Car-buying wisdom if you’re trying to save money: “Stick to public transit.” But if the bus simply isn’t your thing (or available), brace for a budget-shattering event: Cox Automotive found the Mitsubishi Mirage was the only new model going for less than $20,000 last month.

The humble hatchback may make your mom’s Prius look like a racecar, but its $19,205 average selling price in July really does resemble a mirage in the heat of the auto market.

Cox reports:

• A middle-of-the-road new car cost over $48,000 in July, up 30% since 2019.
• And used cars were no better. The average July price was $27,000, also a 30% hike from 2019.

The pricey four-wheeled boxes most Americans rely on to get places have been straining family budgets. It takes over 42 weeks of median household income to cover the average cost of a new car, per July data supplied by Cox and Moody’s Analytics.

On top of high prices, high-interest auto loans also burden auto owners. Last quarter, a record 17.1% of new car owners had a monthly payment above $1,000, according to Edmunds. This helps explain why auto loan delinquencies have been rising this year, despite a strong economy with exceptionally low unemployment.

America’s obsession with supersized rides is partially to blame for the high prices since carmakers have ditched affordable compact vehicles. Pandemic-related supply chain snags also threw a wrench into production, creating a car shortage that let auto producers slap exorbitant price tags onto windshields.

But…despite the lack of cheaper models on the market, new car prices have slowly begun to fall as dealers report having more cars sitting on their lots. EVs are getting discounted the most as manufacturers engage in a price war.—SK

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Arm gears up for the year’s biggest IPO. The UK-headquartered chipmaker filed paperwork yesterday in anticipation of making its US market debut in September. There’ll be high stakes for SoftBank, which bought the company for $32 billion in 2016, as it tries to recover from recent losses by pivoting to an AI-based strategy with companies like Arm at the center. Bloomberg reports that Arm had been looking to raise between $8 billion and $10 billion but may now seek less as SoftBank plans to hold on to more of the company. The IPO is still expected to be the year’s biggest and help other tech companies, including Instacart, decide whether to move forward with their own IPOs.

Travel is expected to keep booming. If you think your Insta feed is full of everyone’s sand, sun, and fruity cocktail photos now, just wait: Travel is on track to become a $15.5 trillion industry by 2033, the World Travel & Tourism Council estimates. That would represent more than 11.6% of the global economy and a 50% jump from 2019. The industry group further predicts that some 430 million people will work in the industry—that’s 1 of every 9 jobs worldwide.

FDA approves RSV vaccine during pregnancy to protect infants. The agency signed off on the administration of Pfizer’s RSV vaccine during pregnancy to prevent infants from contracting the respiratory infection, which is the leading cause of hospitalization for babies in the US. Once the CDC weighs in, Pfizer hopes to have the jab on the market by November. The FDA had already okayed the Pfizer shot for older adults and also recently greenlit an antibody treatment made by Sanofi and AstraZeneca to prevent RSV in infants. That treatment is also expected to be available in the fall.

If you thought the days of going to the mall to nibble on an Auntie Anne’s pretzel and leave smelling of Bath and Body Works were over, think again.

According to a recent report from analytics firm Coresight Research, malls are back:

• From 2021 to 2022, retail sales at malls increased 11% to over $800 billion.
• Foot traffic at top-tier malls, where the average shopper makes $200,000+ per year, increased 12% in 2022 compared to 2019.

What’s fueling the malls’ post-pandemic resurgence? While it once looked like the rise of e-commerce would kill the mall, brands have figured out that customers want both. They have invested in “omnichannel” marketing, which promotes both online shopping and physical stores, to drive growth, per Coresight. Plus, Gen Zers might have missed the halcyon mall days of Aéropostale and Hollister, but they are mall-loyal—a survey conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers found that roughly the same share of Gen Z respondents shopped at brick-and-mortar stores (97%) as online (95%).

Big picture: Retail is a bright spot in the otherwise dim outlook for commercial real estate. In Q2, office vacancy rates soared to a 30-year high of 18.2%, while the vacancy rate for retail space fell to 4.8%—the lowest level since real estate firm CBRE started tracking it 18 years ago. And 1,000 more stores are expected to open than to close this year.—CC

A $44 pickle sweatshirt making the rounds on TikTok is the new “I mustache you a question” merch for the terminally online generation.

If that sentence gave you a headache, take some ibuprofen before scrolling through the dizzying cornucopia of products available on TikTok’s official catapult into e-commerce: TikTok Shop. The new feature, which fully rolled out in the US this month, lets TikTok users purchase anything under the fashion or life-hack sun with just a few clicks, right from the comfort of their For You Pages.

The social media app is looking to sell more than $20 billion in products through TikTok Shop by the end of the year, taking on e-commerce giants like Shein, Temu, and even Amazon.

To get there, TikTok has been accused of boosting videos that sell products through the new feature, which are marked with an orange shopping cart icon. The pickle sweatshirt, for example, is suddenly all over people’s screens despite having been around since January.

And whether the app is actually putting its thumb on the algorithm scale or not, users are expressing frustration that their feeds are overwhelmed with glorified advertisements—and that it’s now easier than ever to fall into the #tiktokmademebuyit trap.—ML

Stat: We haven’t all achieved our supermodel dreams of refusing to get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day, but Americans are demanding more money to start a new job. According to a New York Federal Reserve survey, the average minimum yearly salary people say they’d accept to switch jobs rose to $78,645 last quarter—8% more than a year earlier. But there’s a big gender gap: Though women’s pay expectations rose more than men’s did, the average amount women said they would be willing to take was ~$25,000 lower than what men said.

Quote: “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”

That’s what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has some insight into world-changing tech, said about Elon Musk in a lengthy profile published in the New Yorker yesterday that delves into the Tesla/SpaceX/X exec’s unique position as an entrepreneur whose work governments have come to rely on. For example, Ukraine’s military depends on Starlink internet, which Musk once threatened to pull from the region. One Pentagon official said: “Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces. That sucks.”

Read: How dating app algorithms decide who you date. (Gizmodo)

Eat: Hot dogs across America, in case you need end-of-summer road trip inspo.

Watch: Mesmerizing footage from inside food factories.

Learn: The internet likes to label narcissists, but scientists are still debating exactly what the term means.

See: Every type of license plate you can get in the US.

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Brew Mini: Today’s Mini is a little trickier since there are no black squares to help you out. Neal completed the puzzle in 56 seconds—think you can beat that? Play it here.

Find the connections

Below are pictures of 16 celebrities. Your task is to divide them into four groups of four that share a common link.

Good luck!

Celebrities with initials RR: Rachael Ray, Ronald Reagan, Robert Redford, Ryan Reynolds

Celebrities who started liquor brands: George Clooney, Kendall Jenner, Rita Ora, The Rock

Celebrities with birds in their names: Tony Hawk, Robin Roberts, Martin Short, Taylor Swift

Golden Globe Best Actor Winners: Robert Downey Jr., Ryan Gosling, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: cornucopia. Submit another word here.