Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🗳️ Election update
• 🪐 Pluto’s partner
• 🐶🐈 America’s top pet names

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.51-minute read (933 words).

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"One who wants a rose must respect the thorn."

–Persian proverb

The Trump administration has recently increased its scrutiny of election procedures in several states, as the countdown to Election Day (next Tuesday) reaches less than one week.

On Monday, the Justice Department asked Washington state to set aside ballots from 400+ registered voters they say have illegally registered to vote without US citizenship.

The request follows a similar lawsuit this month involving up to 20,000 California voters, which the state is challenging in court.

Meanwhile, in Alaska: The DOJ sued the state last week to potentially delay certification of Alaska's Senate election if the Republican candidate loses, citing concerns that voters could confuse incumbent GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and retired teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr, a third-party candidate.

• Republicans accuse the teacher of entering the race to confuse voters and draw support away from the incumbent, an allegation denied by both the teacher and Senate candidate Mary Peltola (D).
• Alaska's Supreme Court previously ruled that the teacher could appear on the ballot, distinguishing the two candidates by identifying the incumbent's party and office.

What each side is saying

The administration argues that its expanded election scrutiny is about enforcing federal laws and ensuring that only eligible US voters are casting ballots. Attorney General Todd Blanche maintains that the DOJ's actions are guided by evidence, while the White House has pledged to hold anyone who votes illegally accountable.

• Critics argue that the DOJ is increasingly serving the president's political interests rather than acting independently, and also questioned the evidence supporting its election-related efforts and whether the federal government has the authority to intervene.
• In Alaska, election officials have asked a federal judge to dismiss the DOJ's lawsuit, arguing that it lacks a legal basis and that investigating voters' intentions could violate ballot secrecy.

Midterm polling update: Democrats lead Republicans 51.6% to 43.3% on the generic congressional ballot, according to RealClearPolitics’ polling aggregator.

Some ~35 million Americans and counting have already cast ballots in the midterms, per the University of Florida Election Lab's early-voting tracker.

📊 Flash poll: With Election Day less than a week away, which political party’s candidate for Congress do you plan to vote for (or already voted for) in the midterms?

• Republican
• Democratic
• Third-party
• Split decision (House/Senate)
• Unsure/other

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US consumer confidence rises in October following last month’s 12-year low, reaching levels last seen in June, per new Conference Board data.
• 💻 Nvidia and AMD to invest $3 billion and $1 billion, respectively, in Meta’s plan to raise $35 billion in underwritten public equity offerings; Meta is also raising an additional $60 billion with an at-the-market program featuring a new class of nonvoting stock.
• 🇨🇳 Chinese stocks enter bear market, or 20%+ dip from recent June peak, led by decline in domestic AI and semiconductor stocks over the past four months.

SPORTS, MEDIA, & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎶 Jay-Z confirmed as Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show headline performer. | 🏆 Taylor Swift inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, becoming the youngest member at 36.
• 🏀 Anthony Edwards, star guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves, will reportedly undergo arthroscopic knee surgery and miss up to two months of the NBA season.
• 🎭 The Pitt star Noah Wyle named by People magazine as 2026’s Sexiest Man Alive.

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SCIENCE, SPACE, & EMERGING TECH

• 🪐 Harvard physicists discover new possible dwarf planet orbiting our Sun beyond Pluto; if confirmed, it would mark the first new dwarf planet in our solar system since the category was introduced with five members in 2006, including Pluto.
• 🛰️ NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory officially ends its mission after 22 years of tracking the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang, including a failed rescue attempt earlier this year.
• 🩸 New experimental medical implant that burns up excess sugar from the blood using electricity shows signs of helping manage type 2 diabetes, per new mice study published in Science.

US, WORLD, & POLITICS

• 🏛️ Federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., declines DOJ’s request to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who had been targeted for alleged false statements in her congressional testimony about President Trump’s conduct as the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol unfolded.
• 🇧🇷 Trump admin plans to issue visas to defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family in order to allow them to enter the US; Bolsonaro, who faces two Supreme Court investigations into alleged financial crimes, had his passports canceled by Brazil after he defied a Supreme Court order to turn them over following his election loss.
• 🇮🇱 Israeli exit polls suggest challenging PM candidate Gadi Eisenkot's bloc won the largest number of seats in the general election but fell short of a majority, while current PM Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party won the most seats of any single party; official counting could take days, and exit polls have been wrong in the past.

☝️ The Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial officially opened to visitors on the National Mall on Monday, honoring the nearly 700,000 American troops that served and ~300 who lost their lives across both operations. The memorial features two granite walls honoring the Gulf War and those who served, a fountain commemorating the 41 coalition nations, and sculptures symbolizing the ongoing US-Kuwaiti partnership.

🤔 Did you know? Africa is the only continent in all four hemispheres, with the Earth’s prime meridian and equator both cutting through the massive land mass.

📰 Worth a read: The lucrative world of literary scams: Why writers are the perfect target.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• America’s top trending pet names
• How You Can See Everything became a surprise box office hit
• An invisible force could be changing your lifespan

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Name the following poorly-explained movie plots:

1. A young prince abandons his kingdom to eat bugs with two strangers.
2. A boy kidnaps children to help him deal with a man who hates clocks.
3. Struggling father obtains minimum-wage security job and becomes responsible for several thousand years of unresolved conflict.

(keep scrolling for the answer)

🙏 When a GPS mishap sent Alabama driver Casey Sparks down an unfamiliar road in Georgia, he spotted a house on fire and rushed inside to wake the sleeping family. Thanks to his quick thinking, all 14 family members escaped safely—and their community has since rallied to help them rebuild. 

1. The Lion King
2. Peter Pan
3. Night at the Museum

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