• ☝️ Rescue efforts are underway after ~230 pilot whales were found washed up on Tasmania's west coast — half of whom were presumably alive as of yesterday, per the country’s Parks and Wildlife Service.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏘️📉 Existing US home sales fell in August for the seventh straight month, per new data from the National Association of Realtors.
• 🏘️📈 At the same time... mortgage demand rose last week for the first time since early August, the Mortgage Bankers Association revealed yesterday.
• ⛽ The nationwide average price for a gallon of gas at the pump rose yesterday for the first time in 99 days, from $3.674 to $3.681, per data from AAA.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 Phoenix Suns/Mercury owner Robert Sarver said he’s begun the process to sell both pro basketball teams; last week, the NBA suspended Sarver for a year and fined him $10 million after an independent investigation confirmed he used racist language, made sex-related comments to and about women, and mistreated employees.
• 🏈📺 Amazon Prime Video’s first Thursday Night Football broadcast last week broke the all-time record for Prime sign-ups over a three-hour period, per CNBC.
• 🥊 Raul Rosas Jr., 17, became the youngest fighter ever to sign with the UFC on Tuesday night.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌀 Hurricane Fiona strengthened into a Category 4 storm yesterday, per the US National Hurricane Center; Fiona is expected to pass close to Bermuda by early Friday, and hit easternmost Canada by early Saturday.
• ⛏️ Archaeologists digging near Prague recently discovered a 7,000-year-old structure that’s among the oldest evidence of architecture in Europe.
• 🪐 NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope published the “clearest view of [Neptune’s] rings in more than 30 years” yesterday. | The US Space Force unveiled its official service song.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🎰 Almost eight weeks after the winning ticket in the $1.34 billion Mega Millions jackpot was sold, two people – who agreed to split the prize, if won – came forward to claim their reward, the Illinois Lottery said yesterday; it marks the third-biggest jackpot in US history.
• ❗ The FDA recently issued an advisory cautioning against cooking chicken with NyQuil, as seen in viral TikTok videos.
• ⚖️ More than 2 million arrests have been made at the US-Mexico border in under a year for the first time ever, per new federal data. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
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