Good morning. In this edition:

• 🌏 China’s historic climate decision
• 🧸 Build-a-Bear boom
• 🧑‍🚀🫧 Why astronauts can’t burp

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.87-minute read (1,029 words).

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“Enthusiasm is a vital element toward the individual success of every person.”

–Conrad Hilton (1887-1979)

China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, announced a new landmark goal to cut carbon emissions at the UN’s high-level climate summit on Wednesday.

President Xi Jinping’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions by 7%–10% by 2035 represents the first-ever pledge from Beijing to cut emissions, rather than just limiting their pace of growth.

• China was responsible for ~31% of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2022, tops among all countries, per the most recent international data.
• However, on a per-capita basis, China ranked 25th globally.

Other countries also joined in

The EU followed Beijing’s commitment with a more tentative plan to fight climate change that involves member states agreeing to emissions cuts ranging from 66% to 72%.

• All told, about 100 nations—collectively responsible for ~67% of the world’s emissions—gave some kind of plan or commitment to further curb fossil fuel emissions and fight climate change, according to UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed.
• These pledges, submitted every five years, are a key part of the landmark 2016 Paris Agreement under which nearly 200 countries agreed to take steps to limit climate change.

However, some experts say these new emissions targets are far too weak to stave off global catastrophe due to climate change, with China’s official target in particular coming in much lower than the 30% emissions cut some analysts say is necessary.

The US is taking a different approach

President Trump earlier this week used part of his UN General Assembly speech to call climate change a "con job" and its scientists “stupid,” along with criticizing EU member states and China for their investments in clean energy technologies.

• Trump has already pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during both of his presidential terms—most recently on his first day in office this past January.
• Some analysts also say that his speech this week is the official sign that the US has ceded the green energy market to China in favor of fossil fuels.

Big picture: A new report by the Stockholm Environment Institute found governments around the world are on track to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be necessary to keep to the 1.5°C global warming limit set out in the Paris Agreement.

Looking ahead…The climate change pledges announced this week will be officially submitted at the 30th UN Climate Change Conference, set for Nov. 10–Nov. 21 in Brazil.

📊 Flash poll: Which of the following best describes your opinion of the threat posed by climate change?

• It’s a major threat
• It’s a minor threat
• It’s not a threat

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Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

🧓 The number of US centenarians—aka Americans aged 100+—grew by 50% from the 2010 census to the 2020 version, per a new Census Bureau analysis.

🧸 Build-a-Bear Workshop’s stock price has risen by more than 2,000% over the last five years, including a 60+% increase in 2025.

📦 Over 75% of all US adults (194 million people) used Amazon Prime last year, per data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

⛪ Since 1970, the global Catholic population has doubled—but the number of priests over that period has decreased, including a ~12% decline from 2011-2023 in seminarians studying to be priests.

🍑 A Virginia orchard recently captured the world record for heaviest peach ever grown, with a massive fruit that weighed in at 1.83 lbs.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🛍️ Amazon to pay $2.5 billion in penalties and customer refunds to settle claims that it enrolled customers in Prime without their consent, and made it difficult for them to cancel; it marks the largest civil penalty in a case involving an FTC rule violation.
• 🏘️ New home sales rose 20.5% month-over-month in August to reach their highest level in over three years; the median new home sale price stood at $413,500, up 1.9% year-over-year.
• 📲 President Trump signs executive order allowing the sale of TikTok's US assets to move forward; VP Vance says the deal would value TikTok’s US operations at $14 billion, on par with Snap and far lower than other platforms like Meta or X.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏌️ 45th Ryder Cup tees off today, with the top European golfers looking to defend their title against the Americans; action ends Sunday with 12 one-on-one singles matches.
• 🍿 Spaceballs 2 cast confirmed by Amazon MGM, with Rick Moranis coming out of retirement to reprise his role as Lord Dark Helmet alongside Bill Pullman as Lone Starr.
• ⚾ Mariners C Cal Raleigh, aka the Big Dumper, becomes the first catcher and seventh player ever to hit 60 home runs in a single MLB season.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🧬 “Groundbreaking” gene therapy is the first-ever treatment to slow the progression of Huntington’s disease in clinical trials.
• 🤖 Trump admin approves Grok, the chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI, for official use by every federal agency; it follows similar AI deals with Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
• 💀 1 million-year-old human skull discovered in China suggests the origins of modern humans could reach back far deeper in time than researchers previously thought.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 📖 Merriam-Webster adds 5,000+ words to its Collegiate Dictionary, including rizz, dad bod, hard pass, and cold brew.
• 🇮🇱 Microsoft disables the Israeli Defense Ministry’s access to certain tools following investigation into claims that they were used to surveil citizens in Gaza.
• 🏛️ White House budget office directs federal agencies to permanently fire thousands of employees if a government shutdown occurs after the October 1 deadline; funding to avoid a shutdown is currently being held up by Senate Democrats due to a disagreement with Republicans over healthcare funding cuts. | DOJ charges former FBI director James Comey with making false statements and obstruction; move comes days after Trump demanded the prosecution and fired the US attorney who hadn’t found cause to bring it.

☝️Archaeologists in southern Spain uncovered a 5,000-year-old tomb known as a dolmen, which represents one of the best-preserved prehistoric burial sites ever found in Andalusia.

🤔 Did you know? In space, astronauts are unable to burp like we do on Earth. Without gravity at play, gas, liquids, and food all mix in the stomach, so any belch tends to be a wet mess.

📰 Worth a read: The thousand-year story of how the fork crossed Europe, and onto your plate

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How well did you pay attention this week? Find out here.

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1. I’m a two-digit palindrome. My digits add up to 10. What am I?
2. What is the value of five factorial (5!)?
3. Which number comes next in this pattern: 4, 9, 16, 25, …?

💪 Meet 65-year-old Martine Barons, aka “Britain’s strongest grandma." The Warwick University researcher has racked up four world titles in just 18 months of powerlifting after picking up a barbell by accident. 

1. 55
2. 120 (5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1)
3. 36; the pattern is consecutive perfect squares (2², 3², 4², 5², 6²)