Work on therapeutics that could slow or even prevent the aging process is moving out of the fringes and into the mainstream, Axios' future correspondent Bryan Walsh writes.

• The new push is fueled by funding from tech billionaires who have one legacy process left to disrupt: death.

MIT Technology Review this month broke the story about the formation of Alto Labs, a new startup — funded by tech luminaries — that hired some of the best scientists in anti-aging research with million-dollar salaries.

• Alto Labs joins an increasingly crowded space of well-funded startups — including Calico Labs, which spun off in 2013 from Google with support from founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin — that want to directly attack the biological process of aging.

Between the lines: What scientists are trying to identify is the biological clock of an individual — how young a body really is — rather than the chronological age.

• The companies are more interested in extending "healthspan" — the number of years an individual can enjoy a healthy, active life — than sheer lifespan.
• Such drugs wouldn't allow us to live forever or anything close to it. But they would have tremendous social and financial benefits.

A startup called Loyal is trying to short-circuit the clinical-trial cycle by studying anti-aging treatments in dogs.

• As 27-year-old founder and CEO Celine Halioua notes, they "have a super-short lifespan compared to humans."
• That's unfortunate for dogs and their owners. But it means "you can actually see if an intervention extends lifespan and delays onset of disease relatively early in their life."

What to watch: Alto and Calico are both reportedly focusing on biological reprogramming, a way of rejuvenating cells and revitalizing the entire body.

• That approach really could represent a fountain of youth if it worked. But the process has thus far only been tried in animals — with mixed success.

At the furthest sci-fi end, some in the field believe the ultimate solution to mortality could lay in upgrading the human body with machine parts, and eventually even uploading the brain into the cloud — a kind of Dropbox of the soul.

• "We have LASIK surgery," says Tyler Hayes, the CEO of Atom Limbs, which makes AI-controlled prosthetic arms. "Why not continue it all the way to replacing body parts?"

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New York City took the nation's most aggressive steps to improve worker conditions for food-app deliveries, the N.Y. Times reports (subscription).

• The City Council approved a package, backed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, setting minimum pay (TBD by a city process), and prohibiting apps from charging workers for insulated bags, which can cost $50.
• The impetus: When Ida hit a few weeks ago, scenes of bicyclists "traversing flooded streets to deliver meals stirred outrage."

📦 California this week became the first state to bar mega-retailers from firing warehouse workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks, AP reports.

• The law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom applies to all warehouse distribution centers, though proponents were driven by Amazon.

• Tuesday: Taliban announce list of deputy ministers, fail to appoint any women, doubling down on all-male, all-Taliban government.
• Wednesday: The Taliban’s newly appointed envoy to the United Nations seeks quick world recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers.
• Thursday: Taliban tells AP that strict punishment and public executions will return.
• Today: Witness says Taliban, in return to gruesome past, hangs dead body from crane in main square of Herat, in western Afghanistan.

Veterans across the country report declining membership in the VFW and American Legion — with an honor-guards shortage for funerals, The Wall Street Journal's Faith Bottum writes (subscription).

• Why it matters: Both are key parts of the social fabric of towns all over America. The groups are stalwarts in annual parades that stir patriotism in kids, who have less and less connection to the military.

Two big reasons for these struggles:

1. The decline in the number of veterans.
2. Younger veterans "simply don’t join clubs the way older generations did," The Journal reports. "Partly this reflects a general decline in community organizations."

The VFW has around 1.5 million members, down 1 million from 1992, The Journal reports:

• Average age: 67, with 400,000 members over 80.
• The American Legion has 2 million members, down from 3.3 million in 1946.

Early customers exit the Fifth Avenue Apple Store during yesterday's launch of Apple’s iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini.

• From the Carnegie Library store in D.C. to Hangzhou, China (where bicycle racks were set up outside the flagship st0re), people lined up around the world for the iPhone 13.

The updates are modest. But Apple touts iPhone 13 as your "new superpower," with an "A15 bionic" chip and "huge camera upgrade."

Nine-inning baseball games are lasting a record 3 hours, 9 minutes this season — the third straight year the record will be broken, despite the league's effort to reverse the trend, Jeff Tracy writes for Axios Sports.

Based on fan demands, improving pace of play has been one of Commissioner Rob Manfred's primary goals. Steps include:

• Prohibiting batters from stepping out of the box.
• Implementing a between-innings timer.
• Limiting mound visits and warmup pitches.
• Instituting a three-batter minimum for relievers.
• Speeding up the process of manager's challenges.

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