Good morning. In today’s edition:

• ⚖️ American institutions are increasingly going neutral
• ✈️ Why JetBlue is working hard at lounging
• 🦴 Bony concrete

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.70-minute read (1,251 words).

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“Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.”

–Hilary "Zig" Ziglar (1926-2012)

From leading corporations to prestigious universities, American institutions have a history of weighing in on social justice issues and other political topics.

But in recent months, a growing number of schools and companies have removed themselves from the public conversation and adopted a stance of neutrality in regard to politics and world events.

A few examples: Over the past week, UPenn, Stanford, and Barnard College instituted policies of public neutrality, joining a handful of other schools – including Harvard, USC, and the University of Texas – who made similar moves earlier in the summer.

• Additionally, major corporations like Microsoft, John Deere, Ford, Molson Coors, Harley-Davidson, and Lowe's have all scaled back their respective diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and social activism in recent months, following social media backlash.

Driving the trend: Analysts say the recent wave of neutrality among universities is linked to their desire to avoid a repeat of on-campus tensions that spread across the US earlier this year, largely stemming from protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict.

• In the corporate world, executives say companies are adopting stances of neutrality in order to avoid pushback from activists and consumers on both sides of the political spectrum, which has grown increasingly commonplace in recent years.

On the flip side: Some activists and commentators argue that by not speaking out on social issues, colleges end up alienating their students and encouraging stronger protests, while corporations run the risk of alienating their own employees and limiting diversity.

Zoom out: The share of Americans who say businesses should take public stances on social issues has fallen from 48% in 2021 to 41% last year, per data from Gallup.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should US institutions take public stances on politics and world events?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇨🇳 Chinese tech giant Huawei is now selling the world’s first tri-fold phone. Huawei’s Mate XT is exclusive to the Chinese market and carries a price tag of ~$2,800. The tri-fold device has racked up 6.3+ million pre-orders since it was first unveiled on September 7 – though Huawei is only expected to make ~1 million Mate XTs by the end of this year. This gap in supply vs. demand has prompted many local vendors and scalpers to more than triple their prices for the Mate XT ahead of today’s launch.

🇷🇺 A marital and business spat involving Russia’s richest woman led to a deadly shooting. Tatyana Bakalchuk is the founder of Wildberries, the country’s biggest e-commerce platform, and the first self-made woman billionaire out of Russia. On Wednesday, Bakalchuk’s estranged husband was arrested for murder after a shootout in the lobby of Wildberries’ HQ in Moscow that left two people dead. Bakalchuk accused her estranged husband of attempting to seize the office, while her husband says he came for planned negotiations but was provoked into an armed conflict by security.

💥 Israel-Hezbollah update: Both sides exchanged airstrikes across the Lebanon-Israel border yesterday. In a televised speech during the strikes, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Israel's remote detonations of pagers and hand-held radios in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday amounted to "a declaration of war," and promised future retaliation. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the pager and radio attacks targeting Hezbollah members.

JetBlue is looking to be like Lamborghinis and drinkers of Hailey Bieber’s Erewhon smoothie – fueled by premium. After more than two decades of flying, the airline is opening its first airport lounges in a bid to attract more high-paying passengers.

The lounges will open at New York’s JFK Airport in late 2025 and Boston Logan International Airport soon after, and will be accessible to select premium travelers only.

Timing is everything

JetBlue has historically shied away from lounges because of their high cost to operate and maintain, deciding instead to focus on other aspects of its operation (like in-flight entertainment, food-and-beverage service, etc.) to create a competitive edge.

But this strategy hasn’t been too successful in recent years. The lounge openings are part of a broader operational revamp overseen by CEO Joanna Geraghty to return the struggling carrier to consistent profitability, Bloomberg reports. JetBlue is also planning to launch a new “premium” credit card with Barclays, in a bid to tap into what’s been a lucrative revenue stream for other airlines (~40% of overall airline revenue is generated by credit card and loyalty programs).

📸 Big picture: Airlines are working harder than Jared during Pied Piper’s pivot to attract premium travelers (and the $ that comes with them). Southwest is eliminating its longstanding open-seating policy to offer pricier seats with extra legroom, while Spirit and Frontier have also launched bundles that include seats with more space and earlier boarding.

In a new episode of the Second Nature podcast, hear about the environmental impact of growing populations, the ethics of parenthood in a changing world, and how to balance hope for the future with the realities of climate change.

• 🌳 Second Nature is a community-centered podcast from Commons that explores how sustainable choices impact our lives and the planet.
• 🌎You’ll hear from people around the world about their sustainable habits, get expert answers to your burning climate questions, and discover the carbon impact of collective action.

Listen to Second Nature on Spotify or Apple.

“The selection judges and public will have some tough decisions this year.”

If you happen to catch a glimpse of Woody and Jessie out shopping on Rodeo Drive, it's because the toy event of the year is coming up. Yesterday, the Strong National Museum of Play announced the 12 finalists for induction into its Toy Hall of Fame – including first-time contenders like balloons, trampolines, and the party game Apples to Apples.

The full list of finalists also features:

• Transformers
• Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks
• Remote-controlled (R/C) vehicles
• Hess Toy Trucks
• Stick horses
• My Little Pony
• Sequence
• Phase 10
• The Pokémon Trading Card Game

The process: The museum received 2,400 nominations for 382 different toys over the past year, before narrowing the list down to 12 finalists who best meet the criteria for induction. Toys must have longevity, be recognizable, and have great “play value” – meaning they encourage things like creativity and socialization.

👀 Looking ahead... A panel of expert judges and the public will vote on which of the finalists will be inducted in November. (You can participate here.)

• ☝️ Little lizards called water anoles create snout bubbles which they “wear” underwater as tiny scuba tanks, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Going

• 💰 US markets rose across the board following the Fed's rate cut (S&P: +1.7%; Dow: +1.3%; Nasdaq: +2.5%) | 🏡 Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates fell again this week to reach 6.09%; it’s their lowest level since February 2023. | 🍝 Darden Restaurants, owner of Olive Garden, reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue.
• ✌️ Nike CEO John Donahoe is retiring; he'll be replaced by Elliott Hill, a former Nike exec who retired in 2020.
• 🤝 KKR and Axel Springer reached a deal to separate the German media giant's classified business from its media properties.

*From our partners: 🔔✈️ Get notified on flight deals with Going… They help you save big on your next destination – whether a quick trip or a dream getaway. Save 40-90% on flights to over 900 destinations. Get started with Going here.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in a single season following a monster performance last night (6-for-6 with 3 HR, 10 RBI, and 2 SB). | 🏀 Las Vegas Aces center A'ja Wilson broke the WNBA single-season record for rebounds set earlier this season by Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese (who later became injured); Wilson also set the record earlier this year for most points in a WNBA season. |🏌️ LIV Golf players will be eligible to compete in the PGA Championship and on the US Ryder Cup team, the PGA of America announced yesterday.
• 🎮 Nintendo and the Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the developers of Palworld – often referred to as “Pokémon with guns” – which briefly became one of the world’s most popular games after its January release.
• 📺 YouTube confirmed it has widely rolled out a feature where ads appear after users have paused a video.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Armoire

• 🏆 The Lasker Awards, a set of prizes for advances in medicine and public health research, were awarded yesterday to three scientific groups; one group’s research helped lead to the discovery of GLP-1 drugs, another worked on stopping HIV, and the final group made immune system discoveries.
• 🔎📸 Google Search is planning to roll out a technology that will identify whether a photo was taken with a camera, edited by software like Photoshop, or produced by generative AI models.
• 📉 Fatal drug overdoses in the US declined by ~10% over the 12-month period ending this past April, the highest drop on record going back nearly a decade, per preliminary CDC data. | 🦠 Coronavirus-susceptible wildlife and the SARS CoV-2 virus were mingling alongside human beings at the wet market in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak of Covid-19 was first identified, per a peer-reviewed study published in Cell.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ The creator of a video that used AI to imitate Kamala Harris is suing the state of California after Governor Gavin Newsom signed new laws on Tuesday restricting the use of digitally altered political “deepfakes.” | 🚬 Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson is starting his own nicotine-pouch brand, called Alp.
• 🙏 A district judge in Kentucky was fatally shot in his chambers yesterday afternoon; state police said a local sheriff was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting.
• 📱 North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who’s running as the Republican nominee for state governor, made numerous inflammatory comments on a porn website's message board a decade ago, per a CNN report; Robinson denies making the comments. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🏃 How Much Exercise You Need to 'Offset' a Day of Sitting.

🦴🧱 Stat of the Day: Princeton researchers recently developed a cement-based material that’s 5.6x stronger than conventional construction materials such as mortar and concrete – all thanks to its design based on human bones. The material’s architecture incorporates a series of hollow tubes inspired by the structure of human cortical bone, which is the dense outer shell of human femurs that provides strength and helps resist fracture.

🤔 Did You Know? Throughout history, there has only been one recorded instance of a submarine sinking another submarine while both vessels were submerged.

📰 Worth a Read: How Lord of the Flies was rescued from the reject pile → (BBC Culture)

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• Teenager became an accidental councillor after sticking her hand up to be a ballot warmer → (ABC News Australia)
• Gov. Shapiro forgets ID, denied alcohol while trying to celebrate canned cocktails law → (The Hill)
• Man discovers he’s been paying wrong utility bill for up to 18 years → (KMAX)
• Pizza Hut will put your résumé on a pizza box to help you get a job → (Fortune)
• Zoo pauses search for "extremely comfortable" escaped capybara → (UPI)

Nickelodeon just smashed the world record for the largest-ever gathering of piñatas.

🍬 The network hosted the massive piñata event to celebrate season two of DORA, which premiered last week on Paramount+.

• 1,800 pinatas of various shapes, sizes, and colors were on display at the 78th Annual East Los Angeles Mexican Independence Day Parade.
• Diana Zermeño, the actress who voices Dora in the series, served as co-grand marshal of the parade.

🏗️ Explore: A real-life concrete jungle, aka how to make moss grow on buildings.

🛝 Enjoy: When the playground meets the forest.

📣🧠 A PSA: This is your brain on breaks…soooo maybe take more of them.

🤔 Ponder: Danny Healey is a Boston sports fanatic (we won’t hold that against him) fascinated with all things sports media, and a wholesome guy who shares thoughtful happenings in his life and the world around us.*

📧 Noisy inbox: It’s easy to lose control and even miss your favs (🍩)…. but not anymore! The Meco app is built for reading so you can enjoy your newsletters and keep your inbox tidy.*

*A message from our partners.

Below are three lists of ingredients. Your job is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Ranch dressing
• Pickled pepperoncini
• Jarred chicken stock base
• Ground pepper
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Mayonnaise

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Dried flageolet
• Salt
• Diced tomatoes
• Dry white wine
• Yellow onion
• Carrots
• Celery
• Fresh thyme
• Garlic
• Duck confit
• Thick-cut bacon
• Pork shoulder
• Black pepper
• Italian sausages
• Baguette
• Duck fat
• Parsley

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Cooking spray
• Ice cream – any 3 flavors
• Pound cake
• Egg whites
• Cream of tartar
• Salt
• Sugar
• Water

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What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize.

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☝️ Recipe #1: Mississippi chicken

✌️ Recipe #2: Cassoulet

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Baked Alaska