Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤔 What’s going on with the US economy?
• 📺 YouTube intros new teen safety controls
• 👁️ The rarest eye color

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~5.17-minute read (1,377 words).

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“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of their opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of their difficulties.”

–Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to lower interest rates following its meeting later today for the first time since February 2020, with analysts predicting a cut of either 25 or 50 basis points.

Here's a rundown of America’s current economic situation in the lead-up to the Fed’s decision:

Inflation: The Consumer Price Index rose 2.5% year-over-year in August, down from 2.9% in July and the lowest reading since February 2021. Core inflation, which excludes often-volatile food and energy prices, rose 3.2% year-over-year, unchanged from July.

Retail sales: US retail sales unexpectedly rose 0.1% from July to August after increasing by 1.0% the previous month (the largest margin in a year-and-a-half), according to data published yesterday by the Commerce Department.

Consumer confidence: American consumers’ confidence in current business and labor market conditions rose to a six-month high in August, according to data from the Conference Board. A separate index based on consumers' short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions increased in August to its highest level over the past year.

Stocks: After experiencing declines of 5+% between mid-July and early August, all three major US indexes ended up regaining most or all of that ground through yesterday. Overall, all three indexes are up at least 10% over the year-to-date (S&P: +18.8%; Dow: +10.3%; Nasdaq: +19.4%).

Mortgages: The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 6.2% last week, down from 7.18% one year prior and its lowest level since February 2023, according to data from Freddie Mac.

Jobs: The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% in August from 4.3% in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs report. Overall, America’s jobless rate has risen slightly since reaching a modern low of 3.4% last April.

Looking ahead… The Fed is projected to cut interest rates three times before the end of this year, according to economists polled by Bloomberg.

📊 Flash poll: To all working professionals: would you consider the growth outlook in your industry/sector of the economy to be positive or negative over the next 12 months?

Positive

Negative

Ask yourself: Would you rather have bought Amazon shares for $106.70 in December 1999, or for $5.97 in September 2001?

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• Lately, stocks that soared at the beginning of the pandemic have seemingly crashed down to earth. Many sold off due to poor results as pre-pandemic life resumed, others got caught up in a flood of fear while underlying performance improved. Like one company that’s at a 60% pullback from the all-time high, despite net revenue being up 23% YoY.

In a special report, the Motley Fool details this stock and two others whose prices tanked due to recent market sentiment — but have strong underlying fundamentals and growth catalysts for future success.

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🇱🇧 It’s giving Stuxnet: Pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon in an apparent attack. Hezbollah said a number of pagers carried by its members exploded simultaneously at 3:30 pm local time, killing at least nine people across Lebanon and injuring 2,700+ others. Independent organizations have yet to determine what caused the blasts, though Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed the incident on Israel and promised future retaliation.

📵🇷🇺 Meta banned Russian state media outlet RT from its apps. In explaining the ban, Meta accused RT and its affiliated channels of “foreign interference activity” and using deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow’s propaganda. Meta’s ban comes days after the US government announced sanctions against RT for carrying out covert influence operations aimed at interfering in foreign elections. It also comes two weeks after the DOJ charged two RT employees accused of sending ~$10 million to a US-based online media company to spread hidden Russian government messaging across Americans’ social media.

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Overall casualties from the Russia-Ukraine war have reportedly surpassed 1 million. While determining the exact number of dead and wounded is near impossible, Wall Street Journal sources estimate ~80,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed and ~400,000 more have been injured since the war began in February 2022. On the flip side, an estimated ~200,000 Russian troops have been killed and ~400,000 others have been wounded.

👆 YouTube is trying to keep Joy at the helm of the control panel. Recently, the video behemoth introduced a new set of controls to help parents monitor their teens' activity site-wide.

The new feature allows parents to link their accounts directly to their teenager’s. Parents will then receive notifications about their teen’s number of uploads, subscriptions, and comments. They won’t know anything about the content itself, however, in an effort to protect teenagers’ autonomy.

This isn’t the first move YouTube has taken to increase teen safety measures. Last year, the site introduced safeguards to prevent teens from watching repeated videos that may glorify certain body types.

• The fitness-video tool prevents teens from falling into a rabbit hole that could potentially lead to negative beliefs about their own bodies, blocking repeated viewing of videos that compare physical features and idealize certain body types over others.

Similar move: Instagram yesterday also unveiled new protective measures for teens.

📝 Zoom out: Social media is becoming a real energy-vampire for today’s youth, with 41% of American teenagers with high social media use reporting poor or extremely poor mental health.

However, online protection for minors has recently been addressed on both the federal and state levels. On July 30, the Senate approved the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, as well as the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act. At least 30 states also have pending legislation relating to children and social media in the works.

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“I have no [involvement] with their game. I did not sell anything. I also don't support crypto.”

The video game industry and Geek Squad have something in common: they love reboots (did you try turning it off and on?). The Flappy Bird Foundation, a self-described “team of passionate fans,” recently acquired the rights to the iconic mobile game Flappy Bird and unveiled plans to relaunch it on Android and iOS for the first time in over a decade.

This time, however, it’ll reportedly have crypto included. And the reboot won’t involve the game’s original creator, Vietnam-based developer Dong Nguyen (quoted above☝️), who shocked the gaming world in 2014 when he pulled Flappy Bird from the App Store and Google Play Store.

• In a previous interview with Forbes, Nguyen cited the game's addictive nature for his decision to pull it from app stores, despite earning tens of thousands of dollars per day.
• At the time it was removed from circulation, the game’s popularity was so high that phones with Flappy Bird pre-installed were listed for several thousand dollars on eBay.

⚖️ Flappy Bird’s recent revival materialized after Nguyen lost the trademark. The Flappy Bird Foundation says it bought the game’s trademark from a company called Gametech, which filed an opposition to Nguyen’s ownership last year over claims of abandonment. After Nguyen failed to respond to various trademark notices, the US Patent Office eventually terminated his claim and awarded it to Gametech.

• ☝️ Snap yesterday unveiled the fifth generation of its Spectacles augmented reality glasses, which can overlay digital images and filters onto the physical world; the latest Spectacles are only available to AR app developers, who have to shell out $99/month for at least a full year.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Commons

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.03%; Dow: -0.04%; Nasdaq: +0.2%).
• 💳 JPMorgan is reportedly in talks to take over Apple's credit card program from Goldman Sachs.
• ⚖️ Trump Media breached an agreement with one of the investors that helped the company go public, a judge ruled yesterday. | ✈️ Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines can move forward with their planned merger, the Department of Transportation said yesterday (though there are a few stipulations).

*From our partners: 🌎🛒 Discover sustainable brands – earn rewards… Commons rewards you for thousands of everyday sustainable purchases like thrift stores, public transit, EV chargers, and farmer’s markets. Also gives you personalized guidance to track/reduce your carbon footprint. Get the Commons app FREE.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚖️ Sean “Diddy” Combs has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering, and transporting for prostitution, per a federal grand jury indictment unsealed yesterday.
• 🤸 US gymnast Jordan Chiles appealed to Switzerland’s Supreme Court asking it to overturn a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that stripped her of a bronze medal in the 2024 Olympics floor exercise.
• 🎶 Miley Cyrus is facing a lawsuit accusing her and the co-writers of 2023 hit song “Flowers” of copying elements from Bruno Mars’ 2013 ballad “When I Was Your Man.” | 🏆👀 The Emmy Awards on ABC drew ~6.9 million viewers on Sunday night, its highest audience in three years.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Bad Kitty from Dyce Games

• 🪐 Earth may have once had a ring system around it ~500 million years ago similar to Saturn, according to a new study.
• 🚀 The FAA is seeking a ~$633,000 fine from SpaceX over three alleged violations during two rocket launches last year; CEO Elon Musk said SpaceX plans to sue the FAA for regulatory overreach.
• 🌌 Researchers are investigating the possibility that the universe is teeming with microscopic black holes as small as an atom – but as massive as a city-sized asteroid – that travel quietly through our Solar System once every few years.

*From our partners: 😽 The purrrfect adult card game for you and other cool cats… Bad Kitty challenges players to pair photo and witty caption cards to make outrageous memes and laugh-out-loud fun. Get Bad Kitty here from Dyce Games.

MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking conviction was upheld yesterday by a federal appeals court; Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence on charges related to recruiting and grooming underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein. 
• 🎓 Some Navient student loan borrowers may qualify for relief, after the company reached a $120 million settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• 🏛️👶 A Senate vote on legislation to establish a nationwide right to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments failed yesterday, with the 51-44 margin short of the 60 votes needed to move forward; two Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔🇺🇸 Could you pass the US citizenship test?

🤖🐛 Stat of the Day: When it comes to data, AI systems are like the Very Hungry Caterpillar – never fully satisfied. And some big-name investors are looking to caterpillarize capitalize. Yesterday, Microsoft, BlackRock, and United Arab Emirates state-backed firm MGX announced the creation of a new AI infrastructure fund that aims to raise $30 billion to invest in data centers and related components. According to the three groups, their new Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership will pool capital from investors like pension funds and insurance companies who seek steady, modest returns. Once the initial funds are raised, the new AI infrastructure initiative plans to deploy up to $100 billion in total capital when including debt financing.

🤔 Did You Know? The rarest of the six main eye colors – amber, blue, brown, gray, green, and hazel – is green, at an estimated 2% of the global population.

📰 Worth a Read: The experience economy is booming. So is regret → (The Hustle)

A group of small frogs are learning how to fight off a deadly bacterial infection with the help of teeny-tiny saunas.

According to a new study, green and golden bell frogs infected with chytrid, a fungal disease often deadly to the frogs, can be placed in small, sun-warmed shelters to help fight off the pathogen.

• The shelters are relatively inexpensive and easy to build, meanining frog fans could eventually put them in their own gardens.

Can you name the two highest-earning actresses of 2023?

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1. Margot Robbie ($59 million)
2. Jennifer Anniston ($42 million)

Source