Good morning. In this edition:

• 🎓 Colleges embrace AI
• 🌀 Most powerful storm of 2025
• 🧠 Is ‘brain rot’ real?

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.32-minute read (884 words).

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"Silent and listen is the same word, just misspelled."

–CyHi the Prynce (b.1984)

You don’t get to become a 900+-year-old institution without adapting to the times

Oxford University this month became the first UK organization of its kind to give students and staff access to ChatGPT Edu, a version of OpenAI’s chatbot built specifically for higher education.

The school says the move is aimed at teaching students, professors, and researchers to use AI responsibly while also amplifying their productivity. Or in other words: if you can’t beat the bots, join them.

What makes ChatGPT Edu different?

The education-focused model is built specifically for university life. Key features include:

• Enhanced power, with higher message limits enabling longer, more in-depth queries.
• Additional tools like data analysis, web browsing, file uploads, and document summarization.
• More customization, with the ability to create GPTs for courses, projects, or university departments.
• Extra privacy features aimed at ensuring all data shared with ChatGPT stays inside the institution.

Oxford says ChatGPT Edu will serve as a helpful tool for tutoring, grant-writing, résumé building, and streamlining faculty feedback.

Closer to home

A number of US universities have also signed up for ChatGPT Edu—including the California State University system, which earlier this year rolled out the educational AI across 23 campuses (covering nearly half-a-million students and faculty).

And students are already one step ahead: 85% of people studying at US colleges have utilized generative AI for coursework in the past year, with most saying they use it for brainstorming, tutoring, and exam prep.

Looking ahead…Analysts say the rate of AI adoption among colleges will likely increase in the near future to meet increased demand from students. A recent OpenAI report found that three in four higher-ed students across the US want training in how to use AI—but only one in four universities and colleges currently provide it.

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🪙 Tether Holdings, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin Tether, looking to raise $15 billion–$20 billion in a deal valuing the crypto company at ~$500 billion.
• 🏦 Citigroup to sell 25% stake in its Mexican retail banking unit Banamex to billionaire Fernando Chico Pardo for $2.3 billion.
• 🤖 Kodiak AI, a self-driving software maker formerly known as Kodiak Robotics, debuts on the Nasdaq today following an SPAC deal valuing the company at ~$2.5 billion.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ Major League Baseball to adopt a new automated balls and strikes (ABS) system, or “robot umps,” starting in 2026.
• 📲 Instagram now has 3 billion monthly users, putting it on par with Facebook and WhatsApp, which both crossed that mark earlier this year.
• 📺 Jimmy Kimmel’s broadcast return on Tuesday drew an average of 6.2 million viewers, nearly 4x its usual audience.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀 NASA and NOAA launch a combined three missions worth $1.6 billion into space; research objectives include studying solar storms, and examining the heliosphere, or the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space.
• 🪥 Good oral hygiene could help prevent pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of cancer, per new research; the disease was linked to specific combinations of microbes living in the mouth.
• 🐆 Prehistoric humans in East Africa ~2 million years ago were likely hunted by leopards, and weren’t apex predators as previously thought, according to a new study.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🚨 Dallas ICE shooting: A person detained by ICE was killed and two others critically injured when a sniper opened fire at an ICE field office in Dallas; the suspected shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; the FBI said rounds found near the suspect “contained messages that are anti-ICE in nature.”
• 🏛️ Justice Department is reportedly seeking criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey over allegations that he lied in congressional testimony.
• 🌀 Super Typhoon Ragasa, the world's most powerful storm of 2025, made landfall yesterday near the the southern Chinese city of Yangjiang; more than 2 million people have been evacuated in the storm’s path, per Chinese media.

☝️Treworgy Orchards in Levant, Maine, recently snagged the title of best corn maze in America for the fourth year running. The whale-shaped maze, which covers 4+ acres of land, consists of 60,000 corn plants grown up to 10 feet tall—and if someone gets whaley lucky, they’ll find a Hall of Fame board waiting for their signature at the maze’s center.

🤔 Did you know? Identical twins may share the same DNA sequence, but they don’t share fingerprints. Tiny environmental factors in the womb—like cord placement or even how the baby’s positioned— can help shape those swirls, leaving each twin with their own unique set at birth.

📰 Worth a read: Can you really ‘rot’ your brain by scrolling too much on your smartphone?

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Yesterday we covered how major companies are increasingly ordering their employees to return to the office more often—but workers have largely resisted the pressure to do so thus far.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, what’s the ideal amount of time the average US worker should be required to spend at the office in jobs where WFH is doable?

• 0 or 1 day/week: 31%
• 2 days/week: 23%
• 3 days/week: 24%
• 4 days/week: 12%
• Full-time at the office: 10%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 1,017 votes and 109 longform responses.

What’s the largest city in South America by population?

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São Paulo, Brazil