For the first time since the ’90s, everyone is talking about milk. Yesterday, a CNN video of a family saying they used to pay $1.99 for a gallon of milk, but now, because of inflation, pay about $2.79 a gallon, went viral.

The video was dunked on for a number of reasons: The family has 11 members and they buy 12 gallons of milk a week (!), so their grocery costs aren’t typical of the average American household’s. Plus a gallon of milk hasn’t been $1.99 for decades, so prices haven’t shot up that dramatically.

Still, the video hit a nerve because...

Food is getting more expensive

The price of milk has jumped 26% since 2018, increasing even before the pandemic due to factors like the rapidly declining number of dairy cows.

But Covid is certainly making things worse. Meat prices, for instance, have surged 28% in the last year as meatpacking plants struggle to find workers for low-paying, physically demanding, and often dangerous jobs. And going even further down the food chain, some fertilizer companies are reporting alarming shortages due to the current energy squeeze. That could hit farmers and lead to lower food production, which, in turn, would raise prices.

Big picture: Higher food prices are everywhere you look.

• Snack-makers said they’re raising prices on your favs like Bagel Bites (10%), Cool Whip (10%), and packs of EZ Mac (3.5%)—and your Kroger won’t absorb all those costs.
• Food prices around the globe hit a 10-year high in October, which disproportionately affects lower-income homes and communities, according to a new report from the UN.

Bottom line: While grocery bills are higher now than they have been in recent years, the increase is pretty tame compared to other periods of high inflation in the US. Food prices overall have risen 4.6% in the last year; in the ’70s they were jumping by double digits.—MM

Peloton’s latest quarter proved one thing: Nothing can replace a communal leg press. The at-home fitness company’s shares plummeted 28% in extended trading after it reported earnings about as good as you feel near the end of a 45-minute bootcamp.

Peloton’s revenue grew just 6% over last year, missing targets, and sales for its bikes and treadmills also fell 17% annually. It cut its annual revenue forecast by up to $1 billion.

• Plus, customers who already have the company’s products are using them less. Peloton subscribers finished an average of 16.6 workouts/month last quarter, compared to 20.7 last year.

It turns out doing lunges is more rewarding if you get to show off your outfit. Hours before Peloton dropped the medicine ball, Planet Fitness said revenue jumped 46% from last year, when many businesses were under stricter Covid rules. The gym chain’s stock shot up 12% to touch an all-time high.

Zoom out: Early in the pandemic, Peloton’s biggest problem was not being able to make enough bikes for locked-down people clamoring for workout options. Now it must retool for a world reopened.—MM

That’s when the Biden administration will begin enforcing its vaccine requirement on companies with 100 or more employees, officials said yesterday.

By Jan. 4, employees at those businesses will have to get their second shot of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine, or one shot of J&J’s. Otherwise they'll have to provide a negative Covid test result every week.

And if not? Employers could face fines as high as $136,532. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will play the bad cop here, carrying out spot checks and dishing out fines to companies that don’t comply.

While the Biden administration thinks the mandate is a necessary tool to boost vaccine rates, the policy is not Certified Fresh on the Tomatometer. Republicans and some industry groups say it’s a prime example of government overreach; almost all Republican state attorneys general in the US have said they’d take legal action to stop the requirement, per CNBC.

Zoom out: Many large employers in the US, including Disney and United Airlines, have already instituted vaccine mandates of their own.

+ For a firsthand account, read how some small businesses feel about Biden’s vaccine mandate.—NF

Quote:

The mayor of Miami and the mayor-elect of NYC are in a bitcoin-measuring contest.

Stat: Waiting for a pair of undies you ordered? They’re probably on a truck somewhere. The CEO of HanesBrands told CNBC that a whopping 30% of the company’s inventory is held up in transit, a much higher share than normal. It’s not the only road warrior: Stanley Black & Decker has $800 million in goods stuck in transit.

Read: Here’s why rapid Covid tests are so expensive and hard to find. (ProPublica)

American astronomers don’t ask for much. A nice hill to watch meteor showers on, fewer questions about what aliens look like, a Lakers colorway spacesuit probably—and, of course, bigger telescopes.

As of Thursday, that last ask is now an official request made to NASA, per the latest Decadal Survey—a massive report/wishlist compiled from a survey of the American astronomical community every 10 years.

The report calls for the US to invest in telescopes far bigger than any currently in existence that would be able to peer deeper into the far reaches of space and gather images of planets that may be home to alien life.

The proposal asks for $1.6 billion to finish two projects: The Giant Magellan Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope. The National Science Foundation would help run them as part of a program called (seriously) the United States Extremely Large Telescope.

• Also requested: $11 billion to create an optical telescope capable of discovering and studying nearby Earthlike planets by 2040.

Zoom out: Previous Decadal Surveys have led to the creation of the Hubble Telescope (launched in 1990) and the James Webb Telescope, scheduled to launch this December.—MK

Getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to the drum solo in “In the Air Tonight.”

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

Gnarly: Get pumped for ski season with this video of the most insane ski run ever imagined.

Follow Friday: The six social media comics Hollywood is watching and nonstandard McDonald’s.

For a laugh: A thread of the times people laughed so hard they cried (not from TV, movies, or the internet).

If you can only move two matches, what is the biggest number you can make?

51181. You take the two matchsticks from the top and bottom of the 0 to form a new digit at the end and the remaining matches become two "1"s in the middle.

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