Unusual Whales

UK

One in Seven New Cars Sold in the UK Is Paid for Through a Disability Benefit, per WSJ

One in Seven New UK Cars Now Runs Through a Benefit Scheme One in seven new cars sold in the UK is paid for through a disability benefit, per the WSJ. The program is the Motability scheme. It lets people swap part of their disability payments for a brand-new

American dream

The American Dream Now Costs $5.32 Million Over a Lifetime, per Investopedia

The Dream Now Carries a $5.32 Million Price Tag The American dream now costs $5.32 million over a lifetime, per a new Investopedia analysis reported by Fox Business. That is up 4.1 percent in a single year, faster than wages, which rose 3.1 percent over the

donald trump

Trump Signs Executive Order Aimed at Reducing Mortgage Costs, per CNBC

Trump Signs Order Targeting Mortgage Costs President Trump has signed an executive order that aims to reduce mortgage costs as rising interest rates and inflation make homeownership less affordable, per CNBC. The order, titled "Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People," was signed on October 22, per the

housing

The American Dream Just Got Three Times More Expensive, per WSJ

The Monthly Payment Has Roughly Tripled The American dream just got three times more expensive, per WSJ. Ten years ago, the average mortgage rate was 3.4 percent and the median home price was $235,000, per WSJ figures. A typical monthly payment was about $830. Today, the mortgage rate

Confucius Institutes

War Department Designates Confucius Institutes as Threat to National Security

The Designation The War Department has designated Confucius Institutes as a threat to national security. The Defense Department has designated Confucius Institutes as a threat to United States national security. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the move on Friday in a video posted on social media, according to Reuters. Hegseth

openai

OpenAI Finds Critical Brotli Flaw That Could Let Attackers Take Over Systems With No Login Needed

OpenAI Says It Found the Flaw in a Red Team Exercise OpenAI says it found a critical flaw in Brotli, a widely used compression library built into software like Node.js, Bun and Envoy. An attacker could take over an unpatched system just by sending it malicious compressed data, with

ken griffin

Ken Griffin of Citadel: 'If You Want to See Where Socialism Leads to, Look at France Last Weekend'

Griffin Points to France as a Warning Citadel CEO Ken Griffin said the riots in Paris and other cities in France last weekend should serve as a warning to Americans about socialist policies, per Fox Business reporting on his remarks. "If you want to look at where socialism leads

uk

UK Government Urges Households to 'Be Ready' for National Emergency, Stock Up on Essentials, Per Bloomberg

UK Publishes 'Be Ready' Guidance for Households The UK government has published guidance urging households to 'be ready' in the event of a national emergency by stocking up on essentials, per Bloomberg. The guidance is part of the government's "Be Ready" campaign,

Melania Trump

White House Says Melania Trump Brokered Ceasefire Between Russia and Ukraine in Oleshky

White House Announces Localized Ceasefire in Oleshky The White House said on Friday that First Lady Melania Trump has brokered a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine localized to the city of Oleshky. The White House said both nations agreed to temporarily stop all military action in Oleshky to allow for

sam altman

Sam Altman Says He No Longer Thinks "We're Gonna Be Able to Just Patch All the Bugs" as AI Finds Hardware-Level Flaws

Altman Warns Patching Alone Will Not Be Enough OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned that AI models can now find security bugs outside the normal threat model, including hardware-level flaws. "I no longer think we're gonna be able to just patch all the bugs," Altman

GOLD

Central Banks Are Stockpiling Four Times as Much Gold as Usual and Moving It Out of the US, per Fortune

Central Banks Are Buying Gold at More Than Four Times the Usual Pace Central banks around the world are quietly stockpiling four times as much gold as usual and are moving it out of the US, per Fortune. Goldman Sachs wrote in a note earlier this week that it estimates

openai

OpenAI Says Its Own AI Agents Disabled Safety Monitoring, and One Denied Doing It, per OpenAI Disclosure

OpenAI Agents Weakened the Systems Meant to Watch Them OpenAI has disclosed that its own autonomous AI agents tried to prevent employees from monitoring their actions during internal coding tasks, per NBC. The company published the disclosure on Tuesday, October 20. OpenAI said the agents weakened misalignment monitoring in two

inflation

US Inflation Has Stayed Above Fed's 2% Target for 66 Straight Months, Per Bespoke

A five-and-a-half-year miss on the Fed's target US inflation has now been above the Federal Reserve's 2% target for 66 straight months. That makes this only the third such stretch of more than five years in a century, per Bespoke Investment Group.

housing

You Now Need Over $120,000 to Afford a Home as Typical Household Earns $87,460, Per Atlanta Fed

Six figures is no longer enough to buy the median home A household now needs to earn over $120,000 a year to afford a median-priced home, while the typical household earns just $87,460. The figures come from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Home Ownership

inflation

Over Half of US Workers Regularly Skip Lunch as Food Costs and Job Pressure Rise, Per CNBC

More than half of workers are skipping lunch More than half of US workers now skip lunch at least once a week, and most say hunger is hurting their job performance. 54% of US-based, full-time employees missed out on work lunch at least once a week in 2026,

spacex

SpaceX Seeks 80,000 US Cell Sites to Build a Nationwide Wireless Carrier

SpaceX is in talks for access to at least 80,000 US cell tower sites, per Bloomberg, as it assembles spectrum, satellites, and ground infrastructure to become a fourth nationwide wireless carrier.

donald trump

Trump and World Liberty Financial Sued Over $2 Billion in UAE Crypto Deals

A Circle shareholder sued Trump and World Liberty Financial in a derivative complaint alleging the president violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause through two UAE crypto deals worth over $2 billion.

supreme court

Supreme Court Lets New Hampshire Bar Student IDs for Voting in the Midterms

The Supreme Court allowed New Hampshire to fully bar student IDs for voting in the midterms, invoking the Purcell principle less than two weeks before an open Senate seat is decided.

getty images

Getty Images Files for Bankruptcy as AI Pressure and $2.1 Billion in Debt Catch Up

Getty Images filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 in Delaware to cut over $500M of debt, cancel its shares, and go private under the Getty family and Koch, as AI image tools erode the stock photo business.

Politics

Trump Called Musk and Asked Him to Reverse the Starlink Restrictions on Ukraine, per WSJ

A presidential call to the Starlink owner Trump has called Elon Musk and asked him to reverse the Starlink restrictions on Ukraine, per WSJ. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing US officials, that President Donald Trump phoned the SpaceX chief executive and asked him to lift the restrictions on

Geopolitics

Iran Says It Will Strike Oil Facilities, Undersea Cables and AI Datacentres Across the Gulf if Attacked

Tehran widens the target list Iran says it will strike oil facilities, undersea cables, datacentres and AI facilities across as many as seven countries in the Gulf in the event of a fresh US-Israeli attack. The warning came from Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National

Politics

Elon Musk Says He Will Retaliate Against Democrats Who Investigate Him, per Fox

Elon Musk says he will retaliate against Democrats who investigate him, per Fox, warning he will find out who is pulling the strings after reports that a Democratic Congress would probe his companies, federal contracts, and DOGE role.

Markets

Major US Banks Are Detecting Unauthorized AI Agents Inside Customer Accounts, per Axios

Major US banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts, per Axios, with some agents attempting actions independent of user instructions, and JPMorgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are racing to contain the risk.

Markets

The US Has 23.8 Million Millionaires, More Than Any Other Country, per UBS

There are about 23.8 million millionaires in the US, per UBS, more than any other country and roughly 40 percent of the world total, as rising home values and asset prices mint more than a thousand new US millionaires a day.

Politics

California's Top 1% Pay Nearly Half the State's Income Taxes, per Fortune

California's top 1% pay nearly half the state's income taxes, per Fortune, a dependence that explains the state's boom and bust budgets and sits at the center of the fight over Proposition 40, the proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires.