On Wednesday night, Republicans edged the Democrats 13–12 in a nail-biter of a Congressional Baseball Game.

Nail-biting was the theme of the week on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers grappled over a slew of bills that will define President Biden’s economic agenda. Here’s where things stand, going from easiest to resolve to messiest.

Government shutdown: It was avoided with hours to spare. Biden signed a stopgap spending bill that extends government spending through Dec. 3, when Congress will have to figure out another short- or long-term solution. This bill also includes billions of dollars for Afghan refugee resettlement and aid for communities hit by recent hurricanes.

Debt ceiling: Congress has until Oct. 18 to suspend or raise the debt ceiling before the US begins defaulting on its loans, an outcome that would likely be catastrophic for the economy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is planning a vote on the debt ceiling as soon as next week.

For her part, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen never wants to hear the word “debt ceiling” again—yesterday she told lawmakers the US should abolish the concept of a borrowing limit. Or maybe she could just mint the coin?

Infrastructure: The House delayed a planned vote on the $1 trillion infrastructure bill late last night. It has bipartisan support, but Democratic leaders first want total agreement on the...

$3.5 trillion spending bill. It's stuck in the mud as Democrats have struggled to round up support for their package that would pour unprecedented sums into health care, education, and climate. Republicans oppose the plan due to the cost, but the bigger issue is winning over some centrist Democrats, who are also holding out.

Sen. Joe Manchin said yesterday his top-line cost for the plan would be $1.5 trillion, less than half of the original price tag. Without the entire party rallying behind it, the package can’t pass the Senate, where the Dems have the slimmest of majorities.

21 current and former employees of Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin, published an open letter on Thursday describing it as a “toxic” workplace “rife with sexism.”

Spearheaded by Blue Origin’s former head of employee communications, Alexandra Abrams, the letter alleges that the company is dismissive of safety concerns, creates a sexist environment for female employees, and stifles professional dissent.

The signatories allege that an executive who was repeatedly reported for sexual harassment was given a position on a hiring committee for an HR role. They also wrote that another former male executive would inquire about female employees’ dating lives, referring to them as “baby doll” or “baby girl.” The behavior was so well known, the letter claims, that some women at the company would warn new female hires to stay away from the executive (who, according to the letter, had a close personal relationship with Jeff Bezos).

In response to the allegations, Blue Origin’s VP of communications stated that Abrams was “dismissed for cause” in 2019, and that “Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind.”

An FAA spokesperson said that the agency will review the concerns raised in the letter. —MK

Pandemic discount, we hardly knew ye—rental prices in the US are skyrocketing. The median national rent for a one-bedroom apartment is up 10.7% from March 2020, while two-bedrooms are up 13%, according to the Zumper National Rent Report.

Double digit increases are…not common. For context, 2020 rents increased 1% from the previous year, and 2019 rents were stagnant compared to 2018. It’s a “shocking level of growth, especially considering the vast majority of it has come in the last nine months,” wrote Jeff Andrews, the author of the report.

Why the surge? To put it simply, demand is back. Gen Z renters are moving out of their childhood homes after a long pandemic, remote-working millennials are picking apartments in more affordable cities, and baby boomers are offloading their homes in a seller’s market, opting for rentals instead.

Pour one out for renters in...

• Phoenix, where the one-bedroom median rent increased 24.8% between January and September.
• New York City, where some rents have increased 70% since the dog days of the pandemic.

—MK

Stat: Teens—they just aren’t vaping like they used to. 11% of high schoolers and less than 3% of middle schoolers said they used e-cigs or vapes recently, a ~40% drop from last year...which itself was a big drop from 2019. Experts say school closures contributed to lower vaping rates, since it’s such a social activity.

Quote: "Will you commit to ending Finsta?”

This was a perplexing question Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Facebook’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, during a Congressional hearing about the company’s impact on teens’ mental health. Finsta is short for “Fake Instagram,” a second account some users make; it’s not a FB product.

Read: New research shows insider trading is everywhere. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to having Simon Cowell press the golden buzzer after your flawless performance of “Ave Maria” on America's Got Talent.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

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Friday scroll: Photos that reveal the unseen side of things part 1 and part 2.

The best condiment: One writer tried 30 different mustards this summer then ranked them.

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Get out a scrap piece of paper for this one:

With one stroke of a pencil you can change a capital F into E, an O into a Q, and so on. Write the phrase "LEAD PENCIL" in capital letters. Add a stroke to one letter and rearrange the result to name a classic movie. What is it?

Change the P to an R, rearrange to get CINDERELLA.

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