Today's News

🤧 Pass the tissue | Tuesday, October 27, 2026

1 big thing: Robotaxi future still needs humans

By Joann Muller and Ned Oliver

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

Uber is betting billions on a driverless future, but the secret to making the economics work could be its vast army of human drivers.

Why it matters: Uber believes a hybrid network of robots and people — of the sort now operating in Dallas — can keep the expensive autonomous vehicles busier, and therefore more profitable, than fleets made up entirely of robotaxis.

The big picture: Ride-hailing is a supply driven business, and robotaxis aren't a substitute for drivers, Uber says — they're an additional form of supply.

Between the lines: Think of a high-tech robotaxi like an airplane: It costs money whether it's carrying passengers or sitting on the ground.

• To maximize usage, Uber says it expects to size its robotaxi fleet for normal demand and summon more human drivers when needed.

• The goal is to keep the autonomous taxis moving as much as possible, so Uber and its partners can squeeze as much profit as possible from that expensive asset.

Follow the money: Robotaxi economics remain unproven, Uber's head of autonomous mobility and delivery, Sarfraz Maredia, tells Axios, with no company yet making money operating them.

• So far, Uber says, robotaxis are taking shorter city-center trips, while drivers get longer, more lucrative ones.

Zoom in: Uber has run a hybrid network in Dallas since December, when it began matching some riders with Avride robotaxis, which still carry a safety operator behind the wheel.

• Waymo and Tesla run fully driverless fleets here through their own apps.

What we're watching: Whether Dallas drivers feel the squeeze as robotaxi fleets here grow.

• In San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, where robotaxis have operated longer, drivers' hourly base pay fell or grew more slowly than elsewhere in the country, per research from Gridwise, an app that lets gig drivers track earnings, expenses and mileage.

• Uber says driver earnings have stayed consistent in Austin and Atlanta, where Waymo robotaxis run on its app.

The bottom line: Humans may make Uber's robotaxi math work. Whether the math works as well for the humans is less certain.

2. Flu season gets an early start

By Carly Mallenbaum, Asher Price and Megan Cardona

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

The flu is getting an earlier start in Texas and nationwide this year.

Why it matters: Health experts say it's time to get your flu shot if you haven't already.

Zoom in: State hospital laboratories reported more than 800 flu cases from Oct. 4-10, up from about 15 during roughly the same period in 2025, per the Texas Health and Human Services department.

Flashback: The U.S. saw its worst flu season in 25 years last season.

Between the lines: Doctors nationwide urge everyone 6 months and older to get their flu shots now. Search for flu vaccine locations at Vaccines.gov.

• It takes up to two weeks for the vaccine to provide maximum protection.

• This season, the new U.S.-approved mRNA flu vaccine is available to adults 50 and older.

• Children make up the highest percentage of medical visits in the U.S. for flu-like illness.

What they're saying: Children's Health in Dallas says flu symptoms include high fever, body aches and cough.

Other reminders: Wash your hands often and avoid touching your face.

• Stay home when you're sick to avoid spreading germs.

The bottom line: Trish Perl, an infectious diseases and epidemiology professor at UT Southwestern, tells Axios the early uptick in flu positivity is worth watching, but it's too soon to gauge how severe this "reliably unreliable" flu season will be.

3. 🗞 Burnt ends: Bite-sized news bits

Take stock of these stories from the weekend. Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

❄️ El Niño could bring a higher chance of snow to North Texas this winter. (KERA)

⛪️ Highland Park United Methodist Church members voted yesterday to leave the United Methodist Church amid a legal dispute with the denomination's regional governing body. (DMN)

🤠 Dickies Arena in Fort Worth is now known as Ariat Arena after Ariat International secured the naming rights for the next decade. (WFAA)

4. 👋 Howdy, folks!

Megan Cardona is a North Texas native. Photo: Courtesy of Jordan Stricker

Hey y'all, I'm Megan! I'm thrilled to be joining Naheed in covering Dallas for Axios Dallas.

Catch up quick: I'm a North Texas native who was born in Dallas and grew up in Tarrant County.

✏️ I graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington and have reported on North Texas and Dallas for the last several years.

👩🏻‍💻 I've previously worked at The Shorthorn, Community Impact, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and, most recently, KERA.

🍿 In my free time, you can find me hanging with pals, at the movies, or catching up on my reading — I'm currently rereading "Wuthering Heights."

The bottom line: I'm passionate about Texas and what makes our communities unique, and I can't wait to get started!

Support your local newsroom and gain access to exclusive insights from reporters, event invitations and more!

🎤 Plus: Hov's halftime show | Tuesday, October 27, 2026

1 big thing: AI money tsunami

Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios

Anthropic filed yesterday for what could be the biggest IPO ever, capping a massive day of AI dealmaking that nearly equals 1% of U.S. GDP, Axios' Dan Primack writes.

• Why it matters: Few industries have ever become so central to the American economy so quickly — and we're watching Wall Street finance the buildout in real time.

Anthropic's long-awaited IPO may seek to raise a record $100 billion.

• Also yesterday, SpaceX secured $40 billion in debt financing to lease GPUs — the chips that power modern AI — and Meta said it would seek up to $95 billion in financing for its AI buildout.
• Together, that's roughly $235 billion in a single day — more than the entire U.S. airline industry adds to the economy in a year.

🖼️ The big picture: AI's appetite for capital has outgrown what any one part of the financial system can supply.

• Anthropic alone has committed roughly $750 billion to computing power in the coming years — about seven times what its record-setting IPO may raise.
• Even private investors are struggling to keep up: OpenAI's record $120 billion funding round took months to close.

Zoom in: Most Americans will be financially exposed to these deals, even if they never buy a share.

• SpaceX and Meta are already major holdings in the top stock indices that fill pensions, 401(k)s and other retirement plans. Anthropic will soon join them.

Between the lines: Anthropic's filing spells out how big the stakes are, devoting more than a quarter of the document to risks.

• The company warns that AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" and that models may try to manipulate the people using them.

🔭 Zoom out: Each of these three deals is a bet that AI use keeps compounding fast enough to justify the industry's trillions in spending.

• The flip side: Declining use could crack the foundation of America's entire economy.

The bottom line: Everyone is on the AI train, whether we want to be or not.

2. 🇮🇱 Netanyahu's moment of truth

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photos: Ilia Yefimovich/pool/AFP via Getty Images and Erik Marmor/Getty Images

Axios' Barak Ravid writes from Tel Aviv:

Israeli polls opened at 1 a.m. ET for one of the most consequential elections in the country's history — with rival camps warning that victory for the other would put Israel's future in jeopardy.

• Why it matters: The election is yet another referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership and the path he's taken the country down over the past four years.

It's Israeli voters' first chance to hold Netanyahu accountable for the security failures that led to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks — or to reward him for what he claims were unprecedented military successes in the three years of war since.

• If Netanyahu and his far-right coalition win, they're likely to renew the war with Iran in an effort to topple its regime, intensify their crackdown on Israel's democratic institutions and move to end Netanyahu's corruption trial.

👀 Behind the scenes: Netanyahu spent weeks trying to persuade President Trump to give him a green light to strike Iran ahead of the elections. Trump did not go along.

• In the 72 hours before the elections, Netanyahu tried to order the Israel Defense Forces to take steps to lay the ground for a potential new military strike or take actions short of an overt attack, Israeli officials say.
• IDF chief of staff General Eyal Zamir refused to comply. He warned that such a strike could lead to a miscalculation that quickly escalated hostilities and potentially forced the elections to be called off, the officials said.

The other side: Netanyahu's main opponent, former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, ran on holding Netanyahu accountable for the Oct. 7 failure, forming a national commission of inquiry and drafting ultra-Orthodox men to strengthen the IDF after three years of war.

3. 🏈 Scoop: Trump enlists Texas football stars

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

President Trump will campaign with three football stars in Texas on Tuesday, leaning into America's favorite sport as Republicans scramble to turn out voters in the final week before the midterms, Axios' Alex Isenstadt has learned.

• Former college football stars Johnny Manziel and Colt McCoy, along with two-time Super Bowl champion Danny Amendola, will join Trump for campaign appearances in Lubbock and Corpus Christi.
• Amendola starred at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Manziel won the Heisman Trophy at Texas A&M, and McCoy was a standout quarterback at the University of Texas.

🎨 The big picture: Trump has made football a recurring feature of his campaign stops in recent weeks.

• Trump attended the Texas-Tennessee game in September and planned to attend the Georgia-Alabama showdown earlier this month before canceling because of a hurricane.
• Former NFL coach Jon Gruden joined Trump at an Ohio rally this month, while former Georgia and NFL star Todd Gurley accompanied the president on a stop in Georgia.

4. 🇻🇪 Rubio warns Venezuela

A supporter of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a Venezuelan flag on top of a truck after her arrival in Caracas on Sunday. Photo: Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images

A day after Venezuela's exiled opposition leader returned to Caracas with great fanfare, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a veiled warning against interfering with the country's fragile democratic transition pushed by the Trump administration, Axios' Marc Caputo writes.

• "You're not going to street-protest your way into a democracy," Rubio told reporters without explicitly mentioning Maria Corina Machado.

Why it matters: Machado's demands for elections next year — and her criticism of a massive U.S. oil deal struck with the current Caracas regime — have put administration officials on edge after her surprise return.

• "Rubio is on a political edge," said a White House source familiar with his thinking. "Venezuela is the top foreign policy achievement of this administration, and if the progress we made gets undone and Machado is a spoiler, nobody wins."

Keep reading.

5. 🌴 L.A.'s socialist civil war

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman speaks during a campaign event on Saturday. Photo: William Liang/AP

A fight over Israel is fracturing the socialist movement just as it stands within reach of capturing the Los Angeles mayor's office, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Why it matters: The same socialist movement celebrating its ascendancy through New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now debating whether to disown Nithya Raman before Los Angeles voters can even weigh in.

Leaders of the national Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) face demands to overturn the local chapter's endorsement of Raman over her position on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

• But the L.A. chapter of DSA still enthusiastically endorses Raman, arguing Angelenos deserve a functioning city government.
• The mayoral race has been defined by homelessness, affordability and public safety.

🧮 By the numbers: Raman leads incumbent Mayor Karen Bass ahead of the Nov. 3 election. A September Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll put her ahead 39%-28%, and a more recent Manhattan Institute poll had her up 38%-32%.

• Keep reading.

6. 🔎 DOJ charges Comey again

Screenshot: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey for the third time in 13 months, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• Court documents unsealed yesterday allege that Comey — long a subject of President Trump's ire — directed the disclosure of national defense information to a reporter in October 2016.

Comey's attorney said in a statement that the former FBI director "steadfastly maintains his innocence" and will fight the latest charges.

• He said the case concerns an Oct. 5, 2016, New York Times article that two separate teams of prosecutors investigated during Trump's first administration. Both teams decided not to bring charges.
• The Justice Department filed the charges through what's known as a "criminal information" — a charging document that doesn't require a grand jury — ahead of the statute of limitations.

⚖️ Flashback: Last year, Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress and obstruction. The case was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed.

• In April, a grand jury in North Carolina indicted him on two counts over a 2025 Instagram post of seashells spelling "86 47," which prosecutors called a threat against Trump.

Go deeper.

7. 📊 Young voters shift to Dems

Chart: Rachel Buigas-Lopez/The New York Times

70% of young voters identified as Democrats or leaned that way — a 15-point jump from just two years ago, a New York Times/Siena poll found.

• 53% said they fear the U.S. is in danger of failing as a nation, up from 38% two years ago.

NYT gift link.

8. 🎤 1 fun thing: Hov's halftime show

Image: NFL

Jay-Z — one of the music industry's most powerful performers — will headline the Super Bowl halftime show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles next February.

• The rapper's entertainment company, Roc Nation, helps produce the halftime show — meaning he effectively picked himself to perform.
• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he had one request when the league first reached an agreement with Roc Nation in 2019: "That Jay-Z take the stage himself one day, whenever the moment felt right to him."

Go deeper ... Watch the announcement video.

Anthropic files to go public...

October 27, 2026

ENOUGH. You’re not showing up to the Halloween party dressed as an overused pun or “party guest.” But don’t worry, because we asked your fellow Brew readers what to be this year, so now you can borrow their easy(ish) ideas:

• Scrubs and furry coyote ears to be Noah Wyle Coyote (Ann Marie from Pittsburgh, PA)
• Make your family go as the cast of Deal or No Deal (Tracy from New Jersey)
• Hank Hill and the rest of the King of the Hill cast (Kevin from Danville, VA)
• Wear all black with a giant “8” taped to you to be a Magic 8 Ball. You’ll have total power to tell people to quit their jobs all night (Jeremy from Springfield, MO)
• Don operating room scrubs and a Google logo and go as a Google Doc (submitted anonymously)
• Cover yourself in tinfoil to be leftovers (submitted anonymously)

—Sam Klebanov, Dave Lozo, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Neal Freyman, Abby Rubenstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

• Anthropic’s upcoming IPO
• The NBA partnering with prediction markets
• One thing future CEOs do

Markets

• Markets: Anthropic’s public IPO filing (which we’ll talk about below) hit the market like a cool kid agreeing to come to your pool party, generating buzz that sent stocks up yesterday as AI stocks began recovering from last week’s sell-off.
• Stock spotlight: JetBlue had a turbulent day: Its stock sank yesterday as investors worried that high fuel costs could threaten the airline’s turnaround plan. But in its after the bell earnings report, the carrier posted a loss for Q3 but said demand was strong and margins were improving. So, it bounced back in after-hours trading.

ANTICIPATING ANT

Anthropic lifts the veil on its IPO

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Chance Yeh/Getty Images

Like a high school senior who just submitted their SAT scores and GPA into the Common App, Anthropic just filed some very important paperwork. The AI company took a stride towards its widely anticipated IPO yesterday with a regulatory filing that details its plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ANT.

The filing provides more clarity about Anthropic’s finances and its plans to manage the (potentially catastrophic) risks its product poses to society.

Big numbers

With investors feeling jittery about AI, Anthropic’s disclosure contains plenty of fodder for both bulls and bears:

• Anthropic’s revenue soared 14-fold to $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026 compared to a year earlier, a growth pace Anthropic expects to slow. Revenue is less concentrated to a few customers than many analysts expected.
• But the company has yet to make a profit and is on the hook for $417 billion of contractual obligations to vendors like data center operators.

Analysts believe Anthropic could raise up to $100 billion—surpassing SpaceX’s record IPO earlier this year—and placing it among the world’s most valuable companies.

Things could go wrong

While touting AI’s potential to bring about revolutionary change, Anthropic dedicated 94 pages to warnings about risks. These range from customer lawsuits over being excluded from early access to its most sophisticated models to government restrictions on its business. Plus, there are concerns about its ability to accurately predict demand for its models when planning infrastructure investments.

In an unusual step…it also listed worries for those not planning to buy the stock. Anthropic said it is concerned about insufficient safeguards to prevent bad actors from using its AI for weapons development or devastating cyberattacks.

Anthropic said its co-founders will control key decisions, while financially disinterested trustees prioritizing safety will oversee board appointments. Critics said this ownership structure would concentrate control of the company with management at the expense of shareholders.

Is it a buy? Anthropic’s chatbot Claude said yes “at a sensible price,” while rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT disagreed.—SK

World

Tour de headlines

Oliver Berg/Getty Images

💻 Microsoft offers buyout to 60,000 employees. The company that makes the spreadsheets your company uses to figure out how to cut costs is looking to cut its own by offering voluntary buyouts to up to 60,000 staffers in the US, UK, Canada, and India. That’s roughly 27% of Microsoft’s 223,000-person workforce. Those who take the buyout will get similar benefits to its standard severance packages, a Microsoft spokesperson told Bloomberg. Microsoft—which also recently offered retirement buyouts and conducted layoffs—joins other Big Tech companies in reducing headcount amid significant spending on AI and its infrastructure like data centers.

📉 Brazil’s stock market tanked after surprise election results. Brazilian voters propelled President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to a surprise election win on Sunday, and it looks like no one was more surprised than the country’s investors who had bet on his defeat by his right-wing opponent. Yesterday, Brazil’s benchmark stock index fell almost 14%, and its currency dropped ~9% against the US dollar. Some stocks plummeted more than 50%, per Bloomberg, and the country’s exchange halted trading multiple times amid the fast and deep rout. It highlights the tough economic road ahead for the newly reelected Lula.

📱 Some users are finding the iPhone Duo not all it’s cracked up to be. Apple’s $2,000+ foldable iPhone has spurred buzz—and preorders—but some users have complained on social media that their new phone’s screen has cracked along the inside crease within hours of using it. Apple said yesterday that it was “aware of an issue impacting the inner display on a small number” of phones and that the replacement would be covered under AppleCare.—AR

DEAR BASKETBALL

NBA joins with prediction markets to boost integrity

Marcin Golba/Getty Images

That Onion-esque headline is real. The NBA announced yesterday that it is partnering with Polymarket and Kalshi as part of a push to protect “the integrity of the game.” The move comes as the league grapples with recent sports betting scandals and prediction markets face legal challenges from state regulators.

Since 2024, the league has been plagued by wagering wrongdoings that have included a player receiving a lifetime ban and federal probes involving the Mafia. By joining forces with Polymarket and Kalshi, the league said it can better control what fans can bet:

• The NBA will get final say on what markets are offered, and users won’t be allowed to wager on single plays (e.g., first basket, opening tip) or under bets on players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes, as they are easily manipulated.
• The league will have access to Polymarket and Kalshi trading data, which can help locate suspicious action.

The NBA is further expanding its agreement with DraftKings and other sports betting partners to include prediction markets. The league also reached a cooperation agreement with the CFTC, the federal regulator that oversees prediction markets.

But…the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether states can ban prediction markets, as state regulators believe they are just sports betting in federally-regulated commodities trading’s clothing to avoid gambling rules.—DL

ADD TO TROLLEY

Britain’s main shopping street goes car-free

Mike Kemp/Getty Images

Part of London’s busiest retail area, Oxford Street, permanently became pedestrian-only yesterday, bringing somewhat of a pre-horse-and-buggy vibe to a road with a Zara and an Adidas on it.

Half of the 1.2-mile street is now closed to cars, buses, cabs, bicycles, and scooters, in an effort to boost foot traffic and get the famed corridor back in league with global shopping hot spots like New York’s Times Square. The estimated ~$170 million project is arguably the biggest pedestrianization push of its kind in recent years.

According to city officials:

• Pedestrianizing Oxford Street could inject more than $90 million annually into the local economy and add 700+ jobs.
• Going vehicle-free is only the first step. Plans for next year include adding trees, outdoor seating, more lighting, and two public squares.

Oxford Street still does $3+ billion in sales annually, but it’s struggled since the pandemic and the rise of online shopping. Another curious disease has also eroded Oxford Street’s reputation in recent years: the spread of American candy and vape stores, which London Mayor Sadiq Khan aims to get rid of.

Though many shoppers and businesses are hyped, some worry about accessibility for elderly and disabled customers, and about potential spillover traffic in nearby neighborhoods.—ML

Matty’s work-life balance

Share the floor if you want to be CEO

Niv Bavarsky

On Tuesdays, the Brew’s Matty Merritt brings you the news you need to make life a little easier during your 9–5, 5–9, or OOO.

A long-winded monologue seems to be the surest way to lock yourself out of running a company. A recent study found that executives who regularly invited other colleagues to speak on earnings calls were more likely to be promoted to CEO.

• The study published in the journal Management Science analyzed 78,500 earnings call transcripts from 2010 through 2020 that involved 10,864 executives speaking to analysts and investors.
• When execs invited others to weigh in on issues, their promotion rate was 13%, compared to 6.7% for those who bogarted the call.

What about sharing the spotlight makes you look like CEO material? Researchers suggested that when leaders ask a range of colleagues to weigh in on both good and bad performance, it demonstrates to investors that the executives were competent in communicating across the organization. So, hush.—MM

News

What else is brewing

• The Justice Department is trying to prosecute former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey for a third time, this time over an alleged leak of confidential information from 2016, according to court documents made public yesterday. Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled yesterday that his daughter, Maurene Comey, was unlawfully fired from her role as a federal prosecutor and should be reinstated.
• Israelis will vote today in their first election since the October 7, 2023, attack and the subsequent wars in Gaza and Iran. Although Israelis vote for parties, not individuals, the contest is widely viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• The FTC and 20 states sued Dollar General, claiming it charged customers higher prices than it advertised.
• The Brewers dominated the Rays 10–1 in Game 3 of the World Series, giving them a three-game lead and putting them one win away from their first-ever title. Congrats to the other Brew Crew.
• The Valkyries won Game 5 of the WNBA finals, giving them a 3–2 lead over the Dream in the best of seven series. The league scrambled to plan Game 6, which will be played at 12:30pm on Thursday at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, a location picked to accommodate more fans despite the non-primetime timing.
• The sixth book in Sarah J. Maas’s A Court Of Thorns And Roses series was released today. This is not news to anyone who preordered the romantasy blockbuster or attended a midnight bookstore party, but it might be news to their loved ones or colleagues who probably won’t hear from them today.
• Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on the original Star Trek, has died at age 90.

recs

• See the bestselling album of the year for every year since 2000.
• A dentist ranks the worst Halloween candy for kids’ teeth.
• Tips to save money on your holiday flights if you haven’t booked them yet.
• A cozy travel blanket that folds up into a pillow.**

Play

Brew Mini: Your sample clue of the day is “Metronome’s setting.” Play the Mini here.

Fear-mongering trivia

Below is a list of phobias. Do you know what fears they represent?

1. Aerophobia
2. Ornithophobia
3. Chronophobia
4. Hemophobia
5. Triskaidekaphobia

Answer

1. Fear of flying
2. Fear of birds
3. Fear of the passage of time
4. Fear of blood
5. Fear of the number 13

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: bogarted, meaning “selfishly hogged.” Thanks to Mark from Winter Haven, FL, for generously sharing the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.