☕ Into the fold

• Markets: Stocks made it a threepeat yesterday, but not the good kind, falling for the third day in a row as Treasury yields and oil prices moved up (more on both of those below). But somewhere, Mark Zuckerberg was probably smiling: Meta rose a day after debuting personal AI agents.

RETURN TO THE FOLD

Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images

John Ternus took the stage in Cupertino yesterday for the first time as Apple CEO and delivered what everyone was expecting—nearly 10 uninterrupted minutes of Apple Hands and a new folding iPhone that has the potential to become the leader in a virtually untapped market.

The details: The iPhone Duo will be available for preorder on Oct. 16 at a starting price of $2,000, but it can cost as much as $3,000 if you want more storage for cat videos. When unfolded, it acts more like an iPad than two iPhones, and it’s about the same size as a passport when folded.

Bringing Apple into the fold

Consumer electronics companies shipped a total of ~20 million foldables last year—accounting for ~2% of all smartphone sales, per Counterpoint Research. The Duo is tracking to make a splash instantly:

• Morgan Stanley expects Apple to ship 6.5 million Duos in its fiscal first quarter, which ends in December. That amounts to ~$14 billion in sales, or about 16% of total iPhone revenue expected in the quarter, per Bloomberg.
• Next year, the company is projected to sell more than 12 million foldables, according to Counterpoint.

The latest push to catch up on AI

Apple also unveiled other new products at yesterday’s “Surprise and Shine” event besides the iPhone You’re Even More Afraid To Drop, including the upgraded AirPods 5.

Just about everything else was a signal that Apple no longer wants to be the tech company that’s lagging on AI. The new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max (which you can fold, but only if you want to break it) along with the Duo are being positioned as Apple’s primary AI devices. Both of the latest iPhones have improved AI software that includes a new Siri AI. Even the new Apple Watch is being rebranded as an AI wearable.

Bad day, good outlook? Apple shares were down slightly yesterday before market close, but Ternus shouldn’t take it personally—it’s the sixth time over the last nine new iPhone events that its stock has fallen on the same day. But shares have also averaged a 10% gain over the six months following these annual product pitches, per data from Bloomberg.—DL

      

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World

Tour de headlines

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🏦 The bond market wasn’t impressed by the Treasury’s $6 billion buyback plan. The Treasury Department said it would repurchase up to $6 billion of its own long-dated debt, triple its usual amount, as part of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s efforts to bring down borrowing costs. But investors reacted to the revelation of the amount with a Shania Twain-like shrug, sending bond yields (which move in the opposite direction from bond prices) soaring. The 10-year Treasury yield hit its highest level in about three years yesterday. The buybacks are scheduled to happen today.

🛢️ Oil rose above $100 per barrel. For the first time since July, the price of a barrel of oil spiked above $100 yesterday, as the war in Iran continues to roil global energy markets. Both Brent crude and US crude prices closed at their highest level since late May, per NBC News. The high prices came after the US said it destroyed Iranian tankers, Iran attacked US ships, and an Iran-backed group attacked oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. With high energy prices considered a factor in the upcoming midterm elections, President Trump said yesterday that he believed prices would come down—but not until after the midterms.

🇨🇦 US bans some Canadian goods as trade war escalates. With relations between Canada and the US frostier than Manitoba in the winter after last month’s trade talks fell apart, President Trump signed executive orders on Tuesday banning imports from Canada of whey products, several kinds of alcohol, and motorcycles as of Sept. 29. The move comes after Trump raised tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products and Canada retaliated with dollar-for-dollar tariffs that took effect this week.—AR

EXIT INTERVIEW

Nick Iluzada

It’s a wonder that you got any work done after an artificial intelligence researcher who resigned from Anthropic this week accused both the Claude maker and OpenAI of acting irresponsibly and “gambling with our lives.”

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt,” the departed employee, Jacob Coxon, wrote in a post on X with 110+ million views. Coxon said that:

• Many people at OpenAI—where he worked before Anthropic—“have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes,” but they’re “well-understood” at Anthropic.
• Still, Anthropic is “locked in a race,” and believes it must win because “no one else will act responsibly.” (Both companies are eyeing IPOs.)

Senior Anthropic leads might publicly pretend they don’t share these fears, Coxon said, but two of them essentially corroborated his statements on X. “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” one replied.

Déjà vu: Senior safety researchers at Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI resigned at the beginning of the year, citing ethical concerns. Last month, Bill Gates issued a stark warning. In the past week, Sam Altman admitted conflicting feelings after the Hugging Face hack, and OpenAI’s chief scientist called for a slowdown of AI development—which some members of Congress also want to enforce.—ML

      

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KANGAROO JACK WOULD LOVE THIS

Martin Keep/Getty Images

The real star of the Rams vs. 49ers game in Australia tonight is whoever has been managing the spreadsheet of players’ passport statuses.

For the NFL’s first regular season game played in the country, both teams had to manage the logistical behemoth of playing nearly 8,000 miles from home. That meant everything from navigating jet lag to getting cleats through customs had the potential to derail the game before anyone even stepped on the field.

One of the biggest hurdles for players was adjusting to the 17-hour time difference in Melbourne:

• To prepare for the 10:35am local time kickoff, the 49ers left San Francisco over a week ago to acclimate to their new bedtime.
• The Rams decided to take the opposite approach and left Tuesday night, only about 24 hours before kickoff, opting to have the team sleep on the 16-hour flight.

More than a carry-on. Australia also has some of the strictest biodiversity rules, so teams had to make sure gear was free of grass and dirt before trying to get it through customs. While the Rams sent an entire shipping container of food and supplies overseas months ago, they still had to get 90 trunks of equipment—weighing about 25,000 pounds—halfway around the world this week.

What’s the point of all this? The NFL is trying to increase international revenue and grow its fanbase around the world. In short: money.—MM

      

MOLLY EXPLAINS THE INTERNET

Why is everyone mad at Stella Lefty?

Joshua Applegate/Getty Images

The online world can be a beautiful yet confusing series of tubes. On Thursdays, the Brew’s Molly Liebergall untangles them for you.

A potential contender for the Grammy’s best new artist award nomination is a 24-year-old country-pop singer from the Chicago suburbs whom the internet keeps branding as a plagiarist.

ICYMI: Stella Lefty, real name Lefkofsky, shot to microfame earlier this year with “Boston,” a Billboard-charting single that drew comparisons to Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season.” After snippets of “Boston” went viral on TikTok, Kahan’s representatives reached out, and Lefty’s team added him to the writing credits before the song’s official release in March.

Then the dogpile began. Lefty’s debut album, released on Aug. 21, reignited the plagiarism accusations:

• Critics accused her of copying the Chicks in “Summer You Were Mine,” a song that intentionally interpolated one of their hits. Lefty’s song initially didn’t mention this in the credits due to a streaming platform error, a rep from her label told Rolling Stone.
• Lefty’s track “Why Wouldn’t We?” drew comparisons to three other songs, including a Blake Shelton hit and Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.”
• Lefty’s “Misery” was also accused of ripping off a song from The Greatest Showman.

Dozens of world-famous artists, recently including Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, have faced similar allegations.

But Lefty may be getting especially dragged because her dad is the billionaire co-founder of Groupon. Many social media commenters won’t drop the “nepo baby” and “industry plant” allegations.—ML

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News

What else is brewing

• Republicans gathered in Dallas yesterday for a two-day midterm convention the RNC chair described as a “Trump-a-Palooza.” President Trump said in his keynote speech that if Republicans kept control of Congress, he would give every American adult a $5,000 “dividend.”
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dared traders to bet against the yen, after the US intervened to boost the Japanese currency, saying, “I am the house now.”
• Andrew and Tristan Tate must remain behind bars in the US pending their extradition to Europe, where the brothers are facing sex trafficking charges, a Florida judge ruled yesterday.
• An air traffic control glitch at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday led to thousands of flight cancellations.
• The Girl Scouts have two new kinds of cookies coming soon: one without common allergens and one for dogs.
• The Seattle Seahawks, the reigning Super Bowl champion, beat the New England Patriots 13–10 in the NFL season opener last night.

recs

• A ranking of every film that made $1+ billion at the box office.
• Lunch box ideas—that aren’t sandwiches—to get you through the back-to-school season.
• This map shows the most popular dog breed in every US state (but they’re all good boys and girls).
• This roasting pan is big enough for a turkey with easy cleanup.**

^{*A message from our sponsor. **This is a product recommendation from our writers. When you buy through this link, Morning Brew may earn a commission.}

Play

Brew Mini: Today’s puzzle is titled “Monkey Vault.” Does it refer to a monkey leaping? A secret stash for primates? You’ll find out. Play the Mini here.

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than saving the vacuuming for the morning. Can you spot the odd one out?

1. The man on a quest to digitally preserve America’s public restrooms
2. Hydro Flask is hiring campus ambassadors, but they only want philosophy undergrads
3. Photo of road runner snagged by coyote shows that cartoons were a lie
4. Rome mounts a crackdown on golf carts that are increasingly popular with tourists

Answer

We made up the one about jobs for philosophy majors (sorry).

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: biodiversity, meaning “biological diversity in an environment as indicated by numbers of different species of plants and animals.” Thanks to Kim from Seattle for the varied suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.