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❖ THE GRIPE ❖
A Personal Affront, Reported Faithfully
Mailing a package costs more starting Sunday. The Postal Service is adding a holiday surcharge to Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Ground Advantage and Parcel Select from October 4 to January 17. At the counter, a box under 3 pounds sent a short distance costs 50 cents more. Send the same box across the country by Priority Mail and it is a dollar more. The Postal Service says the money will help cover extra handling costs to ensure a successful peak season. This lands on top of the 8 percent temporary increase it put on the same four services in April for transportation costs, which also ends January 17. By then the temporary price will have been the price for almost nine months. Stamps are not affected, so a letter still costs what it cost yesterday. The box of returns by my front door has been waiting since August, and tomorrow it gets more expensive for waiting.
❖ THE DAMAGE REPORT ❖
Today's News, Ranked By How Much It Ruined My Mood
🔥 MOST ENRAGING
A new rate took effect Thursday: 33.86 cents a kilowatt-hour, up about 18 percent, against a mainland average of 18.3 cents. A household using 800 kilowatt-hours a month goes from $229 to $271. Luma Energy, which runs the grid, says the increase will not generate additional revenue for the company. Last week a substation fire left more than 200,000 customers without power. The new rate applies to the hours they had it.
😩 MOST EXHAUSTING
Forecasters expected 84,000. Unemployment rose to 4.2 percent, and July and August were revised down by a combined 60,000 jobs, so the summer was weaker than first reported. Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, said the number should be the nail in the coffin for an October rate hike. The most hopeful thing anyone found in the report was that it was bad enough.
😤 UNREASONABLY ANNOYING
Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery are merging in a $111 billion deal set to close next week, and the combined company will trade as SKYD. David Ellison says the Paramount and Warner Bros. brands keep their own identities. “We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one,” he said. They protected both famous names by putting neither of them on the company.
🤷 SOMEHOW ALSO HAPPENING
A treasure hunter found Gertrude Abercrombie's 1951 painting Alderman Merriam's Shells at a July estate sale in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Freeman's Auctions expected $150,000 to $250,000, and it set a record for the artist. In 1952 it was given to a Kalamazoo doctor, John Reynolds, in exchange for medical services. It went from a doctor's fee to $30 to $1.35 million, so it has nearly caught up with what a doctor's visit costs.
I Almost Threw Out My Keurig. It Wasn't Broken.
Every cup from my Keurig started tasting weak, flat, stale — so I unplugged it and stuck it in a closet. Then I learned the dirty secret of grocery store K-Cups: by the time a pod reaches your kitchen, it's usually spent months going from factory to warehouse to truck to shelf. The flavor oils are long gone. Some brands even over-roast to hide it.
The fix wasn't a new machine. It was fresh pods from Angelino's, a family-owned L.A. roastery that roasts, packs, and ships within 3–5 days — straight to your door, from 39¢ a cup. Over 1,000,000 happy customers. 50+ flavors, no subscription required, and 15% off your first order, applied automatically at checkout.
❖ AND SOME OTHER STUFF ❖
Briefly, And With Limited Enthusiasm
▸ A mother brown bear attacked a car in Bifuka, Japan, after the driver stopped to let her and her cub cross. Dashcam video shows her jumping on the hood, biting it and ramming the front before leaving with the cub. The driver did everything right and still got a hole in the hood.
▸ Gergő Borbély of Hungary holds the world record for energy drink cans, with 2,000 different ones. He started in his dorm room in 2008, sorted the pile for recycling and put one of each back on the shelf. Recycling day is where most collections end. His started there.
▸ California employers can no longer rely only on AI to discipline or fire workers. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the No Robo Bosses Act, which also requires written notice when AI was primarily used. A state had to put in writing that a person should be involved.
✦ THE ONE GOOD THING
Fine. The Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England, was illegally cut down in 2023. It was 150 years old. New aerial images show a ring of shoots around the stump, two to three feet tall. Andrew Poad, who manages Hadrian's Wall for the National Trust, says the special measures to protect it are paying off. Forty-nine saplings from its seed have gone to communities across the UK, and biologists say hikers may get shade from it within a decade. I am giving my lemon tree another year.
If you have a package to mail, today is the day.
THE GRUMP · (AND LARRY)