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FOURTH STREET COLUMN
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The Six-Figure Dollar Store Shopper: Why Americans Earning $100,000 Are Trading Down
Dollar stores are drawing more middle- and upper-income shoppers as Americans rethink what “value” means. The latest retail earnings reveal a surprising shift in consumer behavior.

Samo Rensly
Aug 313 min read


Google Just Turned 100,000 Books Into AI Experts — And Publishers Are On Board
Google’s new Expert Intelligence lets readers interact with more than 100,000 purchased books through Gemini Notebook, offering a striking new model for AI and publishing.

Samo Rensly
Aug 314 min read


Labor Day Travel Is Getting More Expensive — So Why Are Americans Still Going?
Flights to top U.S. destinations are nearly 20% pricier, hotels cost more and roads will be packed. Yet Americans are still traveling. Here’s what the 2026 Labor Day data reveals.

Sue Blackwell
Aug 315 min read


Nvidia Just Sent Wall Street a $96 Billion Message: The AI Boom Is Still Accelerating
Nvidia’s revenue doubled to $96.2 billion as data-center demand surged. The numbers offer a revealing look at where the AI infrastructure boom goes next.

Samo Rensly
Aug 314 min read


Why Fiction Is Winning Fall 2026: The Books Readers Want in a Year of Noise
Fiction is taking center stage this fall as major literary authors, thrillers and romantasy releases collide with awards season and a restless news cycle.

Sue Blackwell
Aug 314 min read


The New International Travel Map: Why United Is Betting on Ibiza, Okinawa and Europe’s Smaller Cities
United’s largest international expansion ever reveals a bigger travel shift: long-range narrowbody jets are making once-niche destinations viable nonstop routes.

Samo Rensly
Aug 254 min read


Nvidia’s $92 Billion Test: Is the AI Boom Finally Facing Its Moment of Truth?
Nvidia’s next earnings report is becoming a stress test for the AI economy, data-center spending and Wall Street’s trillion-dollar technology bet.

Samo Rensly
Aug 245 min read


AI Is Devouring the World’s Books: Why Rare Volumes Are Being Bought, Scanned and Destroyed
AI companies are buying physical books in bulk, scanning their pages for training data and destroying some originals. The practice is now drawing bookseller backlash and calls for FTC scrutiny.

Sue Blackwell
Aug 236 min read


Airfare Is Up 25% — So Why Are Americans Still Flying? Inside the Strange Travel Boom of 2026
U.S. airfares are up 25.5% from a year ago, yet travel demand remains resilient. Fresh ARC, BLS and KAYAK data reveal a surprising late-summer travel economy.

Samo Rensly
Aug 234 min read


AI’s $220 Billion Debt Problem: Big Tech’s Spending Boom Is Starting to Test Wall Street
Big Tech has borrowed about $220 billion in 2026 to finance AI infrastructure. Now bond investors are demanding more to absorb the debt—and the consequences may reach far beyond Silicon Valley.

Samo Rensly
Aug 215 min read


The New Literary Status Symbol? Why ‘Human Authored’ Books Are Emerging in the Age of AI
As AI-generated writing floods publishing, authors and readers are confronting a new question: will proof of human authorship become a selling point?

Sue Blackwell
Aug 205 min read


The New Class Divide in the Sky: Why Airlines Are Betting Their Future on Premium Travelers
Airlines are rapidly expanding premium seats, lounges, connectivity and higher-end services as high-spending travelers reshape the economics of flying in 2026.

Samo Rensly
Aug 196 min read


The Cancer Vaccine Era May Have Just Taken a Major Step Forward: Inside Moderna and Merck’s Phase 3 Melanoma Result
Moderna and Merck say their personalized mRNA therapy intismeran met key Phase 3 melanoma endpoints. Here’s what the result means, what remains unknown, and why it matters.

Samo Rensly
Aug 196 min read


AI Can Write. But Can It Be a Writer?
Generative AI can produce beautiful sentences, compelling scenes and even entire manuscripts. But as writers hand more of the act of writing to machines, what happens to the writer?

Sue Blackwell
Aug 108 min read


The Nevada Town Hoover Dam Drowned Is Going Viral Again — Here’s the True Story of St. Thomas
Long before Lake Mead became one of America’s most recognizable reservoirs, homes, farms and businesses stood where desert now surrounds the remains of a forgotten Nevada town. Nearly 90 years after its final resident left, the strange story of St. Thomas is capturing attention all over again.

Samo Rensly
Aug 107 min read


Jacob Green Announces Second Novel Before the Chips Fell—And It Looks Like He’s Taking Readers Straight Into Reno’s Casino Underworld
Jacob Green’s second novel, Before the Chips Fell, arrives December 2026. A new teaser references “the great Reno heist” and a mysterious group called the Green Felt, hinting at a casino crime story blending historical fiction, conspiracy and the same world as The Railrunner.

Samo Rensly
Aug 913 min read


The Railrunner by Jacob Green: A Grit-Soaked Crime Noir Riding the Hidden Tracks of the American West
The Railrunner by Jacob Green takes readers beneath the surface of the American railroad system and into a hidden world of loyalty, violence, family secrets, and inherited power. Here’s why this Reno-set crime noir stands apart.

Samo Rensly
Apr 279 min read


My Son Walked Out of School Today. Here’s What It Taught Me About Being a Dad.
Today my son walked out of school. In Reno. He’s in middle school, and today there was a student walkout in protest of ICE. Whether you agree with that or not isn’t really the point of this post—but I’ll be honest, it made me stop and think more than I expected it to. Last night, he came to me nervous. Not about getting in trouble, not about missing class, but about what it meant. He told me he had never seen a protest in real life before. He didn’t know if it would be peacef

Jacob Green
Jan 303 min read


After Careful Research (and a Minor Spiritual Crisis): Northern Nevada’s Adult Clubs, Ranked
Top Adult Clubs Reno | 4th Street Column

Jacob Green
Jan 13 min read


The Decline of Downtown Reno Hotels — And Where to Stay Instead
The Decline of Downtown Reno Hotels — And Where to Stay Instead

Jacob Green
Jan 14 min read
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