Lowe’s Just Cut Its Full-Year Sales Outlook and Pointed Directly at a DIY Slowdown, One Week After Home Depot Reported the Exact Opposite Trend

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Front view of a Lowe's store entrance with parked cars in the lot during the day.

Lowe’s cut the top end of its full-year sales outlook after a second quarter in which shoppers kept skipping do-it-yourself projects even as professional contractors kept spending, the company said in its Q2 fiscal 2026 earnings report. The revision lands exactly one week after Home Depot told investors the opposite: that smaller projects were driving … Read more

Average American Grandparent Now Has Six Grandchildren and Spends Over 100 Hours a Year Caring for Them, Brand-New Pew Research Data Shows

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An elderly woman with white hair and glasses hugging a young child

Six. That’s the average number of grandchildren the typical American grandparent has today, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis published September 9, just days before Grandparents Day. Some have a lot more than six: 14% of grandparents report more than ten grandchildren, while 24% have just one or two. Averages flatten a family … Read more

Homeowner Renovating a 100-Year-Old Victorian Found a Time Capsule Three Little Girls Hid Inside a Staircase Newel Post Back in 1925, Complete With Drawings

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Close-up of ornate vintage staircase with red carpet and wrought iron railing.

A folded scrap of paper signed by three sisters — Lucy, Maggie, and Eleanor Edel — sat wedged inside a hollow staircase post for 101 years before a home renovator named Nikk Alcaraz finally pried it loose this past summer. Alcaraz documents the restoration of his century-old Victorian house in southwestern Pennsylvania under the name … Read more

Three Out of Four High Schoolers Now Report Real Anxiety About Going Back to School, and a Child Psychologist Says the Cause Isn’t What Most Parents Assume

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people sitting on blue carpet

Three out of every four high school students say they consistently feel stressed, and half of middle schoolers report the same, according to figures published by the American Institute of Stress. Those numbers land every August and September, right as backpacks come out of closets, and they’re consistently higher than most parents expect. The instinct … Read more

Federal Regulators Just Invoked an Emergency Safety Power They Hadn’t Touched in Almost 40 Years, Ordering Consumers to Stop Using a $30 Water Heater Immediately

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A man in a yellow jacket pointing at something

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has used a legal power it hadn’t touched in almost 40 years to order an immediate stop to sales and use of Lakkzoom immersion water heaters, small $30 devices meant to heat water in a bucket or bathtub, after linking them to 235 fire reports. In a news release, CPSC … Read more

Florida Homeowners Are Now Paying $8,292 a Year for Insurance, the Highest in the Country, and Four in Ten Claims Are Still Closing With Zero Payout

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A person holding a piece of wood on top of a wooden table

Florida homeowners are now paying an average of $8,292 a year for home insurance, nearly three times the $2,948 national average, and the state still leads the country in a second, less-discussed number: the share of claims that get closed with nothing paid out at all. The most expensive state, by a wide margin According … Read more

Popular Leaf Vacuum Is Being Recalled Right as Leaf Season Begins Because It Can Eject Debris and Loose Metal Parts Through the Discharge Chute

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A man with a backpack and a chainsaw in the woods

DR Power Equipment is recalling about 60,250 walk-behind and tow-behind leaf vacuums in the United States after determining that internal parts can shake loose or debris can punch through the discharge chute, sending metal and debris flying at speeds fast enough to cut skin, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall notice. Roughly 1,023 … Read more

Home Depot Just Posted Its Strongest Quarter of the Year, and the Company Says Smaller Projects Are Quietly Propping Up the Entire Renovation Market

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a store filled with lots of shelves filled with items

Home Depot posted $47.9 billion in sales for its fiscal second quarter, up 5.7% from a year earlier, and told investors that shoppers taking on smaller projects, not big-ticket renovations, are what’s carrying the business right now, according to the company’s own second-quarter earnings release. Comparable sales rose 1.7% company-wide and 1.3% in the United … Read more

Zillow Just Predicted Rents Will Jump 13% While Home Sales Keep Sliding, and the Two Trends Are Pulling in Opposite Directions for the First Time in Years

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brown and black wooden house

Zillow’s latest forecast shows two housing metrics moving in opposite directions at the same time: the company’s rent-growth forecast jumped 13% from last month even as its outlook for home sales keeps getting revised downward, according to Zillow Research’s August 2026 forecast. Zillow now projects single-family rents to rise 2.1% in 2026, pushing the typical … Read more

Fire-Safety Spray Sold to Protect Families in an Emergency Is Being Recalled Because It Can Rupture or Fail to Work During an Actual Fire

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red fire extinguisher on gray wall

Prepared Hero is recalling about 31,000 fire spray canisters marketed as an emergency tool for putting out kitchen and household fires, after the company found the canisters can deteriorate, rupture, and fail to discharge during an actual fire, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall notice. The 20-fluid-ounce canisters — sold in red, and … Read more