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GA Calls Statewide Hand Recount

Georgia will conduct a statewide hand recount of the votes cast for the presidential election, Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger (R) announced yesterday. According to unofficial tallies, projected winner Joe Biden leads President Trump by more than 14K votes out of nearly 5M votes cast. Raffensberger said the recount would be completed before a Nov. 20 deadline to certify statewide election results.

Senate Update

The Associated Press called the Alaska Senate race yesterday, awarding the victory to incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Image via Politico. Two runoff elections remain in GA.

World's Longest Serving PM Dies

Bahrain’s Prime Minister, Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, died yesterday of undisclosed causes at 84. Khalifa was the world’s longest-serving prime minister, with his 50-year tenure beginning just before the country gained independence in 1971. Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa will inherit the late prime minister’s duties.

📈 Top of the Singles Chart

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba reported record sales for Singles Day, its massive annual shopping event, on Wednesday. The company extended the buying window of this year’s Singles Day from one day to 11 days (dating back to Nov. 1), over which Alibaba recorded ~$74B worth of revenue -- up from $38.3B last Singles Day.

⏰ TikTok... TikTok... 

TikTok parent ByteDance filed a petition in a federal appeals court late Tuesday seeking to delay a CFIUS-imposed deadline set for midnight tonight that would force TikTok to unwind its 2018 merger with Musical.ly that effectively created the social media app. The company challenged the U.S. government’s decision to force a divestiture deal, and said talks to establish a new U.S.-based company called TikTok Global with Walmart and Oracle are still ongoing.

More: The Nov. 12 deadline imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) is separate from President Trump’s Nov. 12 deadline, which was stayed by a federal judge. CFIUS has the ability to extend the deadline by 30 days, but has not yet done so.

⛳ A Tradition Like No Other... 

The 84th annual Masters Tournament begins later today at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Tiger Woods looks to defend his 2019 title against 91 other golfers competing for first place and the famed green jacket. The first threesome tees off at 7:22 a.m. ET, with live coverage on ESPN from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

🌯 Digital Dash… Chipotle’s first digital-only restaurant is scheduled to open on Saturday in Highlands, New York. Dig deeper.

📺 YouTube experienced a mass outage last night, leaving users worldwide unable to access the site for almost two hours. The company said service was restored shortly after 9 p.m. ET.

🎹 A Key Invention

Last year, at the age of 79, Brazilian classical pianist and conductor João Carlos Martins retired from musical performance after losing almost all motor function in his hands. João, who is considered one of the greatest interpreters of composer Johann Sebastian Bach's works, had steadily lost the ability to move his fingers over the past two decades, undergoing a total of 24 surgeries to reduce the pain that resulted from a degenerative disease and a series of accidents.

Nevertheless, one of the pianist's fans was convinced that the musician had retired too early.

Inspired by Formula One racing technology, industrial designer Ubiratan Bizarro Costa used a 3D printer to create a pair of "bionic" gloves for João, employing a series of springs to control the virtuoso's impaired fingers (video). Previously reduced to playing with just his thumbs and index fingers, João is now practicing the piano with newfound agility, preparing for his first public performance on the instrument since 1995.

🛒 Get A Bag

Teo Jordan, an 18-year-old from Covington, KY, had worked as a bagger at his local Kroger grocery store for less than a month when, in late October, an older man who could not pay for his groceries came through his checkout line. Although Teo initially applied for the job at the grocery store to help support his family and save up for a car, the kindhearted adolescent did not hesitate to help the aged customer.

In fact, Teo used his hard-earned money to pay for the man’s groceries.

To him, such an act was no big deal – the total was $35 – but another customer, Brian McCarty, saw the selfless deed and took note, posting a message on Facebook commending the teen’s actions. The Facebook post, which made Teo’s mother very proud, also earned the young man a $1,000 college scholarship from the local news station.

🪂 Shoot The Breeze

During World War II, Jim Martin of Sugarcreek Township, OH, was the lightest member of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, earning him the nickname “Pee Wee.” Undeterred by his petite frame, Jim fought bravely as a paratrooper in the war, parachuting into Normandy on D-Day to liberate France in 1944. Now, at 99 years old, Pee Wee is helping to fight another, invisible enemy: COVID-19.

This fall, in an effort to encourage Americans to wear face masks as the nation battles the pandemic, as well as honor his fellow veterans, Jim parachuted from a “Huey” helicopter -- a form of aircraft widely used during the Vietnam War (video). Pee Wee, who earned a Purple Heart for his service in the fight against the Nazis, said, “In this war against coronavirus, I wear my mask to protect others.”

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