• ☝️ The sixth annual Close-up Photographer of the Year competition released the finalists for this year’s award; they were selected out of ~12,000 entries across 11 categories.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Cornbread Hemp

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.7%; Dow: -0.001%; Nasdaq: +1.5%).
• 💋 Match Group, owner of Tinder, Hinge, and other dating services, posted quarterly results that missed expectations on revenue but beat on earnings; shares fell 18% Thursday. | 🖼️ Pinterest reported quarterly results that beat expectations on revenue, expects an increase in future OpEx; the platform has 537 million monthly active users, a record high for the company.
• 👕 Activewear maker Vuori is reportedly allowing some early investors and employees to sell shares in a tender offer valuing the company at $5.5 billion.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🇦🇺 Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, the Australian breakdancer who went viral following her zero-point performance at the 2024 Olympics, is retiring from breakdancing.
• 🗳️👀 Primetime coverage of the 2024 presidential election averaged 42.3 million viewers across major networks, down 26% from the 2020 election; 22.6% of US TV households watched election coverage Tuesday, the lowest ever dating to 1960. | 📺 Warner Bros. Discovery added 7.2 million global subscribers to its Max streaming platform in Q3; it’s Max’s largest quarterly figure ever, bringing its subscriber base to 110.5 million.
• 🇦🇷⚖️ Three people were charged in relation with the October 16 death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne, Argentina's public prosecutor said yesterday. | 🙏🐶 Kirk Herbstreit’s dog Ben, who was widely known (and beloved) for crashing his owner’s college football and NFL broadcasts, passed away at the age of 10.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Nuts.com

• 🌧️ Microplastics in the air may affect weather and climate by producing clouds in conditions where they wouldn’t otherwise form, per a new research article.
• 🤖🚘 Lyft announced partnerships with three self-driving car startups, including a deal to launch autonomous vehicles on the Lyft app starting in Atlanta next year.
• ⚡ MIT researchers created a nanoscale transistor that can deliver performance comparable to state-of-the-art conventional transistors, but at much lower voltages. | 🚀 Space Force's mysterious X-37B plane underwent an 'aerobraking' test in lower orbit. Here's how it works (video).

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🇺🇸🗳️ 2024 Election: Republicans appear poised to maintain their House majority, holding a 211-199 lead as of 5 am ET this morning (218 is a majority); in the Senate, Republicans widened their lead to 53-45 after Dave McCormick (R) beat incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D) in Pennsylvania, with two close races left to call. | 🏛️ President-elect Trump selected campaign co-manager Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff; she’ll be the first woman to hold that role in US history.
• 🔥 A wildfire in Ventura County – northwest of Los Angeles – burned 20,000+ acres and was 0% contained as of Thursday afternoon; 130+ structures, mostly homes, were destroyed by the fire over the past two days.
• 🇦🇺📵 Australia’s government announced legislation that would ban children younger than 16 from accessing social media. | 🇲🇽 Mexico’s government appears to have quietly abandoned its “hugs, not bullets” strategy for dealing with drug cartels under new President Claudia Sheinbaum, per the AP.

CLICKBAIT

• ❓🎶 ‘Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’ Finally Identified.