Good morning,

It’s Tuesday, September 23, and today we light a candle (or at least queue up Spotify) for Ray Charles Robinson—better known as Ray Charles. The man basically invented soul in the ‘50s, mashing up blues, gospel, and R&B into hits like “Hit the Road Jack” and “Georgia on My Mind.” Without him, half your “Sunday vibes” playlist wouldn’t exist.

If you need homework for tonight, the movie Ray (2004) still holds up—Jamie Foxx nailed it so hard he walked off with an Oscar. Call it cultural enrichment with popcorn.

So here’s to warm fall days, good reads, and a week that hits fewer wrong notes than your last karaoke night.

Today’s stories:

• Judge dismisses lawsuit over faceless Reese’s candies

• EU replaces passport stamps with biometric scans

• South Korea develops 3D bone-printing glue gun

• Nvidia invests $100B in OpenAI compute power

• NYC fines $1.8M with hidden noise cameras

• Tech billionaires eye space for data centers

• Meta unveils pricey Ray-Ban smart glasses

• Nike and Skims launch long-delayed collab

• Amex hikes Platinum fee, adds luxe perks

• Magnum uses AI to cut costs, calories

• Spiders use Earth’s electric field to fly
  

  and more…

The S&P 500 hit a fresh record, closing up 0.44% at 6,693.75, with the Nasdaq (+0.70%) and Dow (+0.14%) also notching all-time highs.

The spark? Nvidia jumped nearly 4% after announcing a jaw-dropping $100B investment in OpenAI to build out data centers—fueling bets that the AI trade isn’t slowing down anytime soon. As CFRA’s Sam Stovall put it, this could keep earnings and share prices powered “into 2026 and beyond.”

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Amex Platinum Gets Pricier, Because You’re Fancy Like That

Amex just bumped the Platinum fee to $895. Painful on paper, but the perks now scream $3,500 a year: $600 hotel credits, $400 for dining, $300 at Lululemon, $200 Uber money drip-fed like an allowance, plus the usual lounges and concierge. Yes, it’s a coupon book for rich people, but it’s a very good coupon book. Chase tried to flex with its Sapphire Reserve fee hike to $795, and Citi and Capital One are still playing in the $400–$600 kiddie pool. Meanwhile, Amex walks in, adds more perks without cutting anything, and reminds everyone who invented the premium card hustle. Paying $200 more a year stings, but Platinum is still the card that gets you into the lounge while everyone else is fighting for an outlet at the gate.

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Nvidia pledges $100B to OpenAI. Nvidia is tossing up to $100 billion at OpenAI in the most expensive game of financial ping-pong yet. The setup: OpenAI pays Nvidia in cash for chips, Nvidia hands some of that cash right back for OpenAI shares. Everyone high-fives and pretends this isn’t just a money loop. The deal calls for 10 gigawatts worth of GPUs to power OpenAI’s data centers, with the first batch online in late 2026. Sam Altman called compute “the basis for the economy of the future,” which is tech-speak for “hope you like being broke without an H100.” Wall Street drooled. Nvidia stock jumped 4.4%, Oracle got a 5% bump just by hanging out near the deal, and Microsoft—already knee-deep in OpenAI—gets yet another partner to split the hype with. Meanwhile, Nvidia just put $5B into Intel too, proving it has cash to burn on both the winners and the strugglers.

Nike x Skims finally drops Sept. 26. Nike and Kim Kardashian delayed their collab for months because it had to be “just right.” Translation: they wanted perfect leggings. The result: NikeSkims, launching Sept. 26 with 58 styles across seven collections—everything from scoop bras and Pilates-foot leggings to oversized track jackets. Nike needed this. The brand’s been losing women to Lululemon and Alo, while Skims has been printing money and making butts look better since 2019. Together, they’re hoping to finally lure fashion-first women back into Nike gear. Analysts think it might just be the jolt Nike needs after its sales slump. At the very least, it’s a flex collab: Nike gets relevance, Skims gets performance cred, and you get to spend $148 on a catsuit.

Reese’s wins $5M lawsuit. Hershey just beat a lawsuit that might be the dumbest of the year. Two Florida residents tried to sue for $5 million because their Reese’s Halloween candies didn’t have little carved faces. Pumpkins without eyes, bats without mouths, ghosts without expressions—basically peanut butter blobs instead of spooky art. A judge tossed it, pointing out the candy still tasted like Reese’s, which is literally the only thing that matters. Hershey also had a disclaimer on the box: “DECORATING SUGGESTION.” Translation: chill, Karen, the candy is fine. The plaintiffs claimed they suffered “economic harm” because their football-shaped Reese’s looked more like eggs. Imagine walking into court and saying with a straight face that your chocolate wasn’t scary enough. Case dismissed. Candy still delicious. Humanity still embarrassing.

Magnum calls in AI to fix ice cream. Magnum, the ice cream giant behind Ben & Jerry’s and Cornetto, says it’s bringing in Chilean start-up NotCo’s AI to make its products “better.” Translation: fewer calories, smaller portions, plant-based knockoffs, and cheaper ingredients while charging you the same. The AI will also hunt for trendy flavors and swap out dyes and sugars to keep up with inflation and TikTok taste buds. Consumers want indulgence, but apparently in 2025 that means “half a scoop and a lecture on sustainability.” Magnum lists in November, so expect an IPO pitch that reads like: ice cream, but smarter, smaller, and maybe soy-based.

Meta’s $799 Glasses Want to Make You Smarter

Mark Zuckerberg showed off his new toy: $799 Ray-Ban smart glasses with a baby-sized display in the lens. They come with a wristband that lets you wave at your texts like you’re conducting an invisible orchestra. At Meta’s Connect event, the demos glitched, but the crowd still clapped—because Silicon Valley loves a good fantasy about “superintelligence.”

Zuck says these glasses will “improve your memory, your senses, and your communication.” Translation: you’ll look like a tech bro wearing expensive sunglasses that barely beat Google Glass. Meanwhile, Meta’s still under fire for child safety, but hey—don’t worry about that, just buy the glasses.

Also dropped: $499 Oakley athlete glasses, and an updated Ray-Ban pair that lasts longer and costs more. Analysts don’t expect these to sell big, but Meta hopes it’s the baby step toward its “Orion” glasses in 2027. For now, you’re paying $800 to get notifications in your right eye.

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Scientists invent glue gun for bones. Scientists in South Korea turned a glue gun into a surgical tool that prints bone. The device 3D-prints grafts directly onto broken bones using a mix of bone dust and bioplastic, hot enough to mold but not hot enough to fry tissue. The printed scaffolds fit perfectly, release antibiotics, and help bone grow back naturally. Tested on rabbits, the tool could let surgeons freestyle repairs mid-surgery like orthopedic crafters with power tools.

Big Tech wants to launch data centers into space. AI data centers are guzzling so much electricity and water that tech billionaires now want to just yeet them into orbit. Sam Altman casually floated the idea of covering the world with data centers, or better yet, sticking them in space. His ultimate dream: a Dyson sphere of data centers wrapped around the sun. Totally normal. Totally not apocalyptic. Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt are also circling the idea, startups are pitching fridge-sized space servers, and one company already tried landing a mini data center on the moon—with an Imagine Dragons song inside. It tipped over and died. Progress. The sales pitch is simple: free solar power in space, no cranky neighbors to complain about water use, and zero pesky regulations. The reality: it’s insanely expensive, fragile, and repairing a server mid-orbit is not exactly an IT ticket you close in a day.

Spiders fly using static electricity, because nature hates us. Turns out spiders don’t just float around on silk like creepy kites—they’re literally surfing Earth’s electric field. When they shoot out a strand, the silk picks up a negative charge, and the atmosphere’s natural downward electric field pushes them up. That’s right: invisible static balloons made of spider webbing are carrying them across the sky. So the next time you feel like the air is buzzing, it might actually be a cloud of airborne spiders drifting overhead. 

Note from the editor: I am arachnophobic. Learning this felt like a personal attack. Writing it down for you was even worse. 

EU Swaps Passport Stamps for Fingerprint Scans

Starting October 12, the EU is ditching the old-school passport stamp for biometrics. Travelers from the UK and other non-EU spots will now get their faces and fingerprints scanned like they’re checking into a sci-fi airport lounge. The system—Entry/Exit System (EES)—rolls out over six months and will be fully live by April 2026. The idea is to speed things up, but for now expect the opposite: long lines of Brits fumbling at booths while French officials sigh. Once you’re registered, the scans stick for three years (or five if you overstay your welcome). It’s free, but refusing means no entry.

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NYC’s secret noise cameras cash in. New York is quietly spying on your honks. Since 2021, the city’s hidden “noise cameras” have nailed loud cars, motorcycles, and wannabe DJs for almost $1.8M in fines. One new $40K gadget just popped up on Tillary Street, ready to bust anyone over 85 decibels. Tickets start at $800 and climb to $2,500, which means your car stereo may be pricier than your rent. Residents aren’t mad though—they want more cameras, proving New Yorkers hate your noise almost as much as they hate tourists blocking the sidewalk.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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