Good morning, Quartz readers!
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
A dissenter to the Fed’s rate cut decision isn’t afraid to say why. Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman wishes rates had come down a little more slowly to more fully vanquish inflation.
Carmaker Stellantis wants a fresh driver. The company is seeking a new CEO as it tries to avert disaster.
Meta enlisted some familiar voices for its AI chatbot. Users might hear the voices of Judi Dench, John Cena, and Awkwafina, among other celebrities.
Boeing’s “best and final” contract offer fell flat with its striking machinist union. The workers called the 30% raise offer a “blatant show of disrespect.”
The first CHIPS Act grant is here. Polar Semiconductor will receive up to $123 million in direct funding to expand its facility in Minnesota.
Shoppers are getting spooky season heebie-jeebies
The Consumer Confidence Index just experienced its largest drop since August 2021. The biggest driver of the dip, according to the Conference Board, is that raises are getting smaller and the job market is getting tougher.
The Federal Reserve might be feeling confident that it brought inflation down without wrecking the economy. Americans aren’t so sure, though, and fears of a recession have begun to tick up lately.
Quartz’s Rocio Fabbro explains why the index has gotten so bad so quickly and why the Fed might think the deterioration is just noise.
Congress gets the skinny on Ozempic
Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen appeared before Congress yesterday to answer questions that lawmakers had about his company’s popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs. A lot of those questions had to do with why the drugs are so expensive.
Jørgensen said that it’s true that Americans pay more money for the medications. But, he also said, it’s because insurance companies are to blame.
Quartz’s Bruce Gil broke down the biggest takeaways from Jørgensen’s testimony and what might be done to make Ozempic and Wegovy more affordable.
MORE FROM QUARTZ
☕ Starbucks is having a CEO shakeup in China, too
✈️ The FAA says Boeing has still has some work to do to improve its safety culture
🤑 Bernard Arnault is facing hard times, is merely the fifth-richest person in the world
⚖️ Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex Caroline Ellison has been sentenced to two years in jail
🥤 Chevrolet is pulling a Hailey Bieber with its Erewhon drink collab
⚓ A major dockworker strike might soon freeze U.S. imports
SURPRISING DISCOVERIES
Bidding starts at $1 million for a piece of filing cabinet detritus. Turns out the piece of paper was a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution.
Dead volcanoes could mean fewer dead batteries. A study suggests the geological sites could be a rich source of minerals crucial to clean-energy technology.
There’s a new kind of grimace in the stands at Mets games. Literally: McDonald’s mascot Grimace is getting his own special seat after he brought the team good luck.
One in 25 latinx people know about the word “latinx.” The gender-neutral word is twice as popular as it was five years ago.
There are 18 different dimensions in the Marvel universe. A new book maps them among a bunch of the comic book world’s other geologies and astronomies.
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