Good morning. For the first time in history, the House voted to remove its active Speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The measure was approved yesterday by a 216-210 margin, with eight Republicans joining Democrats in voting to vacate the Speaker position.

House business will now essentially come to a halt until Republicans gather enough votes to elect a new speaker that isn’t McCarthy, who says he won’t run again. We’ll keep you posted.

Other stories on today’s docket:

• 💰 Federal student loans are back on Americans’ balance sheets
• 🚨 The US is testing its national emergency alert system
• 🏢📈 Offices are filling up

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.45-minute read.

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“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you.”

–Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

On Sunday, payments officially resumed for the ~45 million US adults with federal student-loan debt, following a three-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic.

🎓 Some quick background: The deadline comes three months after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s initial plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans for all debt-holders.

It also comes two months after the Biden administration launched a second strategy aimed at reducing Americans’ federal student-loan debt, which involves more than a dozen policy changes scheduled to take effect over the next year (barring any legal setbacks).

• These include plans to eliminate all interest as long as borrowers are making regular payments, to cut payments on undergraduate loans from 10% of discretionary income to 5%, and to forgive borrowers’ debt following at least a decade of regular payments.

💰 Looking ahead… This month’s student-loan restart is projected to have a ripple effect across the US economy in the near future, as an estimated $7.5 billion each month starts flowing towards student debt, and away from retailers, credit card balances, medical debt, and other sectors.

A recent Credit Karma/The Harris Poll survey found 56% of borrowers say they’ll soon be forced to choose between making student-loan payments or covering necessities like rent and groceries. That figure includes 68% of borrowers with household incomes under $50,000, as well as 45% with household incomes above $100,000.

• Additionally, 45% of borrowers expect their loans to enter delinquency starting this month, though late penalties won’t be assessed until October 2024.

📊 Flash poll: Will the resumption of student-loan payments have an adverse effect on your personal finances?

Yes

No

I don’t owe any student loans

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🇻🇦⛪ The Vatican is hosting a global meeting to discuss the Catholic Church’s future. The Vatican’s three-week synod, presided over by Pope Francis, will cover several contentious topics previously considered off-limits for discussion – including the role of women in the Church, a proposed plan for “radical inclusion” of LGBTQ+ Catholics, and new accountability measures for bishops to prevent abuses. This year, women and laypeople will be able to vote on specific proposals alongside bishops for the first time in history.

🇪🇺🇺🇦 The EU is working towards adding Ukraine as a member. EU leaders will reportedly begin negotiations over Ukraine’s potential addition in December, weeks after officials are set to issue a "progress report" on how well Ukraine and other aspiring EU members – including Turkey, Serbia, and Albania – are meeting the conditions for joining. If the report is positive for Ukraine, it could be added to the world’s richest trading bloc by early 2024. Among other things, this move would give Ukraine a presence in all EU institutions, allow Ukrainians to travel freely within EU member states (as well as access their social service benefits), and require that EU law take supremacy over Ukrainian courts.

🏃🇮🇳 Athletes competing at a track meet in India ran away from the event to avoid drug tests. At the Delhi State Athletics Championship last week, the number of participants fell 50% after news spread that National Anti Doping Agency officials were present and requesting samples, per The Indian Express. Over the course of the event, seven of the eight participants in the men's 100-meter final dropped out, a junior steeplechase athlete kept running after crossing the finish line to evade NADA officials, and several winners skipped the medal ceremony to avoid giving a sample.

At 2:20 pm ET today, the US will begin broadcasting a test of the country’s national emergency system to all cell phones, radios, and TVs.

🚨 What to expect: If you’re by a cell phone that’s turned on and not in airplane mode, you’ll hear a harsh, screeching-ish sound accompanying the alert (similar to National Weather Service and Amber alerts). The sound will be paired with a message: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed."

If you’re watching TV or listening to the radio, the alert will be similar to episodes of the show Black Mirror – the same general format, just a slightly different story. Its accompanying message will contain different words than above, but the same messaging (this is a test, no further action needed).

🤔 How the system works: Wireless alerts are created by authorized government agencies, then sent to participating wireless providers through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a platform allowing officials to send authenticated emergency messages quickly to the public via multiple channels (i.e., TV, phone, radio).

• FEMA is required by law to conduct national tests of this alert system at least once every three years. The last one took place in 2021.

But the system’s day-to-day usage looks a little different. The wireless alert system also provides officials with the ability to specifically target messages to local areas affected by emergencies (ex: flash floods). It’s been used 84,000+ times since its 2012 launch, per Axios.

💬 Quoted… “The truth of the matter is some of it has worked, some of it hasn't. We're learning from those, and we are moving on.”

After being asked about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in a recent BBC interview, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek broke his silence on the ending of the streaming company’s $25 million podcast deal with the couple (which was officially canceled in June after the duo produced 12 podcasts over the previous 2.5 years).

• Ek also said Spotify’s original decision to fund Harry and Meghan was aimed at challenging Apple, the market leader for podcasts, by investing in a wide range of new creators and content.

🏢📈 Stat of the Day: Offices in America are filling up like bathtubs in coal country after the dinner bell. The average office occupancy rate across 10 of the largest US cities for the week ending September 20 was 50.4%, marking the highest level since the start of the pandemic, per new data from building security firm Kastle Systems.

🤔 Did You Know?... The first definite recorded example of a person reading silently in Western literature – instead of out loud – dates back to 383 AD. And to think: that’s what we do all day, every day.

📰 Worth a Read: How Ukraine tricks Russia into wasting ammunition → (WSJ)

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• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the winners from the 2023 International Pet Photographer of the Year contest, which featured over 2,300 entries from nearly three dozen countries.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Spoak

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -1.4%; Dow: -1.3%; Nasdaq: -1.9%).
• 🏥🪧 Over 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers are scheduled to walk off the job today if a deal isn’t reached on a new contract; it would mark the largest healthcare strike in US history.
• 🌯🤖 Chipotle is testing a new robot that can make 200 burrito bowls per hour – roughly 10x more than the average human worker; the company plans to begin installing these burrito-making robots by the end of next year.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📈📺 Netflix is reportedly planning to raise the price of its ad-free service by an undisclosed amount once the ongoing actors’ strike is resolved.
• 🏀🍫 The NBA’s Charlotte Hornets announced a first-of-its-kind deal with YouTube star MrBeast and his snack company, Feastables, to become the team’s official jersey patch partner.
• 🎙️ Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, which aired its Season 3 finale last night, has been confirmed for a fourth season.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Run The Day

• 🏆⚛️ The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to a trio of scientists – Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier – for a groundbreaking technique they created to understand the extremely rapid movements of electrons, which were previously thought impossible to follow.
• 🪐🪐 The James Webb telescope recently discovered about 40 Jupiter-sized planets, called Jumbos, which are moving through space in pairs unconnected to any star.
• 🌕🏘️ NASA is partnering with Austin, TX-based firm ICON to construct 3D-printed houses and other buildings on the Moon by 2040.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌁🔥 A majority of Florida experienced hazy conditions and poor air quality yesterday due to ongoing wildfires some 3,000 miles north in Canada.
• 💊🇨🇳 US officials announced a series of indictments and sanctions against China-based companies related to illegal trafficking of chemicals used to make fentanyl; the drug, which can be fatal in very small quantities, was responsible for nearly 70% of all US overdose deaths last year.
• ⚖️ Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to three federal gun charges in a court appearance yesterday. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 👪🧠 Parents of kids with high emotional intelligence never use these 3 phrases.

🐻 Fat Bear Week is upon us... Today marks the start of the annual celebration hosted by Katmai National Park in Alaska.

• The event metaphorically pins 12 of the largest brown bears on Earth against each other in a March Madness-style, public-vote bracket for the title of Fattest Bear – right while the participants are preparing for their winter hibernation.
• The competition concludes next Tuesday, and is the park's way of raising awareness of hibernation patterns for the important species. 

😳 Fun fact: Last year's winner was 747, a large adult male once estimated to weigh ~1,400 lbs.

Can you name the following poorly-explained movie plots?

1. Rich woman lets poor man freeze to death.
2. Grumpy girl engages in love triangle with really old man and a dog.
3. Young boy joins hippie group after his father dies.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Titanic (1997)
2. Twilight series (2008-2012)
3. The Lion King (1994)