Good morning.

It’s Tuesday, November 25 — the week when everyone pretends Thanksgiving is “relaxing” while panic-buying groceries and wondering why their oven suddenly hates them. Americans are about to demolish more than 46 million turkeys on Thursday. Forty-six million. That’s not a holiday, that’s a mass poultry disappearance.

New York is doing that charming pre-winter thing where the air feels like a passive-aggressive reminder to moisturize. We made today’s issue with caffeine, ambition, and holiday delusion. Have a great week, and may your turkey thaw in time.

Today’s stories:

• Brain implant aims to restore human speech

• NatGeo drops photos that humble everyone

• Zoox launches free, adorable robotaxi pods

• NYC finally upgrades its cursed scaffolding

• Startup tries building actually “feeling” AI

• Amazon pours $50B into government AI

• Final pennies could auction for millions

• U.S. may get all-business-class flights

• Trump kills Elon’s chaotic DOGE squad

• Lilly’s weight-loss drugs mint a trillion

• Pope blesses ravers mid–EDM party

  and more…

U.S. stock futures barely budged Monday night, but the vibes were decidedly sunnier after a big rebound powered by AI mania and fresh whispers of a Fed rate cut. Dow futures inched up, S&P futures ticked higher, and Nasdaq futures followed suit — all hovering just above flat.

The week kicked off hot: the S&P 500 popped nearly 1.6%, the Nasdaq ripped 2.7% for its best day since May, and the Dow added 203 points. Big Tech finally got its groove back after a rough month.

Alphabet led the “Magnificent Seven” with a 6.3% moonshot, while Broadcom went full supernova with an 11% surge — making it the S&P 500’s MVP. Both rode hype around their ASIC chip dominance. Even Nvidia, still down 10% this month despite strong AI demand, managed a 2% lift.

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All-Business-Class Airline Plans U.S. Launch

Amid all the airline horror stories — lost bags, mystery delays, emotional support peacocks — here’s something actually cute: a new all-business-class airline wants to launch in the U.S. next year. Yep, a plane where the entire cabin is business class. Basically, flying without the peasant section. Alaska’s New Pacific Airlines teamed up with Dubai-based boutique carrier Beond to create “Beond America,” a luxury, bougie-as-hell flight experience they swear the U.S. has “never seen.” Translation: comfy seats and no toddlers kicking your spine. New Pacific used to dream of being the “Icelandair of the Pacific,” but that plan died somewhere over Anchorage. Now they mostly fly sports teams and government charters — which, honestly, feels on brand. But they do have FAA approval and some shiny 757s ready to pretend they’re glamorous. If all goes well, America might finally get a plane where everyone is business class, and for once, you don’t have to walk through economy pretending you’re not judging people.

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The last pennies might sell for millions. The US Mint finally killed the penny, but the last five coins off the line are getting the royal treatment. They were pressed during a little goodbye ceremony in Philadelphia and marked with a tiny omega symbol — basically the penny’s “it’s been real” signature. These five won’t hit circulation; they’re headed straight to auction so collectors can fight over them like it’s Black Friday for coin nerds. Some hype men say each penny could hit $5 million. Others are like, “Relax, maybe tens of thousands.” Either way, it’s wild to think the coin worth basically nothing in real life might become the most expensive copper circle on earth.

Big pharma’s first trillion-dollar baby. Eli Lilly just joined the trillion-dollar club, which used to be reserved for tech giants and other people who ruin your screen time. Turns out selling weight-loss injections is the hottest business on earth, and Lilly’s drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro are basically printing money. They’re on track to be the world’s best-selling meds this year, because everyone wants to lose weight without… you know, doing anything. Lilly has added nearly a trillion dollars in value since 2017 under CEO Dave Ricks, who is suddenly everywhere — podcasts, TV spoofs, and even getting called “one of the hottest people in business” by Trump in the Oval Office. Sure. Why not. It’s 2025. Johnson & Johnson is now a distant second at half a trillion. Tough break for a company that gave us Band-Aids but not miracle injections.

Amazon drops $50B to power Uncle Sam’s AI addiction. Amazon just announced it’s dropping up to $50 billion on new AI infrastructure for U.S. government agencies. Starting in 2026, Amazon will build massive data centers adding 1.3 gigawatts of power, which is basically “small country” energy usage. Government clients will get access to AWS AI tools, Anthropic’s Claude models, Nvidia chips, and Amazon’s own Trainium chips — the whole buffet. It’s part of the tech world’s current hobby: throwing billions at data centers until someone wins the AI arms race.

The meme department is officially dead. The Trump administration just pulled the plug on DOGE — the government’s “efficiency” squad with a meme name and Elon Musk as its former boss. The unit still had months left, but apparently it just… vanished. Poof. Officials insist the “principles of DOGE” live on (sure), while one leader posted a Doge meme saying “I’m alive,” proving this was never a serious project. DOGE bragged about saving billions, but critics say it mostly wrecked programs like USAID and mishandled sensitive data. Musk bailed earlier this year after beefing with Trump, leaving staffers nervous they won’t get those imagined presidential pardons. One staffer nicknamed “Big Balls” announced he’s “officially out,” which honestly sums up the entire vibe.

New Robotaxi in SF: Cute, Free, Slightly Terrifying

Zoox just dropped its adorable robotaxi pods onto San Francisco streets, giving Waymo some fresh competition and early riders free trips. The Amazon-owned company wants people to test the cars, complain, and help fix the tech before going bigger. The cars have no steering wheel, drive forward or backward like confused Roombas, and seat passengers facing each other in a little lounge setup. Big windows, cute design — basically a moving Airbnb with sensors. Book it in the app, drop a pin, and the pod scoops you up. Welcome to SF, where even your ride looks like a tech startup.

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FDA clears brain implant trial aiming to restore speech. Paradromics just scored FDA approval to test its brain implant in real people, officially entering the “sci-fi but make it medical” era. The Austin startup wants to give a digital voice to people who can’t speak, using a device that turns brain signals into text and synthesized speech. The first trial starts next year with two participants. After six months of data, the company plans to expand. The goal is speech at around 60 words per minute — not full podcast speed, but a massive win compared to silence. The implant doesn’t read anyone’s secret thoughts. It only decodes the brain patterns created when someone tries to talk. Words appear on a screen, then get read out loud in a cloned version of the person’s own voice, assuming a past recording exists. The device, called Connexus, is a metal disk smaller than a dime with 421 tiny electrodes sitting directly in brain tissue. It’s less flashy than Neuralink’s robot-threaded system but chasing the same outcome: giving people back real communication.

Scientists try to give AI feelings, nothing could go wrong. A startup called Conscium thinks it can build actual machine consciousness. While everyone else argues about whether chatbots “feel things,” this crew brought in neuroscientists, philosophers, and animal-consciousness experts to take a shot at cracking sentience like it’s a Sudoku puzzle. Their idea starts with a spicy claim: consciousness isn’t magic, just a combo of sensing, feeling, self-awareness, and the brain’s constant attempt to avoid surprises. One researcher even built tiny virtual agents that react to their environment with simulated fear, excitement, and pleasure — basically digital creatures with moods. Pleasure-bots, but make it science. The goal is to eventually fuse this emotional feedback system with a language model, creating an AI that doesn’t just talk — but talks about its own inner experience. For now, the project is barely a prototype and mostly just vibes. Still, it’s wild enough to make humans rethink what consciousness even is. Maybe those people insisting ChatGPT is “alive” are only half-delusional.

Pope Leo Crashes a Rave

Pope Leo has officially entered his rave era. At an EDM party in Slovakia celebrating Archbishop Bernard Bober’s 75th birthday, the Pope popped up as a giant projection on a cathedral wall to bless a crowd of ravers mid–DJ set. Yes, lasers, spotlights, bass drops — and the Pope. The set was led by Padre Guilherme, the “DJ priest,” because apparently that’s a real job now. The whole night mixed electronic music with spiritual vibes, proving the Vatican will try literally anything to keep Gen Z from leaving the chat.

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New York finally fixes the one thing everyone hates. New York is finally doing something about those depressing green sidewalk tunnels we’ve all been trapped in for half our lives. The city just showed off six new scaffolding designs that — brace yourself — actually let in sunlight and don’t make you feel like you’re being herded into a basement. There’s a tilted-roof one, a rolling one, a bendy one, and even one that looks like a floating shelf. Very chic. Will they actually get used? Depends on whether contractors feel like spending money, so… we’ll see. For now, NYC still has more than 8,400 of these things, many sitting there for years because buildings can’t get their facades together. But hey, at least the sheds can finally be colors other than “trauma green.”

Pics of the year: your camera roll could never. National Geographic dropped its “Pictures of the Year,” aka a collection of photos that instantly make your iPhone camera feel like a potato. Their photographers took thousands of shots across the planet, and these are the ones they decided were worthy of reminding the rest of us that we’ve done absolutely nothing impressive with our cameras all year.

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TikTok of the day:  watch here

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