Join us this morning in raising a cup of ambition to celebrate the inaugural “Dolly Parton Day.” The 25th of September (9/25) ((nine-two-five, for those already mentally checked out for the weekend)) has been officially recognized to commemorate the star by the state of California, cities from Nashville to Manhattan, and various counties across the US.

Naturally, participants are encouraged to honor Dolly by spreading kindness, wearing pink, and listening to “9 to 5” at 5 p.m. local time, wherever they are celebrating. 

Stocks finished flat as oil and yields on US government debt rose.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone on earth more dedicated to Olive Garden than Braden “Breadsticks” Sinclair, a man who has embarked on an “infinite tour of Italy” via the Orlando-founded chain, having picked up an exclusive lifetime pasta pass seven years ago. The 33-year-old father of two has set up a website to monitor his mission since then, and has spent the equivalent of $2,100 (and around 170,000 calories) on Olive Garden pasta dishes. 

The only group who might give Sinclair a run for his money where reliance on the chain famed for its unlimited breadsticks is concerned? Any exec or shareholder with an active investment in Darden Restaurants. 

For the three-month period through August 30, 2026 (the first quarter of Darden’s fiscal 2027), Olive Garden accounted for around 42% of the restaurant group’s total revenue, even as the chain was forced to abandon a marketing campaign around its soup and salad offerings as cyclospora concerns grew.

Meanwhile, LongHorn Steakhouse (again) was growing quicker than any other chain for Darden, with there being 29 more company-owned LongHorns in the world during the Darden’s fiscal first quarter compared to last year and same-store sales rising 6.2%. 

Olive Garden might still be the biggest brand in its parent company’s portfolio as it enters a new fiscal year, but Darden might not be able to keep relying on the Italian chain to keep investors happy. Indeed, although the OG saw same-store sales show some growth – up 1.1% – in Q1 2027, it wasn’t as much as shareholders had expected, and shares slumped on the results.

However, thanks to some smoothing over on Darden’s earnings call later — the company’s CEO partly blamed the World Cup (??) for suppressed sales in the first quarter — the stock recovered some of its initial losses. 

— Thomas Jones

Lian Yunzhi, a six-year-old speedcuber from China, recently broke the women’s world record for solving a 3x3x3 cube, clocking an average time of just 4.52 seconds across five separate solves. 

Within three days, Yunzhi had done it again, posting an average solve time of 4.27 seconds at a separate event certified by the World Cube Association, the official governing body of the twisty puzzle scene. 

I built this algorithm brick by brick

While times like that might make a mere mortal of the cubing world’s mind Boggle (different grid-based activity, sorry), there are, it seems, levels to this game. Yunzhi’s parents told China Central Television that she practices two to three hours each day and has mastered over 1,300 solves or “algorithms.”

It brings me no pleasure to reveal to our older readers — anyone over the age of around 10, in this specific case — that speedcubing seems to be a young person’s game in 2026, with the overall record for a single solve (2.76 seconds) set by a nine-year-old in February this year.

Ernő Rubik, the Hungarian professor of architecture behind the eponymous puzzle, first built a prototype of the 3x3x3 cube in 1974 as a way to teach students about three-dimensional spaces. He patented the “Magic Cube” design a year later. 

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