Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🚀 Starship was meant to fly
• 💰 Largest share buyback in history
• 😡 Why social media makes you angry

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.86-minute read (1,026 words).

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“Happiness must be grown in one's own garden.”

–Mary Engelbreit (b. 1952)

It looks like Nicki Minaj was onto something: Starships are meant to fly.

SpaceX launched its Starship rocket on a nearly three-hour test flight yesterday, marking the first time the world’s most powerful rocket reached Earth’s orbit after a series of suborbital test flights.

Reaching for the stars

Starship completed nearly two laps around Earth during the mission and deployed 26 next-gen Starlink v3 satellites, marking the first operational payload carried by the rocket into orbit.

• The mission represents a step up from previous Starship tests, which typically lasted just over an hour.
• But yesterday’s test was cut short by ~7 hours—eliminating four additional planned laps around Earth—after one of Starship’s engines shut down prematurely, eventually ending with a controlled splashdown off the coast of Chile.

The “holy grail” of rocketry: SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to make Starship fully and rapidly reusable, with both stages of the rocket eventually returning to the launch site to be caught by giant mechanical arms and be made ready to fly again.

SpaceX says full reusability could dramatically reduce the cost of getting cargo and humans into orbit, with the long-term goal of making spaceflight operate more like air travel.

• One Starship rocket can carry 60 Starlink v3 satellites into orbit, representing ~20 times the capacity of SpaceX’s earlier Falcon 9 rockets, according to the company.

Looking ahead…Starship is slated to play a major role in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface in 2028.

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We’re nearly four months into Atlantic hurricane season, and something is conspicuously missing: the storms themselves.

Not a single Atlantic hurricane has formed since June 1, marking the longest the region has gone without a major storm since at least 1914.

While the first Atlantic hurricane typically arrives by mid-August, none of the region’s seven named storms so far this year have strengthened beyond tropical-storm status.

Where are all the hurricanes?

El Niño deserves most of the credit. The climate pattern features unusually warm waters in the equatorial Pacific and tends to increase wind shear over the Atlantic, making it harder for tropical storms to organize and strengthen.

This year's El Niño is shaping up to be especially strong, with the NOAA predicting a 90%+ chance it becomes a very strong event and 75%+ chance it reaches record-breaking strength.

Meanwhile…The Pacific Ocean has produced 18 named storms so far, including eight hurricanes, which is above average based on historical norms.

But don’t put away the hurricane kit just yet. The Atlantic season officially runs through November 30, and NOAA’s August outlook still called for 2–6 hurricanes over the full season.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 Nvidia approves $150 billion increase to its share buyback program, bringing its total authorization to $235 billion; it’s the largest stock buyback in US corporate history. | 🤖 Nvidia also unveils new Open Agent Safety Platform to prevent AI agents from breaking out of containment, with 100+ organizations already using the platform (including Microsoft, Perplexity, Accenture, JPMorgan Chase, etc.).
• 🇺🇸🇨🇳 US and China release plans to reduce tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods from each country.
• ♾️ Meta hires MongoDB CEO CJ Desai as chief enterprise platform officer leading a new internal business unit; shares of MongoDB opened ~24% lower on the news.

SPORTS, MEDIA, & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ MLB Wild Card round begins today with a quadruple-header starting at 1 pm CT; the Phillies-Braves, White Sox-Astros, Red Sox-Yankees, and Cubs-Padres are all playing Game 1.
• 🏈 Minnesota Vikings trade QB J.J. McCarthy, the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, to New York Giants for a 5th-round pick.
• 💪 Reacher renewed for Season 6 on Prime Video, with Season 5 currently in production; it comes as Season 4 amassed 66 million global viewers in its first 28 days, surpassing the previous season and defying downwards viewership trends.

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SCIENCE, SPACE, & EMERGING TECH

• 🧠 New genomic test can diagnose brain tumors from a biopsy in two hours instead of up to eight weeks, allowing doctors to get results while patients are still in surgery.
• 🏋️ Creatine may help middle-aged adults maintain muscle mass even without exercise, new clinical trial suggests; when combined with diet and exercise changes, creatine was associated with improved strength and greater reductions in body fat.
• 🦠 Congo’s Ebola outbreak surpasses 8,000 confirmed cases and 3,900 deaths as the disease continues spreading amid a shortage of health workers; it now outpaces the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak.

US, WORLD, & POLITICS

• 🤖 Florida AG asks state court for injunction halting OpenAI and ChatGPT development until additional safeguards are in place, citing recent safety incidents involving Anthropic and OpenAI models bypassing guardrails, escaping sandboxes, and gaining unauthorized access to websites. | OpenAI is scrapping the release of its next-gen AI model, GPT-6.1 Astra, due to safety concerns identified in initial testing, per WSJ report.
• 🏭 President Trump unveils plan by Mesabi Metallics to build a $15 billion steel mill in Iowa that would be America’s largest; project would support 1,700+ jobs and produce up to 7.5 million tons od steel annually as early as 2030.
• ⚖️ New York prosecutors reopen investigation into alleged rape of a former Cornell University student by seven assailants, after victim files lawsuit containing new allegations; the alleged 2024 assault resulted in no criminal charges.

☝️ You’re looking at some of the winners from the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards 2026, which received nearly 25,000 submissions across 40 countries.

🤔 Did you know? The current inhabitants of Madagascar are likely the direct descendants of about 30 Indonesian mothers who sailed there on a transoceanic voyage some 1,200 years ago, potentially by accident, per a 2012 study based on genetic data from both groups.

📰 Worth a read: Why social media algorithms send you posts you don’t like.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• The NYT’s 100 best shows of the 21st century
• Penn St. cocaine ring fueled by frat hazing
• Why the surge in bond yields could be a positive

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Yesterday we covered the latest on the US-Iran conflict, including President Trump rejecting Iran’s latest proposal for a seven-day ceasefire as increased US economic pressure starts to have a wider effect on Iran’s economy.

❓ Our question to you: How do you feel about the US strategy of increasing economic pressure on Iran while scaling back military strikes?

• Strong agree: 31%
• Somewhat agree: 23%
• Neutral: 18%
• Somewhat disagree: 12%
• Strong disagree: 16%

Read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 544 votes and 33 longform responses.

❓ Trivia: Where is the Sea of Tranquility located?

🦟 True or false?...Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal for humans.

🤔 Riddle me this: What loses its head in the morning, but gets it back at night?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

🌳 The Pacifier Tree is where children go to bid farewell to their beloved pacifiers. Whether they end up with Santa, other babies, or somewhere in the mystical void is unclear (😉), but the Danish tradition serves as a sweet reminder of both the magic of childhood and the inevitability of growing up. 

The tradition got a modern spin this year, with design studio Esculpire El Aire erecting a new Pacifier Tree in Spain.

❓ Trivia: On the Moon.

🦟 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: Your pillow

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