Good morning.

It’s Thursday, July 31 — the last page of July’s chapter, and August is already peeking over your shoulder.

On this day in 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts James B. Irwin and David Scott became the first humans to whip around the Moon in a four-wheeled, battery-powered go-kart — officially known as the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Unless, of course, you believe the whole thing was filmed in a Burbank basement and directed by Stanley Kubrick. In which case — congrats on being that person at parties.

Also: Happy birthday to J.K. Rowling, born this day in 1965. Once the queen of wizards, now the Voldemort of Twitter. 

Anyway, we’ve got stuff for your brain, content for your inbox, and just enough sarcasm to cancel out the existential dread. Enjoy the scroll.

Today’s stories:

• Goldman out, JPMorgan likely to manage Apple Card

• Danny Meyer hits billionaire status via burger empire

• New SKIMS product sculpts jawline like shapewear

• Caribbean island offers passport with $200K home

• Luxury demand stays strong, Hermès profits soar

• New premium Citi Strata targets Amex crowd

• NYC shop offers AI-drawn permanent tattoos

• Runway AI lets creators rewrite video scenes

• Marvel’s reboot tops DC in opening weekend

• Google uses AI to verify user age

  and more…

The S&P 500 reversed early gains to close down 0.12% after Fed Chair Jerome Powell made it clear: no rate cuts just yet. The Dow dropped 172 points, while the Nasdaq inched up 0.15%, holding onto modest tech strength.

Powell’s post-meeting message? The Fed’s in wait-and-see mode — especially with Trump’s tariff hike clouding the inflation outlook. No decisions yet for September, and investors didn’t get the clarity they were hoping for.

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JPMorgan Might Steal Apple Card From Goldman

JPMorgan is about to take over the Apple Card from Goldman Sachs. Goldman jumped into the Apple deal in 2019 with big dreams and no idea what they were doing. Turns out running a consumer credit business involves things like accounting, customer service, and not losing billions. Goldman struggled with all three. Now JPMorgan — already the heavyweight champ of credit cards — is stepping in. The bank wants strict terms, fewer surprises, and no Goldman-style refund drama. Apple, tired of babysitting, is ready for someone who can actually handle the grown-up stuff. Goldman’s quietly backing out of consumer banking altogether. The Apple Card is getting rehomed. The GM card is getting dumped on Barclays. David Solomon is pretending this phase never happened.

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Buy a beach house, get a passport. The Caribbean’s latest real estate offer isn’t just sand, sun, and suspiciously good Wi-Fi. Now, if you drop $200K on a house in Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, or St. Lucia, they’ll throw in a passport. It’s called Citizenship by Investment (CBI), and it’s booming. Wealthy Americans are lining up to escape taxes, politics, and whatever that thing was on the debate stage. Buy a villa, skip the capital gains, and get visa-free access to 150+ countries.  In Antigua alone, agents say citizenship requests make up 70% of sales — mostly from U.S. buyers. Some just want the passport flex, others are already peacing out for good.

Shake Shack daddy hits billionaire status. Danny Meyer, the guy who made fine dining cool and burgers fancy, is officially a billionaire — thanks to Shake Shack, the upscale fast-food chain that started as a hot dog cart in a New York park. Before becoming a burger baron, Meyer opened swanky NYC spots like Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern. But it was his 2001 cart in Madison Square Park that changed everything. What started as a fundraiser turned into a full-blown burger empire: 585 locations, $1.3B in revenue, and enough frozen custard to drown a small city. Shake Shack stock has gone full beast mode, up 73% in a year. Meyer’s 3.5 million shares are worth about $500M, and he's pocketed hundreds of millions more from past sales. He still chairs Shake Shack and runs a restaurant group and investment fund with stakes in buzzy brands like Goldbelly and Joe Coffee.

Luxury spending still alive, Hermès laughs in Euros. Luxury giant Hermès just announced its first-half numbers, and surprise: people are still buying €8,000 handbags even while the world burns. Sales hit €8 billion, up 7.1%, with the U.S. leading the charge in full “treat yourself” mode. Asia’s buying too — even China is back on the luxury train, albeit slowly. The brand saw profit dip 5% thanks to a special French tax for being too successful, but its core operating profit still rose 6% to €3.3 billion. So, yeah, Hermès is doing just fine. As for price hikes in the U.S., they already did one earlier this year, but with a new EU-US tariff deal on the table, they might chill for now. Translation: if you’ve been eyeing that Birkin, this might be as cheap as it gets. Relatively speaking.

Citi launches $595 card to compete with Amex. Citi just launched its shiny new luxury flex: the Strata Elite℠ Card, a $595-a-year status symbol for people who insist on lounge access and triple-point dinners. It’s the first real premium entry from Citi since it quietly iced the Prestige card back in 2021. Strata Elite is here to fill the void — and yes, Citi Prestige cardholders can apply, because product loyalty is dead and we’re all just playing musical chairs with metal cards now.

Here’s the pitch:

• 80,000–100,000 point welcome bonus (depending on where you apply)

• 12x points on travel if booked through Citi

• 6x points at restaurants on Friday/Saturday nights between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. because apparently that’s “Citi Nights”

• $300 hotel credit, $200 splurge credit, $200 Blacklane chauffeur credit, 4 Admirals Club passes, and a TSA PreCheck/Global Entry refund

Throw in Priority Pass for lounges and 1.5x points on random purchases and… there you have it. A slightly tweaked version of what Amex, Chase, and Capital One are already doing. But with a new name and jazz hands. Is it worth $595? Maybe. If you like booking everything through Citi Travel and enjoy time-restricted restaurant points like it’s a Taco Bell happy hour.

AI Video Editing Just Got Scary Good

Runway just dropped Aleph, its latest AI model that basically treats video editing like a god mode cheat code. Want to erase a person? Change the lighting? Swap the background mid-scene? Aleph says: done. No timelines. No masking. Just vibes and prompts. Unlike older tools that could only generate videos from scratch (and usually turned humans into spaghetti), Aleph can actually edit things that already exist — cleanly, consistently, and without melting faces. It promises “fluid editing,” which means no more glitchy transitions or continuity errors that scream “made by robot.” Runway claims Aleph is already in use by movie studios, game developers, advertisers, and probably your most annoying cousin who just “launched a brand.” The tool can restyle scenes, change objects, even shift camera angles — all by typing it out like you're chatting with Clippy on steroids. And while OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Microsoft are all racing to dominate AI video, Runway’s been at this longer, and Aleph might be the first one that doesn’t feel like an uncanny valley fever dream.

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Your next tattoo might come from a robot. An upscale NYC tattoo shop is now letting a robot stab you with ink — and yes, it uses AI. Blackdot, the startup behind the machine, raised $7 million to replace your tattoo artist with a glorified printer. Their robo-arm, nicknamed “Aero” (because apparently "Inkbot 3000" wasn’t vibey enough), lives at Bang Bang Tattoo — the studio known for inking celebs and now, apparently, for letting machines do the job. The AI scans your skin, maps out your pores, and gently tattoos you like a cyborg masseuse with commitment issues. They’ve only tattooed 30 people so far — mostly volunteers and probably a few interns. But soon, paying customers will be able to brag that their tattoo was applied by something that sounds like it also makes espresso.

Google using AI to guess your age. Google’s rolling out AI-powered age checks in the U.S., because nothing says “digital safety” like a robot judging your maturity based on your search history and YouTube habits. If the AI thinks you're under 18 — based on what you watch or Google at 2 a.m. — it'll slap on a bunch of kid-mode restrictions: bedtime reminders, no adult apps, no targeted ads, and no Timeline in Maps. Basically, digital lockdown with a side of parental energy. It starts with a “small set” of users but will expand soon. And if Google gets it wrong, you’ll have to send them a selfie or government ID to prove you're old enough to be watching five hours of conspiracy content uninterrupted.

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Fantastic Four Smashes Superman at the Box Office

The Fantastic Four: First Steps just pulled in $218 million globally — beating Superman's opening by 11%, and doing it with one less day of screenings. Critics are into it too: FF has an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes vs. Superman’s 83%. It’s Marvel’s biggest opening of the year, and a much-needed win after flops like Thunderbolts. With a $200M budget and Avengers: Doomsday on deck, Marvel might actually be back.

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SKIMS launches shapewear for your skull. Kim Kardashian, 44, just launched a new SKIMS product that looks like it was ripped straight from Death Becomes Her— the 1992 cult film where Meryl Streep drinks a youth potion and duct-tapes her face into eternal hotness. The product is called the Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap. It’s basically shapewear for your head. Velcro straps, jawline compression, and collagen yarns — because nothing says skincare like being mummified in beige spandex before bed. It dropped July 29, came in two shades (clay and cocoa), and is already sold out. Which means people saw the thing and said, “Yes, I want to look like a glam hostage while I sleep.”

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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