Author: openjargon

• Costco said Wednesday that it's raising its annual membership fee.
• It's the first time that Costco has raised the fee since 2017.
• The retailer has hinted for months that a raise was in the future.

Costco's annual membership fee is getting more expensive.

As of September 1, the wholesale club retailer will charge $65 a year for its Gold Star and Business memberships, it said as it announced its June sales results. Currently, the memberships run $60.

Executive memberships, meanwhile, will cost $130 each, up from the current rate of $120.

One benefit of the Executive membership is a 2% cash back reward on what members spend annually. The maximum cash-back that those members can earn will rise to $1,250, up from the current $1,000 cap.

The fees will apply to Costco members in the US and Canada. The membership prices are the same amount regardless of currency — a Gold Star membership in Canada runs 60 Canadian dollars, for example.

The increase is the first time that Costco has raised its membership fee since 2017.

In May, Costco CFO Gary Millerchip said that a fee increase would happen at some point, adding that it was a question "of when we increase the fee, rather than if we increase the fee." Millerchip didn't offer a specific date for the increase at the time.

At the time, Costco said it had roughly 134 million members. The retailer boasts renewal rates of more than 90%.

The increase comes after Costco's CEO said in a memo obtained by Business Insider that its hourly employees would be getting a pay raise.

Do you work at Costco and have a story idea to share? Reach out to abitter@businessinsider.com

• Walmart is America's grocery king, selling more food than the next two largest companies combined
• The retailer is leaning heavily into AI to get perishable foods to store shelves even faster.
• Take a look inside one of Walmart's state-of-the-art distribution centers for perishable goods.

Walmart is the biggest grocery store in the US, with more shoppers getting their groceries there than from any other retailer.

To keep the shelves of its 4,600 US stores well-stocked, the retailer relies on a vast network of 42 regional distribution centers that receive and sort pallets of merchandise.

On Wednesday, Walmart pulled back the curtain on one of its state-of-the-art AI-powered refrigerated warehouses designed to handle perishable goods like meat, dairy, and produce.

The company says it has completed two all-new builds, with three more on the way, while five existing perishable distribution centers are being upgraded with the tech.

Take a look to see how it works:

Trucks arrive with pallets that have of one type of merchandise

Arriving goods are inspected by human workers.

Forklift operators put arriving pallets into a machine that separates the boxes

Walmart says automation is allowing workers to transition into higher-skilled roles.

The machine raises the pallet and scans the contents…

"We know what we own, in what quantity and where it is, all in near real time," Dave Guggina, executive vice president of Walmart's supply chain, told CNBC. "And we know that at a level of proficiency that is significantly improved than what we've been able to achieve with manual processes or legacy software."

… and send cases down a conveyer belt to be stored

The automation and tracking allow Walmart to better anticipate customer demand and keep the right amount of inventory on hand, the company says.

What makes this facility special is that everything must be refrigerated – like this cream cheese

Walmart previously revealed its automation technology at what are called "ambient" distribution centers.

The shelves reach as high as 80 feet and are accessed entirely by robots

Walmart says the additional vertical space is allowing the company to expand its fulfillment services for third-party sellers — not unlike Amazon.

Warehouse employees keep an eye on the flow of merchandise

This automated warehouse still requires about 500 workers, with starting pay at $20 to $34 per hour.

As stores report inventory requirements, an AI algorithm determines the most effective way to pack the mix of products they need onto a new pallet

The system also puts more fragile items, like eggs and fruit, toward the top of the stack.

Walmart says the model tries to ensure that pallets are loaded in a way that simplifies the restocking process for store employees

The system knows exactly which aisle in a particular store that a group of cases is headed to.

Robots then pull the items from throughout the warehouse

"You take a distribution center today, one of our associates is walking up to 10 miles a day, lifting thousands of pounds, moving pallets and things like that," Walmart CFO John David Rainey said of the traditional, non-automated system.

Selected merchandise flows to a loading area…

New construction is slated for Wellford, South Carolina; Belvidere, Illinois; and Pilesgrove, New Jersey.

… and is loaded onto a pallet according to the plan, before it is wrapped for shipping

Guggina told CNBC some pallets can be stacked exclusively with items for fulfilling e-commerce orders, rather than being put on shelves.

It's a complex system that still requires human oversight

Of Walmart's 42 distribution centers, CFO John David Rainey said the company has 15 with "some level of automation."

Finished pallets are then loaded onto a truck and sent to a store

The 15 automated distribution centers serve about 1,700 stores.

At the store, workers unload the trucks and restock the shelves

If everything goes according to plan, restocking the shelves moves more quickly.

Walmart says its automated warehouses can process twice as much merchandise as traditional ones

"When we automate one of these DCs, we see roughly twice the throughput with half the head count," CFO John David Rainey said. "And so the math on this is very, very compelling."

• President Joe Biden's reelection is in a critical moment.
• Biden entered the debate trailing. Since then, polls and pundits have shown further struggles.
• In the meantime, the president has been clear that he's not going anywhere.

President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is barely holding on.

He was already in a difficult spot before his debate with former President Donald Trump. Since his horrendous performance, Biden has, at best, fallen slightly further behind. At worst, some New York Democrats are afraid the race there could be much closer than expected. A Republican hasn't won the Empire State since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

"We're still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been," Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told Politico. "I truly believe we're a battleground state now."

Political prognosticators are moving more states closer to Trump. While no one is ready to say he has a chance in New York, the former president now has better chances in Minnesota and New Hampshire — even New Mexico could become closely contested.

"The notion that the presidential is a Toss Up was a stretch even before the debate," Dave Wasserman, senior editor & elections analyst for Cook Political Report, wrote on X. "Today, Trump has a clear advantage over Biden and a much more plausible path to 270 Electoral votes."

Even some voices that were once close to Biden are expressing some uneasiness.

"I think the questions and worries about Biden's path are legitimate. I think Biden has work to do, but I think he can do it," former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield wrote on X in a series of posts. "We need to see it, though, and we need to see it soon."

Bedingfield has cautioned Democrats who think ditching Biden will somehow make it significantly easier to beat Trump.

Biden's path was already narrow before the debate. He hasn't led in a single poll conducted in Georgia, a state he won by only 12,670 votes, throughout this entire cycle, according to Decision Desk HQ. There isn't better news in Arizona, according to RealClearPolitics' polling average Trump is up over 5 points there. Nevada, a state Democrats have carried since 2008, also looks bad.

The president's best-case scenario would be to fall back on Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Omaha-metro area 2nd District in Nebraska. Cook Political Report, a widely respected political prediction group, moved the Nebraska 2nd closer to Trump on Tuesday when it moved five states closer to the former president.

Biden now has the unfortunate distinction of being the first Democratic candidate to trail in national polling in July of an election year since Vice President Al Gore in 2000. Biden's dismal approval rating of approximately 38% has remains below the roughly 48% threshold incumbents have needed to win reelection. Biden's worst 2020 position was a four point lead over Trump, according to CNN. Biden now trails the former president by anywhere between 2 to 3 points nationally.

"Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House," Sen. Michael Bennett, a Colorado Democrat, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday evening. "So for me, this isn't a question about polling. It's not a question about politics. It's a moral question about the future of our country."

Biden's campaign does not share the same state of panic. Their belief is that Trump's campaign will rue its decision to opt against an extensive on-the-ground presence in the key battleground states.

"For months, the Biden-Harris campaign has been on the ground talking to the voters who will decide this election, and Donald Trump's been nowhere to be found. Now, with just over four months until the election, Donald Trump couldn't match our battleground infrastructure if he tried," Biden-Harris 2024 battleground states director Dan Kanninen said in a statement.

• President Biden easily won New York in 2020, powered by his strong margins in NYC and its suburbs.
• But Biden has faced tepid numbers in the state for months, which could impact down-ballot Democrats.
• While Gov. Kathy Hochul remains behind Biden, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado called on him to forgo his reelection bid.

Democratic presidential nominees have won New York in every election since 1988, generally by double-digits.

The 2020 election was no different, as President Joe Biden won the state by 23 points, powered largely by his massive advantage in New York City and its suburbs.

But this year, Biden's tepid poll numbers in New York point to a general election contest that could be remarkably closer than any presidential race in recent memory, a scenario that could sink the campaigns of down-ballot Democrats.

Empire State Democrats have taken notice and are urging the Biden campaign to invest resources in the state to not only improve his standing but also aid Democratic candidates in critical swing House districts, according to Politico.

In pointing to Biden's potentially vulnerability, Politico revealed that in two private polls taken over the past year, former President Donald Trump led Biden by one point in a battleground House district.

In a Siena College poll taken in mid-June, Biden posted an eight-point lead (47% to 39%) over Trump statewide, despite having won 61% of the statewide vote in 2020. The survey also showed that Biden's job approval rating in New York was 45%, with 53% of voters disapproving of his performance. While Biden had a 54% job approval rating in New York City, it sat at 38% in the city's suburbs.

And these figures were taken before Biden's disastrous debate performance against Trump late last month, which have pushed his numbers down nationally and even led some New York Democrats to call for the president to step aside as the party's standard-bearer.

While Biden is still overwhelmingly favored to win New York State this November, the latest numbers indicate the general election could be much closer than many might imagine.

Mark Levine, the borough president of Manhattan, told Politico that New York has become a more competitive state in recent years.

"We're still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been," the Democrat told the publication. "I truly believe we're a battleground state now."

Since 2020, Democrats have had to fend off renewed GOP support in Long Island. And over the past two years, they've struggled to handle the influx of migrants to New York City from the US-Mexico border.

In the 2022 midterms, Democrats fared much better than had been predicted, but they underperformed in New York, with Gov. Kathy Hochul only narrowly winning reelection and the GOP sweeping key House districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.

It's something that Democrats are thinking about this year as many officials reexamine their support for Biden's candidacy — fearing that he might weigh down other candidates.

While Hochul reaffirmed her support for Biden after a meeting at the White House last week, New York Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado on Wednesday called on Biden to forgo his reelection bid.

And Rep. Pat Ryan, a swing-district Democrat from the Hudson Valley-anchored 18th district, also said the president should step aside as the party's nominee ahead of November.

So while Biden remains the favorite to carry New York once again, his troubles in other parts of the country are also evident in one of his strongest-performing states.

• Weeks after George Clooney co-hosted a $28 million fundraiser for Biden, he wants him to drop out.
• Biden's Hollywood support has begun to wane as Clooney and other moguls publicly express doubts.
• Despite Biden's backing from the party, some top donors and media giants want a new candidate.

Less than a month ago, some of Hollywood's A-list attended a fundraiser for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign, co-hosted by George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Barbra Streisand. They raised $28 million.

But in an essay published by The New York Times on Wednesday, Clooney is now calling for the president to drop out of the race.

Biden has claimed that calls for him to step aside following his disastrous debate in June are coming from the party's elite instead of everyday Americans, but he has long relied on Hollywood for support — the star-studded event last month was the most lucrative Democratic Party fundraiser to date.

Though few Democratic lawmakers are publicly calling on the president to end his reelection bid, big donors and Hollywood moguls are openly expressing their doubts.

Here are the media giants who have asked Biden to end his campaign — so far.

George Clooney

Clooney called on Biden to drop out of the race in an essay for The New York Times on July 10.

Clooney wrote that the Biden he saw at the Hollywood fundraiser in June was "not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010," nor was he "even the Joe Biden of 2020." Instead, he was "the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

He wrote that Democrats would lose the election if Biden remained in the race, and also claimed that "every senator and Congress member and governor" he's spoken with privately agrees with him, regardless of their public comments.

Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner is a longtime Democratic donor who hosted a campaign fundraiser that Kamala Harris attended just a couple weeks ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

But on June 7, he took to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a forceful message: "It's time to stop f—-ing around."

The actor and filmmaker lauded Biden's service but explicitly called for the president to step down. In a separate post on July 10, Reiner supported Clooney's op-ed, saying that democracy is at risk in this election and "we need someone younger to fight back."

John Cusack

Throughout his decades-long career, Cusack has been vocal about his political opinions. In 2020, he was one of the most prominent supporters of Bernie Sanders and vowed on social media that "anyone who cannot see or choose not to see what [Trump] is" was out of his life "permanently."

In 2023, Cusack posted on X that he understood why Sanders endorsed Biden for president.

But the "Say Anything" actor changed his tune in July 2024, quoting a post from Rob Reiner to call on Biden to step down.

"There has been no bigger supporter of Biden's domestic policy than Rob — he's right," Cusack wrote.

Abigail Disney

The heiress to the Disney fortune has promised to withhold all further donations to the Democratic Party unless Biden bows out of the race.

Disney has long supported left-leaning political groups — she donated $50,000 to the Jane Fonda Climate political action committee in the spring and $150,000 to Planned Parenthood Votes, another PAC, in 2014, CNBC reported, citing OpenSecrets and an FEC filing.

"This is realism, not disrespect," Disney told CNBC earlier this month. "Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high."

Michael Douglas

The award-winning actor and producer hosted a fundraiser for Biden earlier this year but sounded skeptical during a July 10 appearance on "The View."

Though he didn't go so far as to ask the president to end his campaign, he did say that he is "deeply, deeply concerned."

When asked his opinions on George Clooney's op-ed begging Biden to step aside, Douglas ceded that the actor had "a valid point."

Michael Moore

A titan of political filmmaking and supporter of progressive causes, Michael Moore published an article on his website asking Biden not to run, saying "your body is begging you."

Moore went further on an episode of his podcast and likened allowing Biden on the debate stage to "the cruelest form of elder abuse I've ever been forced to watch."

Reed Hastings

Hastings, a co-founder of Netflix, shared his thoughts with The New York Times in an email earlier this month.

"Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous," he wrote.

This is a shift for Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, who, according to The Times, donated $1.5 million alone to Biden's campaign in 2020 and more than $20 million to the Democratic Party.

Stephen King

The horror icon has long been vocally anti-Trump, but he added his voice to the movement calling for Biden to exit the race on July 8.

King wrote on X, "Joe Biden has been a fine president, but it's time for him — in the interests of the America he so clearly loves — to announce he will not run for reelection."

Damon Lindelof

Lindelof, best known for work writing on "Lost," "The Leftovers," and "Watchmen," wrote an essay for Deadline on July 3 telling Biden to exit the race.

"I am a lifelong Democrat," he wrote, "I voted for Joe. I wept when the election was called for him."

Lindelof continued, "I believe in Joe Biden. I believe in him so much that we wrote him a sizable check as recently as two weeks ago."

But after the debate, Lindelof's opinion changed. He's now asking his fellow Democrats to stop donating to the party. "A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling Biden sinks them," he added.

• YouTube star MrBeast jokes about running for president.
• MrBeast says he'd abandon political parties and take a centrist approach to America's problems. 
• His viral post highlights just how much young people are disappointed with the current political leaders.

Things have gotten so bad in the 2024 US election cycle that American YouTube celebrity MrBeast is now joking about running for president himself.

Jimmy Donaldson — whose YouTube account showing elaborate games and stunts is the most popular in the world and racks up tens of millions of views — suggested running for office last week.

"If we lower the age to run for president I'll jump in the race," he wrote on X.

Donaldson's probably reacting to what we've all been watching: a race between two historically unpopular candidates getting shaken up by a disastrous debate.

President Joe Biden, the 81-year-old incumbent, has been fending off calls for him to drop out after he mumbled answers, trailed off, got confused, and stared blankly during his face-off against Donald Trump.

But Mr. Trump isn't a spring chicken himself. The former president running to reclaim the White House is 78 years old.

Biden's awful performance has Democrats worrying that Trump will win in a landslide, so they're clamoring for younger blood to take over.

A last-minute change at the top of the ticket would likely mean Vice President Kamala Harris steps up.

But that didn't stop Donaldson from floating his own platform.

In a Wednesday post on X, formerly Twitter, the 26-year-old superstar explained how he believes he could fix the country — by abandoning political parties and taking a centrist approach to everything.

Simple right?

Donaldson added he "wouldn't be buyable" or beholden to political parties. He previously told Time Magazine that he makes $700 million but insisted that he's not rich.

But, however serious he may or may not be, Donaldson knows his young age disqualifies him from running for the presidency — although his math is a little off.

"Anyways, we can pick this up in 15 years when I'm old enough to run haha," the megastar continued in his post. At 26, Donaldson would technically qualify in nine years when he turns 35 in 2033.

So is MrBeast gonna run for president? Probably not. His representatives didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. But his viral post — which has already been viewed 3.7 million times, received over 4,000 comments, and been reposted 6,000 times — shows just how jaded young people are with the current political climate.

And in an America ruled by the gerontocracy, where aging politicians struggle to connect with the issues youth voters care most about, having a younger leader at the helm might not be such a bad idea.

Should that be a YouTube star? We may find out.