Good morning, Quartz readers!
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
ByteDance is scraping the internet at blinding speeds. TikTok’s parent company is gathering data 25 times more quickly than OpenAI.
Mark Zuckerberg made a big-money swap with Jeff Bezos. Bloomberg says the Facebook co-founder took the Amazon founder’s place as the world’s second-richest person.
Spirit Airlines might be coming in for a rough landing. Reports are swirling that the budget carrier might be about to file for bankruptcy.
Mark Cuban had something nice to say about Elon Musk. He likes that the Tesla CEO “goes all in” on his companies’ projects.
Markets were feeling great on Friday. A big jobs report and the end of the port strike sent the bulls running.
Hurricane Helene’s disaster drip continues
As the fallout from one of the deadliest-ever storms to hit the U.S. mainland continues, another critical materials shortage is unfolding in its wake. America’s main supplier of IV fluid was also wiped out in the devastation.
Baxter International, based in North Cove, North Carolina, had to close the factory that produces the medical necessity due to flooding in the region. It’s responsible for about 60% of the IV fluid used by hospitals in the country.
When will America’s IV bags start hydrating patients at full capacity again? Quartz’s Rachel Dalloo spells out what comes next.
The Word of the Week
The jobs report was good for people who want work — payrolls expanded by 254,000 in September — but the picture for those seeking a faster drop in interest rates is a little less clear. The word that’s probably ringing in their ears is “recalibration.”
Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell is trying to bring rates back to “normal” without wrecking the economy. And he said last month that the “recalibration” of the central bank’s policy stance will depend on a balance of labor market strength and inflation-measure weakness.
Quartz’s Rocio Fabbro puts the labor market picture in focus and explains what it could mean for rates in the months to come.
THIS WEEK AT QUARTZ
Look for stories about:
💰 The giant fortunes getting even bigger thanks to the AI goldrush (by Britney Nguyen)
😶 A topic of conversation that makes people clam up even more than politics and religion (by Rachel Dalloo)
💋 Regulator efforts to help banks and fintech companies kiss and make up (by Rocio Fabbro)
👛 The next generation of cryptocurrency ETFs mainstreaming coins beyond Bitcoin and Ether (by Vinamrata Chaturvedi)
🏘️ The states where your dream house won’t be a nightmare for your wallet (by Madeline Fitzgerald)
SURPRISING DISCOVERIES
Gentrification is and annoying phenomenon the world over. Some believe it is a global “ a social-political-economic form of ethnic cleansing.”
A deal loophole got some NBA players a nice little raise. Teams reportedly found it easier to move certain contracts in trades if they were for $1 more than the league minimum.
The British are coming! The British are coming! The United Kingdom will return to the America’s Cup sailing competition’s final round this year for the first time since 1964.
Scientists can watch water become wet now. A team at Northwestern University actually captured footage of hydrogen and oxygen atoms merging.
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