• ☝️ Travis Gienger of Minnesota won his second straight title in the 51st annual World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California; his winning pumpkin weighed in at 2,471 pounds, falling short of the world record Gienger set last year (2,749 pounds).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Armoire

• 💰 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.8%; Dow: -0.8%; Nasdaq: -1.0%). | ✈️ Boeing will sell at least $10 billion in shares; could issue up to $25 billion in shares or debt over the next three years, per new regulatory filings. (Background)
• 🚫 Walgreens is closing ~1,200 stores over the next three years; there are currently 8,000+ Walgreens locations in the US.
• 🏦 Bank of America beat estimates for Q3 profit and revenue on better-than-expected trading results. | 🏦 Goldman Sachs topped estimates for Q3 profit and revenue on strong results from trading and investment banking.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 College basketball: Kansas, Alabama, and Connecticut (the two-time defending champs) lead the AP men’s preseason Top 25 poll; on the women’s side, defending champ South Carolina, UConn, and USC are atop the AP preseason poll.
• 📖🎶 Taylor Swift unveiled a new hardcover coffee-table book about her ongoing Eras Tour, aka the highest-grossing concert tour of all time ($1+ billion).
• 🏈🤝 The Las Vegas Raiders traded All-Pro WR Davante Adams to the New York Jets for a conditional third-round pick. | 🏈🤝 The Cleveland Browns are trading Pro Bowl WR Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills in a deal that includes a Buffalo third-round draft pick.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Cornbread Hemp

• 📺 YouTube announced a host of new features across web, mobile, TV, and YouTube Music, including a sleep timer and the ability to playback video in 0.05x speed increments. | 🍎 Apple announced a new iPad mini for the first time since 2021; it’ll hit stores October 23.
• 🤖 Tesla’s prototype Optimus robots were being partially controlled by human teleoperators at last week's "We, Robot" event, per multiple reports.
• ⚡⚛️ Google agreed to buy electricity from next-generation nuclear reactors starting as early as 2030; the tech giant says it marks the world’s first corporate agreement to purchase electricity from advanced small modular reactors (SMRs), which are still in development.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌀 90+ people remain missing in North Carolina more than two weeks after Hurricane Helene; state officials have confirmed 95 deaths from the storm thus far.
• 🇺🇸🇮🇱 The Biden admin sent a letter to senior Israeli government officials telling them to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days or risk a cut in US arms sales to Israel.
• ⚖️ Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for North Carolina governor, filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN over its recent report that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a porn website’s message board. | 🤖⚖️ A Massachusetts couple sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project; it appears to be the first case of its kind in the US.

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔🤖 Should You Be Nice to Your Chatbot?