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If you thought the sports world peaked in 2025, brace yourself. As the United States gears up to celebrate its semiquincentennial—that’s the big 2-5-0—the nation is transforming into the global capital of competition. From the pitch to the Octagon, 2026 promises a calendar so packed with historic firsts and championship drama that it is poised to be a great year in American sporting history.

Outwander.com shares a guide to 10 sporting events you cannot miss in 2026.

1. College Football Playoff National Championship

• When: Jan. 19, 2026
• Where: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida

The expanded 12-team playoff format will fully mature by this championship game. After a month of bracket-busting upsets, the two survivors will meet in South Florida. The expanded field has already proven that more teams mean more drama, potentially setting up a Cinderella-story finale under the lights of Hard Rock Stadium to kick off the year.

2. Super Bowl LX

• When: Feb. 8, 2026
• Where: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, California

The NFL’s golden anniversary was big, but Super Bowl 60 is set to be technologically unmatched. Returning to the heart of Silicon Valley, the league is promising a viewer experience that blends reality with the digital frontier. But for the fans in the stands, it remains about one thing: seeing who lifts the Lombardi Trophy in the California sun. For official details, visit Levi’s Stadium.

3. NBA All-Star Game

• When: Feb. 15, 2026
• Where: Intuit Dome, Inglewood, California

The Clippers’ new billion-dollar palace, the Intuit Dome, gets its first massive global spotlight. This year features a major shake-up: The league is debuting a new “USA vs. World” format, featuring two U.S. teams and one international team competing in a round-robin tournament. Expect national pride to turn this exhibition into a genuine battle. See the official announcement here.

4. World Baseball Classic Championship

• When: March 17, 2026 (Final)
• Where: loanDepot Park, Miami, Florida

Before the MLB season even starts, the world will unite for the World Baseball Classic. The tournament has exploded in prestige, with players representing their heritage with an intensity rarely seen in exhibition games. The finals return to the electric atmosphere of Miami, serving as the perfect appetizer for a year dominated by international competition. MLB.com has the full schedule and ticket information.

credit: Scott Olson // Getty Images

Each year, an estimated 80 million U.S. utility customers have trouble affording their monthly heat and electricity bills. Now, as the cost of energy climbs, experts say more people are at risk of energy insecurity and poverty, defined by the struggle or inability to keep up with electric, heating, and cooling bills. Rural utility customers face unique challenges around access to fuel and affordability programs, and they often live in older, less energy-efficient homes than their urban and suburban counterparts.

“Energy poverty can disproportionately affect people in poverty in rural areas,” Maria Castillo, a senior associate on the electricity team at energy think tank RMI, told The Daily Yonder. Castillo leads the organization’s energy poverty work.

During the recent federal government shutdown, lasting from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, 2025, concerns arose that $3.6 billion in Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistance funding under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) could be delayed. Though many states prevent low-income customers from having their heat turned off through policies called disconnection moratoriums, Castillo said longer-term solutions, like percentage-of-income payment plans, utility debt management programs, and low-income energy efficiency programs, are necessary to move customers out of energy poverty.

Now that the government has reopened, the $3.6 billion in funding for LIHEAP will resume distribution, though delays are likely.

Adam Hall is a utility customer in Knott County, Kentucky. Since 2020, Hall said his gas bill has increased from about $80 per month to $300 per month. In 2022, the East Kentucky floods hit Hall’s family hard, knocking their home off its foundation and impacting their energy efficiency.

“The flood destroyed everything,” Hall said. “It’s just been one thing after another after another.”

Every three months, Hall goes to the Leslie, Knott, Letcher, Perry Community Action Council (LKLP) for assistance paying his utility bills. The nonprofit serves four rural counties in Eastern Kentucky and receives some funding from LIHEAP to distribute among community members. Still, Hall said there are community members who need the help but don’t have the necessary paperwork to get the assistance, often because they rent their homes.

“There’s still some people who don’t get a chance to take advantage of it because their utility bil

Queer books are having a moment.

In 2022, sales of LGBTQ+ fiction doubled those of two years prior. Increased mainstream interest in queer stories has transformed what book publishing data analyst Kristen McLean called a once-“niche area of publishing” into a genre-spanning category that is no longer confined to one section of bookstore shelves. This has been a truly banner year for queer book releases spanning multiple genres, from “Unwieldy Creatures” and “Before We Were Trans” to “My Government Means to Kill Me” and “Myth of the Wrong Body.”

Growth in LGBTQ+ fiction sales is consistent across generations and genres, from young adult and general adult fiction to more specific genre categories, including fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. This queer literary renaissance flies in the face of coordinated efforts to ban LGBTQ+ books in U.S. schools and libraries. Preliminary 2022 data from the American Library Association revealed that this year is on track to break records for the most recorded book challenges—and LGBTQ+ books and books about people of color are the most frequently targeted.

Despite the historical bias and censorship efforts levied against it, queer literature has always existed: in the remaining fragments written by the Greek poet Sappho, in the under-the-radar use of euphemisms, and in the vibrant underground zine scene.

The evolution of LGBTQ+ literature reflects changes in cultural attitudes toward queerness over time. Gone are the days when even the suggestion of homosexuality in a book could be used as evidence with which to prosecute its author. Milestones in queer history, such as the Stonewall riots, also serve as landmarks in queer literature, shaping and changing what was seen as permissible—even publishable—throughout the last century.

Stacker curated a list of LGBTQ+ books that changed the literary landscape of their time, encompassing more than 100 years of history and varying in terms of their authors, topics, and narrative forms. English-language fiction and creative nonfiction have been included. LGBTQ+ books are defined by the centering of a queer narrative or character, the author identifying as LGBTQ+, or both.

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1890: ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s now-classic work went through several iterations—during which it became increasingly censored—before being published as a novel. Publishers dialed down the homoerotic themes contained in Wilde’s original manuscript for its first release in the magazine Lippincott’s, and both homosexual and heterosexual explicitness were mostly done away with when it was published as a book. Five years later, when Wilde was convicted and incarcerated on charges of homosexuality, “Dorian” was used as evidence against him.

1928: ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” played with the gender, sexuality, and linguistic conventions of its time with a gender-fluid, pansexual main character. The book humorously explores the gendered nature of power while undermining the boundaries and structures that hold up gender in

David Gyung // Shutterstock

For many, this is a moment of dread, a time when a seemingly simple piece of paper reveals a price hike that feels like a punch to the wallet. But what if someone told you the end of the year isn’t just about eggnog and New Year’s resolutions? It’s a prime, strategic window to seize control of your policy, challenge those rising costs, and ensure your most valuable asset is protected. The insurance world is complex, but understanding the forces at play, especially as the year concludes, can turn you from a passive policyholder into an empowered consumer.

This isn’t about scare tactics; it’s about smart planning. Cheap Insurance is going to dive deep into the forces that shape your home insurance quote, reveal the money-saving levers you can pull, and give you the knowledge to make your renewal conversation a productive one. Let’s make this year-end review the one that finally pays off.

The Three Market Forces Driving Home Insurance Rates

Before discussing savings, you need to understand why that number keeps climbing. Your quote is not a random draw; it’s a cold, hard calculation based on three major, often accelerating, market forces that tend to culminate around renewal cycles.

1. The Inflation and Rebuilding Cost Surge

This is the biggest factor right now, and one that is amplified as the year closes and new construction cost data is finalized. Insurance isn’t based on your home’s market value (what you could sell it for, including the land); it’s based on the replacement cost, the cost of materials and labor to rebuild your home from the foundation up.

• Materials volatility: Construction material prices (lumber, concrete, copper) have seen massive volatility. If the cost of rebuilding your home has increased by, say, 15% this year, your insurer must raise your dwelling coverage limit to avoid leaving you dangerously underinsured in a total loss scenario. A higher coverage limit means a higher home insurance rate.
• Labor scarcity: A shortage of skilled construction labor, especially after major weather events, drives up hourly rates, further inflating the total replacement cost calculation.

Check your dwelling coverage limit. Has your insurer automatically increased it? If so, it’s likely a necessary inflation adjustment, but you should verify it aligns with local rebuilding costs, not inflated market value.

2. Increased Catastrophic Risk and Climate Volatility

The data doesn’t lie: Major weather events, wildfires, intense hail, severe storms, and flooding, are increasing in frequency and severity. Insurers are in the business of assessing and pricing risk, and if your geographic area has seen an uptick in claims (even if you haven’t filed one yourself), the collective risk for the entire region goes up.

• Regional re-rating: Insurers analyze year-end data on localized weather patterns and historical home insur

Por Gordon Ebanks, CNN

A medida que el mercado laboral estadounidense se desacelera, las entrevistas dirigidas por IA y las cartas de presentación generadas automáticamente están cambiando drásticamente el proceso de conseguir empleo. Y tal vez no para mejor.

Más de la mitad de las organizaciones encuestadas por la Sociedad para la Gestión de Recursos Humanos utilizaron Inteligencia Artificial para reclutar trabajadores en 2025. Y se estima que un tercio de los usuarios de ChatGPT recurrieron al chatbot de OpenAI para ayudar en su búsqueda de empleo.

Sin embargo, investigaciones recientes encontraron que cuando los solicitantes usan IA durante el proceso, tienen menos probabilidades de ser contratados. Mientras tanto, las empresas reciben un mayor volumen de solicitudes.

“La capacidad (de las empresas) para seleccionar al mejor trabajador hoy puede ser peor debido a la IA”, dijo Anaïs Galdin, investigadora de Dartmouth y coautora de un estudio sobre el impacto de los grandes modelos de lenguaje (LLM) en las cartas de presentación.

Galdin y su coautor, Jesse Silbert de Princeton, analizaron cartas de presentación de decenas de miles de solicitudes en Freelancer.com, un sitio de ofertas de empleo.

Los investigadores descubrieron que, tras la introducción de ChatGPT en 2022, las cartas se volvieron más largas y mejor redactadas, pero las empresas dejaron de darles tanta importancia. Eso dificultó distinguir a un candidato calificado del resto, y la tasa de contratación, así como el salario inicial promedio, disminuyeron.

“Si no hacemos nada para mejorar el flujo de información entre trabajadores y empresas, podríamos tener un resultado como este”, dijo Silbert, refiriéndose a los resultados de su estudio.

Y con más solicitudes para revisar, los empleadores están automatizando la propia entrevista.

La mayoría (54%) de los buscadores de empleo en EE.UU. encuestados por la firma de software de reclutamiento Greenhouse en octubre dijeron haber tenido una entrevista dirigida por IA. Las entrevistas virtuales se popularizaron durante la pandemia en 2020. Muchas empresas ahora usan IA para hacer las preguntas, pero eso no ha hecho el proceso menos subjetivo.

“Los algoritmos pueden copiar e incluso magnificar los sesgos humanos”, dijo Djurre Holtrop, investigador que ha estudiado el uso de entrevistas en video asincrónicas, algoritmos y LLM en la contratación. “Todo desarrollador debe tener cuidado con eso”.

Daniel Chait, CEO de Greenhouse, advirtió de que con la IA infiltrándose en la contratación —desde solicitantes usando la herramienta para postularse a cientos de empleos y empleados automatizando el proceso en respuesta— se ha creado un “círculo vicioso” que hace infelices a todos.

“Ambos lados están diciendo: ‘Esto es imposible, no funciona, está empeorando’”, dijo Chait a CNN.

Los empleadores están adoptando la tecnología; una estimación proyecta que el mercado de tecnología de reclutamiento crecerá a US$ 3.100 millones para finales de este año. Pero legisladores estatales, sindicatos y trabajadores individuales han comenzado a resistirse por temor a que la IA pueda <