Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖🚘 Tesla’s robotaxi event
• 📝 America’s latest inflation report card just dropped
• 🧊 The human body is getting cooler

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~5.14-minute read (1,369 words).

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“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”

–Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

After a pair of major hurricanes battered the Southeast US in recent weeks, many are turning their attention to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose mission is to help Americans before, during, and after natural disasters.

How FEMA works: The federal government doesn’t help with every disaster – it generally has to be above the ability of a community or state to handle. In that case, the local governor or tribal authority asks the President for an emergency declaration, allowing for assistance from FEMA to flow.

Among other things, FEMA offers life-saving emergency procedures to victims, helps states cover costs associated with clean-up and debris removal, and assists in rebuilding damaged public infrastructure.

• FEMA also offers financial assistance to individual victims for essentials like food, water, temporary housing, and medical expenses – including a $750 payment to disaster survivors in the immediate aftermath of a major storm.
• This marks the first FEMA payment to disaster survivors, who are also eligible for additional forms of financial assistance once the storm passes.
• In any given disaster where FEMA is involved, the President typically sends a formal budget request to Congress for additional non-emergency funding and programs over the following weeks/months/years.

Worth mentioning: The money used in the immediate aftermath of Helene, Milton, and other major storms comes from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), which is replenished annually by Congress.

• Last month, US lawmakers approved a $20 billion DRF budget for this fiscal year, the same size as in 2024 – though FEMA has already spent nearly half of that sum just eight days into the 2025 fiscal year.

Where does insurance come in? FEMA assistance differs from homeowner’s insurance in that it only provides the basic needs to make a home safe, sanitary, and functional – and no further than that. If a homeowner in a disaster area does have insurance (which is typically required to obtain a mortgage), they must first file a claim and have it processed before requesting FEMA assistance, since the agency isn’t allowed to pay for any costs covered by insurance.

Looking ahead… FEMA is currently in the process of assessing damages from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, both of which are projected to cost “a multiple of tens of billions of dollars each.” Once the assessments are complete, the Biden admin will ask Congress to approve larger financial aid packages for affected areas across the Southeast US.

📊 Flash poll: In general, how would you best describe your opinion of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)?

• Favorable
• Neutral
• Unfavorable

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🌀 Hurricane Milton swept across central Florida yesterday. At least 12 people were killed due to the storm, which weakened from a Category 3 to Category 1 yesterday as it cut through central Florida and moved offshore. Among other things, Milton knocked out power for 3+ million Floridians, caused the closure of dozens of Waffle Houses – boosting the storm’s Waffle House Index to “Code Red” – and ripped the roof off of the Tampa Bay Rays’ Tropicana Field (the second Tropicana to be destroyed this week).

🎾 Tennis legend Rafael Nadal is retiring at the end of this year. In a video message posted yesterday, the 22-time Grand Slam winner said next month’s Davis Cup finals will mark his farewell to the sport after 23 years as a pro. The 38-year-old, who’s widely regarded as the best clay player of all time (with a record 14 French Open titles), has competed infrequently over the past two seasons due to injuries.

🤖🚖 Tesla unveiled its “Cybercab” robotaxi last night. In its “We, Robot” event, which was live streamed on X, Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Cybercab (☝️ top), which has no pedals or steering wheel, and said will go on sale next year for less than $30,000. Musk also revealed a surprise prototype called the Robovan (bottom) that can carry up to 20 people.

Inflation is like the protagonists in the last quarter of a horror movie – not out of the woods yet, but there’s a good chance things will be alright.

US inflation fell for its sixth consecutive month in September to reach its lowest level since early 2021, according to new government data. But the reading topped economists’ forecasts.

• Overall inflation was 2.4% on a yearly basis, down slightly from 2.5% in August but higher than the 2.3% expected.
• Core inflation, which excludes the often volatile food and fuel categories, remained elevated in September (+3.3% annually; +0.3% monthly), driven up by rising costs for medical care, clothing, auto insurance, and airline fares.

Zoom in: When it comes to food, inflation has been sticky. Egg prices rose 8.4%, putting the 12-month unadjusted gain at 39.6%. Butter was up 2.8% on the month and 7.8% from a year ago.

However, shelter costs, which make up more than one-third of the total weighting in calculating the CPI, are increasing at a slower pace, which could indicate an easing of broader price pressures ahead, CNBC reports.

👀 Looking ahead… After the latest US inflation reading and jobless report, which was released yesterday and also came in worse than economists expected, markets are pricing in an ~87% chance of a 25-basis-point-cut and a 0% chance of a 50-basis-point-cut following the Fed’s next meeting in November. Those figures were 68% and 32%, respectively, a week ago.

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“[U]nlike anything we’ve seen before.”

A quote like this is probably not something you want to hear in reference to your bathroom. But alas – as documented in a study published this week in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes, researchers swabbed people’s toothbrushes and showerheads and found them brimming with 600+ different viruses, many of which have never been discovered until now.

But no need to panic (here’s a chill pill if you need it:💊): The viruses in question – bacteriophages – aren’t dangerous to people. But to certain bacteria they’re like Rambo; the name bacteriophage literally means “bacteria eater.”

And this quality can potentially be very beneficial. As outlined in Gizmodo:

• Scientists have started to study and deploy phages as treatments for bacterial infections, particularly bacteria that have evolved to resist antibiotics.
• The good and bad news: there’s a lot to sift through. When examining the showerheads and toothbrushes, the researchers discovered different phage on each toothbrush and showerhead. “Th[e] amount of diversity is huge, and it isn’t because of anything specific to toothbrushes or showerheads. There are just so many phage out there waiting to be [found],” according to lead researcher Erica Hartmann, a microbiologist and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern.

🦠 Zoom out: Scientists estimate there are likely ~1 trillion species of microbes on Earth, 99.9% of which remain undiscovered.

• ☝️ Scientists have fully recreated one of the largest known bugs in history – an extinct nine-foot-long invertebrate known as the Arthropleura, which weighed 100+ pounds and lived ~300 million years ago.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Going

• 💰 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.2%; Dow: -0.1%; Nasdaq: -0.1%)
• 🔋 Mining giant Rio Tinto is acquiring lithium miner Arcadium Lithium for $6.7 billion.
• 💸 TD Bank will pay a $3+ billion fine and accept US growth caps to settle charges it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels and other criminal groups.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Thursday Night Football: The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Seattle Seahawks 36-24 behind three passing TDs from QB Brock Purdy. | ⚾ MLB Playoffs: The Mets beat the Phillies in four games to advance to the NLCS, while the Yankees beat the Royals in four to move on to the ALCS; see the full playoff picture.
• 🤝 Apple and Amazon reached an agreement to bring Apple TV+ to Prime Video as a subscription add-on.
• 📺 DirecTV is launching a free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service next month called MyFree DirecTV.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with JadeYoga

• 🏆📖 The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”; she’s the first South Korean winner of the prize.
• 🌐 The Internet Archive and Wayback Machine went down this week following a sustained cyberattack; the attack also compromised the site’s user data.
• 🧠 People tend to think they have all the information they need to form an opinion, even when they don’t, per a new study from psychology researchers. | 🤖 AMD launched a new AI chip that’ll directly compete with Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell chips.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🧓 Social Security recipients will get a 2.5% cost-of-living increase to their monthly checks for 2025, down from 3.2% in 2024 and a historically large 8.7% increase in 2023.
• 🇰🇵🇰🇷 North Korea announced plans to cut off all roads and rail lines to South Korea in a bid to “permanently shut off and block the southern border.”
• 🙏 Ethel Kennedy, the matriarch of the Kennedy family who lost her husband (Robert F. Kennedy) and brother-in-law (President John F. Kennedy) to assassinations, passed away at 96.

CLICKBAIT

• 🍿😱 The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time.

🤒 Stat of the Day: What do vinyl records and the average human body have in common? They’re both getting cooler. In recent decades, scientists have discovered mounting evidence that the average human body temperature is slightly below the long-held baseline of 98.6°F. The previous standard was established 150+ years ago by German physician Dr. Carl Wunderlich, who reportedly based it on measurements from 25,000 people. However, a study published in September that evaluated the temperatures of 126,000+ people found their average temp stood at 97.9°F – and other modern-day studies have also reported similar numbers.

🤔 Did You Know? Penguins have an extremely fast metabolism, and poop roughly once every eight minutes (or ~7x per hour).

📰 Worth a Read: Ozempic underworld: Inside the black market of obesity drugs → (CNBC)

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

• Ohio-based eatery breaks world record for hot dog photos → (UPI)
• Potatoes are better than human blood for making space bricks, scientists say → (Space.com)
• "Cookie Monster" caught speeding by German police as traffic camera snaps pic of Sesame Street staple → (The Mirror)
• Passengers horrified after airline plays explicit movie on every screen → (Fox News)
• Washington state woman calls 911 after being hounded by up to 100 raccoons → (Associated Press)

Springfield, Nebraska, resident Michael Henrichs stopped at a convenience store for a few things, when he noticed another customer buying lottery tickets. 

In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Michael decided to get a scratch-off for himself. As he started scraping away at the ticket, he saw a $20 win. Then, there was another 0... and another 0... and two more to boot😳. 

• Michael ended up winning $200,000 from the scratch-off ticket. To make things even better, it was the day before his birthday.
• "This is a very welcome birthday present," Michael said.

🎰 Interesting: BetMGM is wagering its new gambling tech can lead to a resurgence.

🎧 Listen: To The Retrievals, a four-part narrative podcast series about the shocking events that unfolded at a Yale fertility clinic.

🙅 Slow your roll: Into baking and want your parchment paper to stop rolling up? Here’s how to make it happen. (Warning: Method will probably not work on Snoop Dogg.)

🍂 Fall cleaning: Try this 10-minute method designed to declutter any room.

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Our weekly news quiz just dropped. See how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

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

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Bacon
• Olive oil
• Carrots
• Celery
• Onion
• Garlic
• Thyme
• Celery seed
• Bay leaves
• Tomato juice
• Clam broth
• Baby clams
• Waxy potatoes
• Small live clams
• Tobasco
• Salt & pepper

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Butter
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Lemon extract
• Flour
• Salt
• 7UP
• Powdered sugar
• Lime zest

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Yeast
• Butter
• Whole milk
• Neutral cooking oil
• Coconut
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Brown sugar
• Ginger
• Water
• Vanilla extract
• Raisins
• Vegetable oil

☝️ Recipe #1: Manhattan clam chowder

✌️ Recipe #2: 7UP cake

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Guyanese gojas