IN THE NEWS TODAY
Category 5 Hurricane Maria is taking aim at Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after leaving a trail of destruction on the Caribbean island of Dominica. Maria's catastrophic winds could leave areas of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands uninhabitable for months, forecasters warned. (NBC News)
*'We have lost all that money can buy,' says Dominica leader (CNBC)
President Trump will urge U.N. member states today to turn up the pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, using his maiden speech to the world body to address what he considers the top global challenge. (Reuters)
*Mattis hints at military options on North Korea but offers no details (Reuters)
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was reportedly wiretapped by U.S. investigators under court orders before and after the election. The surveillance continued into early this year, including a time when Manafort was known to talk to Trump. (CNN)
*Mueller inquiry sets tone with shock-and-awe approach (NY Times)
The Senate passed a roughly $700 billion National Defense Authorization Act but failed to include an amendment that would have eliminated the automatic spending cuts under the controversial sequester mechanism. (CNBC)
A U.S. Senate committee will hold a hearing on the latest proposed health-care bill to overhaul Obamacare next week, the first public hearing all year on any Republican effort to gut the health care law. (Reuters)
Uber filed a lawsuit against mobile ad agency Fetch Media. The agency misrepresented the effectiveness of its ads, Uber said. It also failed to prevent ad fraud and didn't return rebates owed to Uber, the company said. (WSJ)
Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services next month will start charging its customers by the second for use of its popular EC2 virtual slices of servers in its data centers. Since AWS became available in 2006, it has charged by the hour. (CNBC)
Wal-Mart (WMT) says it's removing a hurdle that prevented food stamp recipients from using its online grocery shopping platform. At limited locations, Wal-Mart will allow the use of EBT to order items through the online platform, then pay in-person when they pick up their groceries. (CNBC)
Toys R Us has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The filing helps the toy retailer relieve itself of the debt left over from its $6.6 billion acquisition by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), Bain Capital Partners, and real estate investment trust Vornado Realty Trust (VNO). (CNBC)
STOCKS TO WATCH
FedEx (FDX) plans to raise some shipping rates starting in January. FedEx Express, Ground and Home Delivery will go up about 5 percent. The delivery giant's One Rate shipping, which offers a simple flat price, will increase 3.5 percent. FedEx reports earnings after the close today.
Intel (INTC) announced a collaboration with Alphabet's (GOOGL) Waymo self-driving unit, saying it had worked with the company during the design of its computer platform to allow autonomous cars to process information in real time.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said the FDA has approved its new three-in-one inhaler to treat COPD, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. the inhaler combines three drugs to help open a patient's airways.
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) is set to revise its agreement to buy some Rite Aid (RAD) stores, a move that may be enough for the drugstore chain operator to resolve outstanding antitrust concerns. That's according to a Bloomberg report.
Microsoft (MSFT) said last night its free email services Outlook.com and Hotmail, which suffered an outage across Europe on Monday, were back up.
WATERCOOLER
One-time pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne has been named the most dangerous celebrity on the internet. Cybersecurity firm McAfee says that Lavigne, whose last album came out in 2013, was the most likely celebrity to land users on websites that carry viruses or malware. (AP)