Good morning! Elvis died 49 years ago today, and the photo below finds him at 23, right hand raised, about to become Private Presley. First, though: an egg recall just picked up the FDA's most serious classification, and the dates on the cartons run through tomorrow.
Worth Knowing
| 1 |
Nearly 1.6 million dozen eggs now carry the FDA's most serious recall labelThe FDA reclassified Midwest Poultry Services' recall of 1,589,577 dozen shell eggs as Class I, the label reserved for products that could cause serious injury or death. The trigger was a link to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened 98 people across 17 states and sent 26 to the hospital. The eggs reached shoppers in a six-state stretch: Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana, and Brookshire Grocery stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mississippi. Sell-by and best-by dates run from July 20 through August 17, so a carton bought in that region could still be in the refrigerator. |
| 2 |
Social Security added 14 conditions to its fast-track listOn August 11, the Social Security Administration expanded its Compassionate Allowances list to 314 conditions. The program flags diagnoses severe enough that they plainly meet the disability standard, which lets Social Security approve a claim on medical confirmation alone instead of routing it through the standard review queue. More than 1.2 million people have been approved this way since the program began. If someone in your family is facing a serious diagnosis and a disability claim, whether it appears on this list changes how long the wait is. |
| 3 |
⚠ Scam alert
That unpaid toll text is a scam, and it's the fastest-growing one goingThe signal: a text says you owe a small unpaid toll and warns about late fees, with a link or a QR code. It may use the name of a real agency: E-ZPass, SunPass, FasTrak, TxTag. What to do: don't tap the link. Toll agencies don't collect through texted links, and the page it opens exists to capture your card number. Verify it: check your balance by typing your toll agency's address into the browser yourself, or call the number printed on your statement. Forward the text to 7726 to report it, then file at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. |
| 4 |
Mercedes is recalling more than 310,000 cars over a parking brake that may not holdA corroded microswitch in the door lock can stop the electronic parking brake from engaging automatically when the driver steps out, which raises the risk of the car rolling away. The recall covers seven model lines, from the A-Class through the GLC, in model years 2019 through 2026. Mercedes has logged 176 field reports and no confirmed rollaways in the United States. Dealers will make the repair at no charge, and owner letters go out September 18, but the VIN lookup is already live. |
| 5 |
The Fed held rates steady, and three officials voted to raise themThe target range stayed at 3.50% to 3.75% at the July 29 meeting, where it has sat since December. The dissent is the news: three regional bank presidents wanted an increase, pointing to firmer inflation and rising oil prices. The next decision comes September 16. For anyone weighing a high-yield savings account against locking money into a certificate of deposit, that meeting is the date worth watching. |
| 6 |
Your Android phone may already be screening for cloned-voice callsPhone by Google added fake call detection this summer. When someone in your contacts calls, the two phones trade a silent verification signal in the background. If that signal is missing, your phone checks with your contact's actual device before connecting, and tells you to hang up if that device says it isn't calling. It needs Android 12 or later on both ends and is switched on by default, which is worth confirming in the Phone app's settings rather than assuming. The scam it targets is the one where a familiar voice, cloned from a few seconds of audio, calls asking for emergency money. |
Remember When?
Elvis Presley died 49 years ago today
On August 16, 1977, Elvis was found unresponsive at Graceland and pronounced dead at the hospital that afternoon, at 42. Radio formats broke for the news, and by evening people were standing at the Music Gate on Elvis Presley Boulevard. They have come back every August since.
The photograph below is from a different morning entirely. March 1958: a 23-year-old at the peak of his fame, right hand up, becoming Private Presley along with everyone else in the room.
Elvis Presley is sworn into the U.S. Army, March 1958. Photo: Associated Press (public domain)
| Gallon of regular gas | $0.65 → $4.07 |
| Dozen eggs | 79¢ → $2.19 |
| Movie ticket | $2.23 → $12.45 |
| First-class stamp | 13¢ → 82¢ |
| New home, median | $48,800 → $398,300 |
U.S. averages unless noted; today's figures as of August 2026.
Test Yourself
| 1 | Which U.S. president's portrait appears on the two-dollar bill? |
| 2 | In the 1975 film "Jaws," what was the name of Quint's shark-hunting boat? |
| 3 | The word "quarantine" comes from an Italian phrase meaning what? |
| 4 | What flower produces the world's most expensive spice by weight? |
| 5 | Who became the first person to walk in space? |
Answers are near the bottom of today's email. No peeking.
Live Better
Hearing aids were linked to lower dementia risk, even when test scores didn't move
Researchers at Monash University followed 2,777 Australian adults, average age 75, for seven years. Among those prescribed hearing aids, 5% developed dementia, against 8% of those who weren't: about a 33% lower risk. The strange part is that average scores on the memory and thinking tests given each year looked much the same in both groups.
This is an association, not proof that hearing aids prevent anything. Participants started out relatively healthy and cognitively strong, and a large randomized trial in 2023 found its clearest benefit among people already at elevated risk rather than the general population. The practical step is still small: if restaurants have gotten harder to hear in or the television keeps creeping louder, a hearing check is a reasonable thing to book.
Clear the dryer vent before the heavy-laundry months
Clothes dryers and washing machines are involved in roughly 14,600 home fires a year, and dryers account for 92% of them. The two leading contributing factors are the same failure twice over: not cleaning the appliance (34%) and not cleaning its venting (28%). The lint trap is not the vent.
Pull the dryer out, disconnect the hose, and clear the duct behind it along with the exterior cap where the warm air exits, checking that the flap still opens freely. Once a year is the usual interval, sooner if loads have started needing two cycles to dry.
The 2027 HSA limits are set, and the 55-plus catch-up still applies
The IRS put 2027 health savings account contributions at $4,500 for self-only coverage and $9,000 for a family. The extra $1,000 catch-up for savers 55 and older is unchanged, which lifts those ceilings to $5,500 and $10,000.
Two conditions matter. You have to be enrolled in a qualifying high-deductible plan, and once you enroll in Medicare you can no longer contribute at all. For anyone still eligible, it remains the rare account taxed at neither end: deductible going in, tax-free coming out for medical costs.
Enjoy Yourself
Route 66 turns 100 this year, and the good motels are filling up
The highway was commissioned on November 11, 1926, and centennial events run through the fall across the eight states it crossed. The catch for anyone considering a fall drive is that the independent motor courts and diners that make the trip worth taking are small operations, and centennial weekends are booking well ahead. Lodging is the piece to settle first.
Reacher is back, one episode at a time
Season four arrived on Prime Video on August 12 with three episodes, and the rest land weekly on Wednesdays. This one adapts Lee Child's "Gone Tomorrow," the novel that opens with Jack Reacher on a New York subway car at two in the morning, working out that the woman across from him is not what she appears to be.
The Little League World Series opens Wednesday on free TV
The tournament runs August 19 through 30 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, with all 38 games carried across ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC. No premium tier, no separate subscription.
It stays worth watching for the same reason it always has: the players are unmistakably having a better time than the adults.
One Last Thing
1. Thomas Jefferson, whose portrait has appeared on every series of $2 notes since 1869 · 2. The Orca — a repurposed lobster boat that went by the name Warlock before Hollywood got hold of it · 3. "Forty days," the span 14th-century Venice held ships from plague ports offshore before letting anyone come ashore · 4. The saffron crocus; it takes roughly 150 flowers, each hand-picked for its three red stigmas, to yield a single gram · 5. Alexei Leonov, on March 18, 1965, with just over 12 minutes outside his Voskhod 2 capsule
A family beachcombing in New Jersey found a 4-inch megalodon tooth
Mike Bowers and his family were hunting shells at Sea Isle City when they worked a fossilized tooth loose from a rock: four inches of it, from a shark that has been extinct for more than three million years. Bowers says he is having it authenticated.
Megalodon teeth do turn up along Atlantic beaches, most often after a storm has churned the offshore sediment. Which is a reason to keep looking down.
More tomorrow. — The editors