Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖 Meta finds its Muse
• 🌀 One of the “strongest storms ever”
• 👵 Bizarre rise of 'grandmaslop'

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.15-minute read (1,105 words).

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“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

–Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

Meta’s new Muse AI agent is just over two weeks old and already speed-running its way past the industry’s biggest names.

Less than two weeks after launching, the AI agent had already climbed to the top of the free app leaderboards on Apple’s App Store, ahead of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other top AI tools.

So, what is Muse? Meta’s new app features a highly polished interface—centered around an oddly-adorable digital assistant—where users can give it tasks to carry out in plain English, like booking travel, sending emails, or shopping across the web.

Meta is also testing a voice feature that allows Muse to make phone calls on a user’s behalf, offering a glimpse at a future where AI assistants increasingly act as real-world stand-ins for their humans.

Playing to their strengths

With Muse, analysts say Meta is hoping to capitalize on its built-in advantages like product design, massive distribution, and a deep understanding of consumer behavior, rather than attempting to roll out the smartest underlying AI model.

Meta is able to market Muse to billions of people through products which are already integrated into their daily lives—like Facebook and Instagram—while also tapping into an ecosystem of accounts, contacts, and personal context that could make AI agents more useful from Day 1.

But…There is a catch: the more Muse does on your behalf, the more trust it requires, including access to your email, calendar, financial accounts, contacts, and other key personal information.

This could prove a particularly high hurdle for Meta given the company’s lengthy history of privacy and safety controversies, though Zuckerberg has emphasized Muse was “built from the ground up for privacy and security.”

Looking ahead…AI-powered shopping could soon become a new battleground for retailers, as a wave of AI agents promise to simplify users’ lives. On Sunday, Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from accessing its website, saying the “unauthorized AI agent” violated its terms of service.

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The future of cancer screening could fit inside a single vial of blood.

An independent FDA advisory panel voted yesterday to recommend Galleri, a cancer-screening blood test designed for adults 50+ from biotech company Grail. The FDA isn’t required to follow its advisers’ recommendation, but often does.

How it works: Galleri can screen for up to 50 types of cancer from a single blood draw, most of which aren’t routinely screened for today. It’s designed to detect cancer-specific methylation patterns in DNA fragments, which are often present before symptoms of cancer later appear.

Plenty of promise, but also some question marks

The advisory committee reviewed two major clinical studies conducted by Grail, the interpretation of which has been somewhat controversial.

• On one hand, the clinical studies did not show a reduction in overall mortality while using Galleri tests, nor a reduction in the combined number of Stage III and IV cancers.
• But later updates to one of Grail’s studies showed it reduced Stage IV cancer diagnoses not combined with Stage III, suggesting the test may have shifted cancer diagnosis to earlier stages.

Grail says its Galleri test should be used alongside standard cancer screenings like colonoscopies and mammograms, and not as a replacement.

Zoom out: No multi-cancer screening blood test has ever received FDA approval, making Galleri a potential bellwether for hundreds of companies pursuing similar technology. Approval could also open the door to Medicare and private insurance coverage.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💵 10-year Treasury yield jumps 0.18 percentage points to an intraday peak of 5.14%, its highest level since July 2007, before settling at 5.11%.
• 🍔 McDonald’s commits to spending $8.5 billion through 2036 to support restaurant tech updates with rent relief and capital; CEO Chris Kempczinski also says he expects high inflation and flat traffic will keep weighing on the restaurant industry in the near future.
• 🚘 Bentley to launch its first-ever fully electric vehicle; the new Torcal SUV, which starts at ~$229,000, features a drum soundtrack to replace the growl of a combustion engine.

SPORTS, MEDIA, & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🚨 Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexual assault, more than a year after a jury found him guilty in high-profile retrial. | ⚖️ Dolly Parton’s estate files restraining order against the late superstar’s nephew, accusing him of threatening violence and destroying his aunt’s legacy.
• 🎶 Taylor Swift announces The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore album, featuring four new songs, to be released on Friday.
• 📺 Disney to raise prices across most Disney+ and Hulu plans, with ad-free standalone subscriptions reaching $21.49/month; it’s the fourth straight year Disney has hiked streaming prices.

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SCIENCE, SPACE, & EMERGING TECH

• 🦠 Measles exposure warning issued after infected traveler passes through Philadelphia International Airport, alongside unrelated possible exposure at a children’s hospital; the US has reported 3,400+ cases so far this year, with Pennsylvania hit the hardest at nearly 800 cases and four deaths.
• 🌀 Hurricane Polo briefly grew into one of the “strongest storms ever” in the Pacific Basin on Tuesday, before being downgraded to Category 4 yesterday; Polo is expected to skirt Mexico's southwestern coast over the next few days, not making landfall.
• 🐢 Tropical sea turtle lays eggs on Southern California beach, marking the first recorded instance of a sea turtle nesting on the US West Coast; scientists point to warming ocean waters as the cause.

US, WORLD, & POLITICS

• 🌎 Trump admin's Board of Peace unveils six-month, $2.45 billion recovery plan covering 66 projects to rebuild Gaza and establish a transitional government.
• ⚖️ Missouri’s redistricting dispute returns to US Supreme Court for third time this month; it comes after an appeals court ruled Missouri should use the GOP-drawn congressional map from its August primary for the general election, rather than switch to an older map as ordered by a federal appeals court.
• 📰 Trump’s White House press ban remains in effect after federal judge ends hearing without ruling, leaving CNN, MS NOW, and Politico barred from the White House for now.

☝️ Ged Eccles (bottom right) won this year’s Gurning Championship hosted in England. The contest is a tradition that dates back to at least 1852, where competitors stick their heads through a horse collar and contort their faces into the ugliest expression possible.

🤔 Did you know? Germany charges a ~28-cent deposit on every single-use bottle or can and gets 98% of them back, the highest return rate of any deposit program in the world.

📰 Worth a read: She lived to see ‘Deb’s law’ take effect. Now, she can choose how she dies.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• The bizarre rise of ‘grandmaslop’
• How Twinkies became a $5 billion problem (1.5 min video)
• Hotels to make a book lover’s dream come true

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Yesterday we covered Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ongoing three-day visit with President Trump in Washington, D.C., including the agendas and goals for both nations heading into high-level economic discussions.

❓ Our question to you: How should the US approach its economic relationship with China?

• Pursue significantly closer ties: 19%
• Pursue closer ties only in non-sensitive areas: 38%
• Keep the relationship about the same: 17%
• Reduce ties with China: 12%
• Unsure/other: 14%

Read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 476 votes and 27 longform responses.

Which mountain peak on Earth is the closest to space?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

🧸 The National Museum of Play has announced the 2026 finalists for induction into the Toy Hall of Fame, including Care Bears, Bop It!, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and Tickle Me Elmo.

Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador. While Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level, Mt. Chimborazo is technically closer to space because the Earth bulges at the equator.

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