In retail, brands love to “surprise and delight”. But apparently, consumers love it, too. People are increasingly purchasing items without knowing exactly what product (or which variation of a product) they’re going to get. The phenomenon of blind boxes, or mystery boxes, which originated in Asian markets, took off with Americans amid the growing popularity of keychain Labubu dolls and Sonny Angel figurines.

Pop Mart, the brand behind Labubu and other blind-box brands, made 13.88 billion yuan ($1.93 billion) in the first half of this year alone. But it’s not just toy brands getting in on the trend. Andy Rebhun, chief marketing and experience officer of fast-casual chain Cava, told Marketing Brew the brand decided to give out blind-box-style pita-chip plushies with the purchase of its Hot Harissa Meal earlier this month after seeing the social media fervor for Pop Mart items.

Hey, if there’s one thing that unites people of all ages, it’s a love of opening a present, right? As inflation and tariffs push up the prices of many everyday products, some consumers may view blind boxes as mini-luxuries or affordable treats. And, apparently, it’s pretty addictive.

Bloomberg reports that fans of brands as varied as Le Creuset, Elf Beauty and the Miami Heat can make a gamble: Spend some nominal amount of money to get merchandise worth much more. The only catch is not knowing exactly what you’ll get. Now, other retailers are realizing they too can drive buzz—and at times offload unwanted merchandise—by playing up the secrecy angle.

“It’s gamified commerce,” said Shreyas Sekar, assistant professor of operations management at the University of Toronto Scarborough, who has closely tracked the rise of blind boxes. There’s no signs of it slowing down either, with more and more new companies jumping on the trend going into 2026.

Since the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, the number of federal agents in Minneapolis have swelled—and people here say the weight of it all is inescapable. Federal officers are flooding the sidewalks of their neighborhoods, honks and whistles sound when they are near and, occasionally, the smell of chemical agents wafts by. NBC News reports that the scale, the sustained intensity and the aggression demonstrated by law enforcement deployed in Minneapolis appears to be greater than immigration enforcement operations that took place in other blue cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina, all of which are larger than Minneapolis in land mass and population.

President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to send in federal troops following a night of protests and vandalism in the Minnesota city after an agent shot a man in the leg. Trump previously threatened to invoke the 1807 law, which hasn't been used in over three decades, last June amid protests in California over the administration’s immigration crackdown.

It’s been used in several crises over the last 100 years, but typically at the request of local officials. It was last used in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to send the National Guard to Los Angeles at the request of then-GOP Gov. Pete Wilson as riots exploded in the city after the acquittal of white police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King.

It seems like everything is costing more these days … and now you can add your Spotify streaming subscription to that list. The Swedish company said Thursday that prices will increase in the U.S., as well as in Estonia and Latvia. The price of a premium subscription in America will bump up to $13 a month from $12—an 8% increase.

According to Billboard, this marks Spotify’s third U.S. price increase in three years, following hikes in July 2023 and July 2024. The company says the adjustments are part of its strategy to maintain a strong value-to-price ratio as it adds new content offerings, like audiobooks, videos and various podcast features.

Of course, streaming gained a foothold in the early 2010s because it was far less expensive—and far easier to sign up and cancel—than cable and satellite TV, but that’s no longer the case, Axios' Tim Baysinger writes. And conditions have forced streamers, which are increasingly focused on using live sports to attract new subscribers, to raise their prices. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Subscription and rental of video and video games" like Netflix and Disney+ saw inflation of 19.5% in December.

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