Good morning. In this edition:

• 🛒 Dynamic grocery pricing in America?
• ♻️ Carbon-eating plastic
• ⚡ Thor’s hammer IRL

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.05-minute read (1,077 words).

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"The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority."

–Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

Bad news for anyone trying to cut down on screen time: Electronic shelf labels, which enable instant price changes, have become popular overseas in recent years, and are now spreading to grocery stores across America.

Europe sets the table

Electronic shelf labels are common in grocery stores across Europe, giving retailers instant flexibility in regards to pricing. Most shifts are small cuts, though systems can also increase prices based on supply and demand.

• Norwegian discount chain REMA 1000—one of the country’s largest grocers—changes prices up to 100x/day, especially around holidays.
• In the Netherlands, supermarket giant Albert Heijn discounts items near expiration up to 4x/day, which the retailer says prevents 250,000 kilograms of food waste annually.

Retailers pitch the system as a win for costs and convenience: staff are freed from swapping thousands of paper tags, less waste is produced, and discounts can be rolled out instantly.

US grocers are following suit: While American retailers have offered electronic shelf labels for several years, plans for increased usage among grocery stores has drawn attention from lawmakers and analysts.

• Walmart, which currently has digital shelf labels in ~400 of its ~4,600 US stores, plans to increase that number to 2,300 stores by 2026.
• Kroger and Whole Foods Market are also expanding pilot programs that digitize store shelf labels.

But…Last year, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) sent a letter to Kroger raising concerns that its use of digital price tags could allow stores to participate in surge pricing, or increase the cost of goods at busy shopping times.

On the flip side: Grocery giants, including Kroger and Whole Foods, say they have no plans to use electronic tags for dynamic or surge pricing.

Big picture: Dynamic pricing is currently used in several US industries, including ride-sharing, live events/entertainment, air travel, and fast-food.

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First, ChatGPT helped you with work. Now, OpenAI wants to help you get work with a new jobs platform that could challenge LinkedIn.

• The tech giant last week announced that it's launching a new AI-powered jobs platform that will use the technology to match employers with potential candidates.
• The OpenAI Jobs Platform, slated for launch in mid-2026, will put the Microsoft-partnered company in direct competition with LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft.

But wait, there’s more

OpenAI is also launching a new certification program through its “OpenAI Academy,” an online learning platform that teaches workers how to use AI on the job using ChatGPT’s Study Mode.

• These credentials will span from basic AI literacy to advanced customization. The company aims to certify 10 million Americans by 2030, with pilots planned for later this year.
• Partnerships with Walmart (America’s largest private employer), Accenture, and several state governments aim to provide the program with immediate scale—and also put it in direct competition with LinkedIn’s own certification program.

Big picture: OpenAI’s new jobs platform fits into the company’s goal of expanding into new markets beyond its core chatbot offering, which reportedly includes plans to launch or acquire a web browser, as well as a social media app.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🤖 Nebius Group announces five-year, $17.4 billion deal to provide Microsoft with GPU infrastructure capacity to power AI; Nebius shares rose as high as 61% in after-hours trading.
• 🇺🇸 The US gov’t could be obligated to refund importers anywhere from $750 billion–$1 trillion if SCOTUS deems Trump’s tariff policy illegal in upcoming decision, per Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
• 📊 Lumber futures have fallen 23% since hitting a three-year high in early August. | Workers’ confidence in finding a new job hits record-low 44.9%, per new NY Fed survey.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Upwork

• 🏈 YouTube’s first exclusive NFL game—Friday’s Chargers-Chiefs matchup in Brazil—averaged 17.3 million global viewers (16.2 million US); that’s higher than Prime Video’s average for TNF last year (13.2 million US viewers).
• 🏆 MTV Video Music Awards: Ariana Grande wins Video of the Year, while Ricky Martin receives first-ever Latin Icon Award, in an event featuring several high-profile music performances.
• 📰 Lachlan Murdoch to take control of a new family trust in a deal worth $3.3 billion, settling a longstanding dispute over his father Rupert’s media empire (which includes the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News). | Howard Stern will not be leaving his SiriusXM show, despite rumors and a prank announcement on his program yesterday morning.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 AI startup Anthropic agrees to pay at least $1.5 billion to a group of authors and publishers in the largest copyright settlement in US history; it adds up to ~$3,000 for each of the ~500,000 books covered by the settlement.
• 🐦 Blue-throated macaws can learn new behaviors from a third-party perspective by watching interactions between others, a trait previously seen only in humans.
• ♻️ Danish researchers discover method to turn plastic trash into a material that “eats” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 📝 Jeffrey Epstein’s estate gives Congress copy of book put together for the child sex offender’s 50th birthday, which reportedly includes a “bawdy” letter with President Trump’s signature that Trump has said doesn’t exist. | Federal appeals court upholds E. Jean Carroll’s $83 million defamation award against Trump for denying her claims that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
• 🧑‍⚖️ SCOTUS loosens restrictions on LA immigration raids that were put in place by a lower judge.
• 🇫🇷 French PM François Bayrou forced to resign after losing no-confidence vote, marking the second gov’t collapse in less than a year; President Emmanuel Macron will appoint a new PM in the coming days. | 🇳🇵 At least 19 people killed and 100+ others wounded in Nepal yesterday amid Gen Z-led protests over a social media ban, which the country has since lifted.

☝️ A total lunar eclipse, known as a blood moon, was seen in night skies across Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia on Sunday evening.

🤔 Did you know? In 2015, a Canadian engineer built a Marvel-inspired replica of Thor’s hammer that could only be picked up by himself and other “worthy” individuals. The trick? His hammer sensed the metals in his Iron Ring—a piece of jewelry presented to nearly all Canadian engineers as a symbol of their ethics—and triggered an electromagnetic release, allowing the hammer to be lifted up.

📰 Worth a read: Why do we hesitate to talk about our own good deeds?

🖱️ Clickbait: These 6 "magic phrases" make kids listen to their parents

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Yesterday, we covered how the new August jobs report shows slowing growth in the US labor market, especially industrial parts of the economy, which tees up a series of Federal Reserve rate cuts in the coming months.

❓ Our question to you: Which of the following best describes your current opinion of the US jobs market?

• Positive/Good: 15%
• Neutral: 23%
• Negative/Bad: 62%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 919 votes and 85 longform responses.

❓Question: Which planet in our Solar System has the longest day? (The time it takes for one full rotation)

🎓 True or false? Olympic National Park, near Seattle, contains one of the largest temperate rainforests in the US.

🤡 Riddle me this: I have cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and rivers but no water. What am I?

✈️ Forget baggage claim hugs—one bride’s airport pickup involved her dad in the cockpit to pilot her honeymoon flight home. Talk about first-class parenting. 

❓Trivia: Venus

🎓 T/F: True

🤡 Riddle: A map