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Good morning,
After years of not being able to borrow your friend’s Android phone charger, Apple is ditching Lightning cables in favor of the more ubiquitous USB-C. The new iPhone 15 and AirPods Pro will join iPads and Macbook laptops—and plenty of other non-Apple devices—requiring the USB-C cable for charging.
The change was essentially forced on the company due to a new EU law requiring devices like smartphones, tablets and cameras to use USB-C as a universal charging standard.
You can send your Lightning cables to Apple, and the tech giant has pledged to recycle them, or you can do so in-store at Best Buy.
BREAKING NEWS
Tech titans including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates met with lawmakers Wednesday for a closed-door AI forum where the executives pitched broad regulatory frameworks for AI and warned of the existential dangers that could come with the uncontrolled advancement of the booming technology. Musk told reporters while leaving the summit that AI presents a “civilizational risk,” adding there’s a low—but not zero—chance that “AI will kill us all.”
A federal judge ruled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program illegal Wednesday, putting into question the Obama-era policy that protects more than 500,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The Biden Administration is expected to appeal the ruling, which will likely make its way to the conservative-majority Supreme Court.
The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Derna, Libya, could reach as high as 20,000, city officials estimate, as international aid begins to arrive in the country and rescue teams plead for help recovering bodies amid growing fears of infectious disease outbreaks. More than 5,300 bodies have been recovered in Derna so far.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
Consumer prices registered their largest monthly increase since January, rising 3.7% in the 12-month period ending in August, despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to curb inflation. Surging gas prices were the biggest driver of the uptick, but core inflation, which excludes the more fickle food and energy indexes, came in at its lowest level in nearly two years.
Over the last month, four high-profile companies have announced their plans to go public via New York exchanges at multibillion-dollar potential valuations: British chip designer Arm, German sandal maker Birkenstock, mobile grocery firm Instacart and automated marketer Klaviyo. But with the domestic IPO market coming off of its weakest year in over a decade, experts say it’s not necessarily a sign of the floodgates opening once again.
The legal team of disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried wants the judge to ask each potential juror whether they or any of their family or close acquaintances have ever lost money trading cryptocurrency, as well as their stance on donating to PACs and political causes. Bankman-Fried is facing fraud and conspiracy charges over his alleged scheme to steal money to make political donations.
TECH + INNOVATION
A well-known ransomware group claimed responsibility for a cyberattack that wreaked havoc on operations at MGM Resorts, one of the world’s largest casino-hotel chains, according to a post from malware research group VX-Underground. ALPHV, also known as BlackCat, claimed it executed the attack by identifying an MGM employee on LinkedIn who worked in IT support, and simply calling the MGM help desk. Astonishingly, the attack took about 10 minutes to execute.
The Chinese government denied a report indicating it had issued a ban on iPhones and other foreign-branded devices among government officials. But China, where Apple earned $15.7 billion in revenue in the third quarter, cited unspecific security concerns surrounding Apple devices.
MONEY + POLITICS
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he would not seek a second Senate term. Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, has been a high-profile Republican figure for decades, and recently, a critic of former President Donald Trump, whom he voted to remove from office twice.
The impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden puts a spotlight on the 18 House Republicans who represent districts Biden won—how they position themselves moving forward could determine whether they keep their seats in 2024 and the fate of the GOP’s control over the lower chamber. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy delayed a House vote on an impeachment inquiry, saving his most vulnerable members from a difficult vote on the issue, for now, while placating right-wingers who threatened to vote against the budget or even try to oust him as speaker.
SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT
The NFL Players Association has called on the league to switch all of its field surfaces to natural grass, suggesting it is “simply safer” than artificial turf after quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending injury during his debut for the New York Jets, which features artificial turf in its home stadium. Half of NFL teams play their home games on artificial turf fields, according to NBC Sports.
TRENDS + EXPLAINERS
The nearly two-week manhunt for convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante, who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison, came to a close Wednesday morning. Nearly three dozen officers posed for a controversial photo op with the escaped prisoner, sparking both praise and pushback.
Hurricane Lee—currently a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds around 115 mph—is expected to slowly weaken over the next few days, but could pass by New England and the East Coast Friday or Saturday as a “large and dangerous hurricane,” according to the latest information from the National Hurricane Center. That could leave the area with heavy wind and life-threatening rip currents even if it doesn’t make landfall as a hurricane.
DAILY COVER STORY
TOPLINE Concrete is everywhere—skyscrapers, data centers, roofs, sidewalks, homes. But its key ingredient, cement, is the source of 8% of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that’s catastrophically warming the planet. So how do we replace a material that’s so inexpensive, so durable and so popular?
Prometheus Materials, a University of Colorado spinout, is turning algae into cement using a process that’s similar to how coral and seashells naturally form.
Prometheus is still in the early stages of commercialization with minimal revenue from a test facility in Longmont, Colorado, near Boulder. But it’s figured out the science and is now raising what the company’s cofounder and CEO Loren Burnett expects will be between $15 million and $35 million in venture funding (plus additional project financing) to build a 35,000-square-foot factory to make at least a half-dozen different varieties of precast, bio-concrete products, including blocks, panels and pavers.
Burnett expects that the combination of the factory’s production and a licensing strategy that will allow it to sell its bio-based material in powdered form to producers worldwide will help it reach $75 million in revenue by 2027.
Even if Prometheus reaches that goal, it’s barely a drop in the bucket for the more than $300 billion global cement industry.
There’s a lot that still has to happen to get Prometheus’ bio-cement into real projects, and the risks remain high. But Burnett, who figures that the company will be producing at capacity and setting up licensing agreements by 2025, is determined.
“We have to decarbonize both cement and steel if we are going to be at net zero by 2050,” he says. “The math just doesn’t work without those two things happening.”
WHY IT MATTERS To bring the cement industry in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, its annual emissions would need to drop by at least 16% by 2030, even as cement production is slated to increase, according to a 2018 report by the London-based think tank Chatham House.
That’s why Prometheus is one of a number of startups looking to reduce cement’s carbon footprint. “This problem is so huge it’s going to take all of us being wildly successful,” Burnett says of his company and its competitors.
MORE How Three Car Guys And A Winemaker Want To Save America’s Farms With Tractorbots
FACTS AND COMMENTS
19-year-old Coco Gauff’s U.S. Open victory proved to be a rare ratings breakthrough moment for women’s sports, as the Saturday afternoon game trounced the men’s Sunday final in viewership. Gauff’s championship was the most-viewed women’s final of any tennis major ever broadcast on ESPN, the network said:
Nearly 3.4 million: The number of people who watched Gauff become the first American teenager to win the Open in more than two decades, Nielsen data shows
92%: The increase in viewership from last year’s women’s championship
2.8 million: The weekend’s average tournament viewership, the second-most-viewed U.S. Open of all time on ESPN
STRATEGY AND SUCCESS
With higher mortgage rates—and a surge in prices expected when rates come down—many young adults feel discouraged about becoming homeowners for the first time. Here are four compromises that can help make that dream more attainable: relocate to a more affordable location (especially if you work remotely), purchase an investment property in a lower-cost area so you can build equity, consider a more modest home like a townhouse or condo, and find a partner to co-own with.
VIDEO
QUIZ
On the same day Apple revealed its iPhone 15, which of the following countries banned iPhone 12 sales over radiation concerns?
A. France
B. Germany
C. Greece
D. Denmark
ACROSS THE NEWSROOM
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