🇺🇸 S&P 500 technically marked its third consecutive week of decline, but the numbers are negligible: it’s more like it’s standing still. On Thursday, the indices rebounded sharply, delivering their best day since 2022—apparently due to a drop in unemployment claims. Bumble, the dating service, plummeted as it struggles to find men willing to pay for the privilege of browsing photos of unavailable women. Warner Bros. Discovery took a 12% hit in a single day after tweaking something in their accounting. The official reason? Losing NBA broadcasts. The real reason? People are losing interest in television altogether.

🥥 C*oca-Cola *is likely to lose billions of dollars in court against the IRS. To cover the upcoming penalty, the company will issue a special bond offering of over a billion dollars. They’re being hit with a $6 billion tax bill for the years 2007-2009, discovered eight years ago. Coca-Cola has decided to pay but will continue to contest the case. The problem is that Coca-Cola was funneling profits into low-tax countries and not into high-tax ones. Weird, right?

👖 The founder of the Temu marketplace, Colin Huang, has become the richest person in China, with a net worth of $49 billion. He overtook some guy in the bottled water business (seriously?). Interestingly, during the pandemic, Colin lost 87% of his wealth. But he’s since made it back.

🇻🇪 Elon Musk continues to fight on. Yesterday, the president of Venezuela blocked Twitter for 10 days, explaining that Musk incites hatred. Question to subscribers: who exactly does Musk incite hatred in? Reminder: Elon challenged Maduro to a fight and also sued a consortium of advertisers for boycotting ads on X.

🔪 S*amsung *is recalling… no, not cars, but kitchen stoves! The company promises to provide some kind of clamps or locks for over a million sold electric stoves. The issue? Cats and dogs jump onto the stovetop and accidentally turn it on. I can believe it with dogs—they’re mostly dumb. But cats? Accidentally turning on the stove? Don’t make me laugh! They’ve been waiting for this stove their entire lives!

📿 Humane’s brooch, which I’ve been trashing since its announcement, is going down the drain. Out of the announced $9 million in sales, customers have already returned $1 million worth of the product, and over 1,000 orders have been canceled. More of these idiotic devices have been returned over the summer than sold. Negative sales—a new trend!

⛵️ Miracle machines in Italy: the yacht of billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs collided with the yacht of billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego. No one was hurt, but Salinas now has a hole in the side of his yacht. Patching it up won’t be cheap! Good thing he’s a billionaire.

🦉 D*uolingo *is crushing the charts: their fifth consecutive profitable quarter, and what a quarter it is! A profit of $24 million—up 500% year-over-year. The owl now has over 100 million active users, with 8 million of them paying tribute to the bird.