Good Morning. From a fake airbag to a single neuron to a Costco checkout line, today's lead stories share one twist: the small, ordinary thing holds way more than it appears. We break down all three.

Plus, GPT-5.6's rollout, Bezos opens Blue Origin's wallet, a tool for thicker hair, and a golf club's illegal wall (forwarded this email? Join 523k readers).

Federal auto-safety regulators are warning drivers about counterfeit airbag parts tied to at least 10 U.S. deaths since 2023. In April, the agency banned sale and import of inflaters marked with a Chinese manufacturer's part number.

The fake replacements sell online for as little as $100, one-tenth an authentic part's price, and get smuggled inside items like toys and dollhouses. Regulators say a traditional recall is nearly impossible because no import records exist.

Roughly 4 million vehicles are recycled yearly, feeding a $32 billion used-parts market where fakes hide easily. Officials cannot estimate how many cars carry the parts, so drivers must pay a mechanic to inspect.

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that human intelligence may rest less on sheer neuron count and more on the surprising computing power packed inside each individual brain cell.

Human brains hold close to 100 billion neurons, long assumed to explain our mental edge. But researchers found cortical neurons act like tiny microchips, each rivaling a full deep neural network thanks to richly branching dendrites.

To test this, scientists measured how hard it was for AI to copy one cell's behavior. The finding could inspire a new wave of brain-inspired AI built from deeper, more powerful units than today's simplified ones.

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Tony Barzar, a 60-year-old Costco cashier in Tucson, has quietly crossed $1 million in retirement savings while earning $32.90 an hour. He has worked the warehouse floor for four decades, most of it ringing up shoppers.

Costco pays well above retail norms to keep turnover low. After one year, turnover sits near 7%, a fraction of the industry average. Losing a frontline worker costs roughly $10,000, so the company invests to retain experience.

Barzar started in 1986 gathering carts for $5.85 an hour. Costco stock has climbed over 2,000% since 2008, and the company says many thousands of its hourly workers now hold over $1 million in retirement.

You know the pattern you want to break. You understand where it came from. And you still do the thing anyway. Dr. Nicole LePera (The Holistic Psychologist) has a blunt explanation: your nervous system, not your conscious mind, is running the show.

When you feel stuck despite knowing better, your body is replaying an adaptation it built in childhood, when staying attached to your caregivers mattered more than being your authentic self.

Here's the part most people miss. Awareness alone keeps you trapped in analysis and blame. Change only comes from the uncomfortable second step: making one different choice while your body learns it's safe. Not a full life overhaul. One small shift, repeated, until your nervous system can tolerate the newness.

Three moves to start:

Podcast | Notes

After years of everything-goes-up markets, activist investor Dan Loeb (Third Point, $30 billion fund) says short-selling matters again, and so does actually picking stocks. His warning: never short something just because it looks expensive. Those bets get squeezed on social media. Hunt for structural problems, misaligned management, and broken inventories instead.

Two moves from the conversation:

Watch the full episode with Dan Loeb here.

▲ OpenAI's GPT-5.6 rolls out this week after the White House forced a limited initial release | Cheaper than Fable 5?

▲ Iran ceasefire collapses as US strikes air defenses and boats amid a Strait of Hormuz clash

▲ Jeff Bezos ends solo funding of Blue Origin, adding $2 billion to a $10 billion raise

▲ Country club faces criminal accusations over a 20-foot, permit-free wall guarding its 14th hole

▲ The Atlantic argues mass literacy was a fleeting anomaly, not civilization's permanent baseline

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