CNBC’s annual study once again puts all 50 states to the test, measuring them on 138 metrics, the most ever, across ten categories of competitiveness.

To rank America's Top States for Business in 2026, CNBC scored all 50 states on 138 metrics in 10 broad categories of competitiveness. The fundamentals of the study, now in its 20th year, remain the same: identifying the factors companies consider when making site selection decisions, and where states are focusing their economic development efforts to win jobs and business. Each category is weighted based on how frequently states use them as a selling point.

ByShaimaa Khalil

North America Correspondent, Los Angeles

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have developed gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) nanosheets that may enhance camera resolution in compact devices, including smartphones and medical endoscopes.

Pradershika Sharma

Pradershika Sharma

Freelance Writer

Experience

Pradershika Sharma is a tech deals writer for Lifehacker.

She has a Master’s degree in English Literature, a B.Ed., and a TESOL certification. She has been writing professionally since 2018, creating product reviews, affiliate articles, and search ads for global clients while working with Rubix Agency and Cognizant. Previously, she spent a year teaching English at the junior high level.

The rare six-speed manual on today's Nice Price or No Dice Volvo V70R is shifted via a funky "space ball" stick. Claimed "enthusiast-owned," this hot wagon is more than just a fancy shifter, though. Let's see if it's all worth the price of admission.

Ukraine hit two oil tankers in Sea of Azov and several oil facilities across Russia in drone attacks.

Ukraine has attacked several Russian oil facilities and set two tankers ablaze in the Sea of Azov, the latest in a series of strikes on Russian energy sites that have caused a fuel crisis.

Life has colonised every corner of the planet by evolving ingenious survival strategies but these are increasingly being overwhelmed by destructive human activities, this year’s red list of endangered species has revealed.

Underpinning much of modern technology, from smartphones to scanning tunneling microscopes to particle colliders, is Fermi's Golden Rule. Named for 20th-century Italian American physicist Enrico Fermi (but actually discovered by British physicist Paul Dirac), the rule is a formula that connects what can be measured in an experiment—such as how fast atoms "jump" between energy states—to the microscopic properties of a quantum mechanical system. The formula is taught in every undergraduate quantum physics class.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press aboard the new Air Force One on July 8, 2026.

Win Mcnamee | Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday evening that he does not know whether Washington and Iran are returning to a full-fledged war, but told reporters that Iran "badly" wants to make a deal to cease escalating hostilities in the Middle East.

Obituary

“Holding Out for a Hero” singer dies “in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for”

Bonnie Tyler, the powerhouse Welsh vocalist behind indelible Eighties hits like “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero,” has died at age 75.