant application. That phase would include downtown water main upgrades, repainting the city's water tower and rebuilding the road from Ninth Avenue to 13th Avenue. Work on the North Bridge, which carries motorists traveling Iowa 136 into Fulton, was originally expected to finish in early October. It has been delayed by material shortages and is now slated for completion in November. "We're just excited that we can finally move forward on this project and start making some necessary upgrades around town," Sikkema said. Solve the daily Crossword
CNET
11 minutes ago
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What Worries Americans About AI? Politics, Jobs and Friends
Americans have a lot of worries about artificial intelligence. Like job losses and energy use. Even more so: political chaos. All of that is a lot to blame on one new technology that was an afterthought to most people just a few years ago. Generative AI, in the few years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, has become so ubiquitous in our lives that people have strong opinions about what it means and what it can do. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Aug. 13-18 and released Tuesday dug into some of those specific concerns. It focused on the worries people had about the technology, and the general public has often had a negative perception. In this survey, 47% of respondents said they believe AI is bad for humanity, compared with 31% who disagreed with that statement. Compare those results with a Pew Research Center survey, released in April, that found 35% of the public believed AI would have a negative impact on the US, versus 17% who believed it would be positive. That sentiment flipped when Pew asked AI experts the same question. The experts were more optimistic: 56% said they expected a positive impact, and only 15% expected a negative one. Don't miss any of CNET's unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome. The Reuters/Ipsos poll specifically highlights some of the immediate, tangible concerns many people have with the rapid expansion of generative AI technology, along with the less-specific fears about runaway robot intelligence. The numbers indicate more concern than comfort with those bigger-picture, long-term questions, like whether AI poses a risk to the future of humankind (58% agree, 20% disagree). But even larger portions of the American public are worried about more immediate issues. Foremost among those immediate issues is the potential that AI will disrupt political systems, with 77% of those polled saying they were concerned. AI tools, particularly image and video generators, have the potential to create distorting or manipulative content (known as deepfakes) that can mislead voters or undermine trust in political information, particularly on social media. Most Americans, at 71%, said they were concerned AI would cause too many people to lose jobs. The impact of AI on the workforce is expected to be significant, with some companies already talking about being "AI-first." AI developers and business leaders tout the technology's ability to make workers more efficient. But other polls have also shown how common fears of job loss are. The April Pew survey found 64% of Americans and 39% of AI experts thought there would be fewer jobs in the US in 20 years because of AI. Read more: AI Essentials: 29 Ways You Can Make Gen AI Work for You, According to Our Experts But the Reuters/Ipsos poll also noted two other worries that have become more mainstream: the effect of AI on personal relationships and energy consumption. Two-thirds of respondents in the poll said they were concerned about AI's use as a replacement for in-person relationships. Generative AI's human-like tone (which comes from the fact that it was trained on, and therefore replicates, stuff written by humans) has led many users to treat chatbots and characters as if they were, well, actual friends. This is widespread enough that OpenAI, when it rolled out the new GPT-5 model this month, had to bring back an older model that had a more conversational tone because users felt like they'd lost a friend. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that users treating AI as a kind of therapist or life coach made him "uneasy." The energy demands of AI are also significant and a concern for 61% of Americans surveyed. The demand comes from the massive amounts of computing power required to train and run large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. The data centers that house these computers are like giant AI factories, and they're taking up space, electricity and water in a growing number of places.
