🇪🇺 EUR Welcome 🇨🇦
Hey Snackers,
Spotify announced that it has introduced a new toggle that will let parents exclude kids and family music from their taste profiles on the platform. That means that hits like “Baby Shark” and “Let It Go” won’t wind up feeding into algorithmic recommendations and, crucially for the more image-conscious among us, the year-end Wrapped.
Now the moms and dads of 2026 will be able to unashamedly showcase their preoccupations with true artists like Linkin Park, Panic! at the Disco, and miscellaneous purveyors of bland stomp-clap-hey indie folk — phew, much less embarrassing!
Stocks went negative after the Fed announced a 25bp rate hike. More on that below.
The European Union offered Canada the chance to become its first “associate member” in history
Well, I suppose “Europe” is more of a state of mind anyway…
After Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in Toronto on Sunday that he was looking to form a “unique alliance” with the 27-nation union, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen seems to have come back with just the thing, yesterday opening the door to the idea of making Canada its first “associate member.”
That is, it must be said, an atypically laissez-faire approach to membership from the European bloc. If Carney were to take up the offer and push ahead to become the inaugural EU associate nation, it would mark a new way of getting into the club; somewhere between fully-fledged membership (which nine separate countries are currently seeking) and the less formal associations and agreements that other nations have struck up in various à la carte approaches to diplomatic and trading relations. Australian ministers presumably wait with bated breath to see how things will unfold.
Setting aside these North American and Antipodean hopeful associates, Europeans have felt more positive about the EU in recent years, as geopolitical and economic instability around the world makes the idea of “safety in numbers” feel, perhaps, safer.
Since the UK voted to leave the European Union in June 2016 — a decision that 57% of Britons have come to regret 10 years down the line, per a summer YouGov poll — favorability rates within the union have risen, with positive views peaking in many nations in the spring of 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the EU’s continued response.
According to a Pew Research Center survey across eight European nations published in May, the share of people on the continent with favorable feelings toward the union rose from just 49% in 2016, hit a whopping 71% in 2022, and has now leveled out to 62% this year.
The Takeaway
Carney has left it late in the day to announce his Euro Summer plans, and any progress on Canada’s associate membership is likely to be drawn-out, as the bureaucratically bedraggled organization works through a growing list of other nations who want in. However, the pay-off of joining a dominant union of global financial and political powerhouses, particularly when relations are fraying a little closer to home, might make the outcome worth any inevitable wait.
Untranslatable word of the day from Germany, the EU’s biggest financial superpower: Fernweh — a deep desire or ache for far-off places; the opposite of homesickness.
What else we’re Snackin’
Fed raises rates as Warsh bucks Trump to contain inflation
Mortgage applications from homebuyers dropped 1% last week compared to the week before, and are now 19% down from the same time last year, as high home prices continue to squeeze demand.
Intel was rising yesterday in early trading after Reuters reported it was in talks with SK Hynix to produce chips in the US for the first time; the South Korean company played the discussions down later in the day.
Commerce Department officials ordered prediction market platform Kalshi to take down a product tracking AI compute prices in August, citing “national security concerns,” per Semafor.
According to internal planning documents reviewed by BI, Amazon is planning to build over 1,000 same-day delivery hubs by 2031 — up from the 85 it currently operates.
For a network that at one point looked in danger of becoming an industry punchline, Apple TV has emerged as a market leader in making television audiences laugh in the right places, after comedy-horror show “Widow’s Bay” became the top winner at the 2026 Emmys, taking home 14 awards across the Creative Arts ceremonies and Monday’s telecast.
The network has made the Outstanding Comedy Series category its own in recent years, as the first and only streamer in history to scoop back-to-back wins. In fact, two wins for “Ted Lasso,” and one apiece for Seth Rogen’s excellent first season of “The Studio” and now “Widow’s Bay” have seen the Apple network take the top award in an impressive four of the last six years.
Snacks Shots
🏈 TNF: AFC powerhouse the Buffalo Bills are heavily favored in tonight’s Thursday Night Football game, with markets pricing in a 69% chance that the Bills beat the Detroit Lions.
🏛️Fed: Following yesterday’s unanimous 25 basis point rate hike the chance that the Fed maintains rates in October rose to 85% from 65% a sign that the market is indeed largely buying the one-and-done rate hike theory.
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.
That’s how many years Turkey has now waited since it first applied to become a member of the European Union in 1987. The nation, one of just five countries with sections of land split across Asia and Europe, was accepted as an eligible EU applicant in 1999, following lengthy negotiations around candidacy terms.
Accession talks kicked off in real terms more than 20 years ago in 2005, but have since stalled around democratic conditions and the nation’s respect for fundamental rights and judicial independence. Negotiations have been at a standstill since 2018.