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Good morning and welcome to Tuesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.66 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.13 minutes.)
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"The way to change others' minds is with affection, and not anger."
–Dalai Lama XIV (b. 1935)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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🇩🇪 Germany’s Election Results
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🎁 Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) clinched a victory in Sunday’s federal election. They'll now seek to form a coalition government that doesn’t include the party of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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The SPD won 206 out of 735 seats compared to 196 for Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU bloc, according to preliminary official results (a majority partnership is needed to govern).
🤿 A deeper dive… Merkel has been at the helm of Europe’s largest economy for the past 16 years, navigating the country - and, at times, the entire continent - through several emergencies, including the 2008 financial meltdown, the 2015 migrant crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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She'll be the first incumbent in the history of the Federal Republic to retire rather than keep pursuing office, but will remain in office until a new government is formed.
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Her likely replacement, SPD leader Olaf Scholz, said his party will attempt to build a governing coalition - an agreement that includes over 50% of elected officials - without Merkel’s former conservative allies, who are angling to form their own governing coalition instead.
From the Left: BBC
From the Right: WSJ
🌎 Zoom out: Elections around the world… Federal elections in Canada earlier this month resulted in a parliament basically identical to before, with PM Justin Trudeau remaining in office.
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Switzerland voted to legalize civil marriage and the right to adopt children for same-sex couples by a nearly two-thirds majority in a nationwide referendum yesterday.
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It was initially thought that Iceland became the first European country to elect a majority-female parliament after Sunday’s national elections – but a recount led the percentage of women to drop from 52% to 47.6%.
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Hong Kong elected new members to its powerful Election Committee last week - all of them Beijing loyalists - ahead of its legislative election this December.
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🏢 And Then There Were Three...
Image: Gifer
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🎁 Creative Artists Agency is acquiring ICM Partners, the two companies announced yesterday.
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While the terms of the deal were undisclosed, ICM sold a one-third stake to private equity firm Crestview Partners for ~$150 million in 2019.
🤔 Why it’s important: The merging of two of Hollywood’s “big four” will leave three major talent agencies – William Morris Endeavor, CAA, and United Talent Agency – representing the bulk of dealmaking for the industry.
🛣️ Two roads diverged in a wood... William Morris and the Endeavor Talent Agency merged in 2009. Following the merger, chief executive Ari Emmanuel (the real-life inspiration for Entourage’s Ari Gold) took the combined talent agency and turned it into an entertainment company with acquisitions of the UFC and the Miss Universe Competition.
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With this move, CAA is diving deeper into representation just as Hollywood deal structures are starting to change (the streaming wars have entered the chat). Bolstered by ICM’s client roster, the company may now be even better equipped to chart how stars’ compensation will be determined.
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The companies’ sale pitch notes that ICM’s books division can be paired with CAA’s film and TV focus, yielding a competitive edge.
🎭 Zoom out: “CAA already had very effective leadership and strength, but this creates a talent agency of historic scale and scope,” Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s film school and a former executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter told the New York Times. “Studios had better play nice, because the domino effect of not being nice could affect so much of their business.”
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But it takes more than two to tango: In order to rep members of the Writer’s Guild of America, CAA, WME, and other agencies recently agreed to cap their ownership in content-production companies at 20 percent.
+Also worth mentioning... CAA also expanded its athlete representation with the deal, absorbing ICM’s roster, the recently acquired NFL agency Select Sports Group, and the London-based soccer agency Stellar Group. CAA already represented more than 2,000 athletes including Dwyane Wade, Aaron Rodgers, Chris Paul, and Cristiano Ronaldo.
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🍩 DONUT Holes…
Image: Steve Parsons/AP
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☝️ Gas station pumps ran dry in British cities and vendors rationed sales yesterday amid a supply disruption due to a shortage of truck drivers; an association representing two-thirds of UK fuel retailers said up to 90% of its members were dry in some areas.
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🔓 John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan in a bid for actress Jodie Foster's attention, will receive his unconditional release next year – if he remains mentally stable and follows the rules.
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⚖️ R&B star R. Kelly’s trial concluded yesterday; a federal grand jury found the singer guilty of leading a racketeering enterprise for decades and using his entourage to recruit women and underage girls for sex.
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🎭 SNL returns with all but one cast member for the season that opens Saturday; Putin and Pence impersonator Beck Bennett is leaving after eight years.
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🚀 Jeff Bezos has reportedly doubled the time he spends on his space company Blue Origin, which he has called his life’s most important work.
+BONUS: "No one deserves the record more than Tucker. Not only is he the most accurate kicker in NFL history, converting 90.6 percent of his field goal attempts ... Also, he sings opera." Justin Tucker broke an NFL record with a 66 yard field goal (that also won the game).
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine… “I still firmly believe that it’s a good thing to build a version of Instagram that’s safe for tweens, but we want to take the time to talk to parents and researchers and safety experts and get to more consensus about how to move forward.” – Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri on yesterday’s “Today” show.
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Context: Instagram is pausing Instagram Kids, the version of its platform it was developing for children under 13, following criticism that it’s damaging to the mental health of young people.
🔢 Stat of the Day: The FBI reported a nearly 30% increase in murders last year, the largest single-year jump since the bureau began recording crime statistics six decades ago.
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Put a different way: Roughly 21,570 homicides were reported last year or about 6.5 killings per 100,000 people. The homicide rate peaked at 9.8 per 100,000 people in the early 1990s.
(From the Left | From the Right)
📖 Worth Your Time… The Exponential Age will transform economics forever
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🇺🇸🏛️ Why Isn’t There A Third Major Party?
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Image: NY Post
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🎁 Andrew Yang, a former Democratic candidate for U.S. president & mayor of NYC, unveiled the name of a new political party he's creating, called the “Forward Party,” in his forthcoming book.
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According to advance copies, Yang outlines six “key principles” behind his party, which will need to be registered on a state-by-state basis:
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"Ranked-choice voting and open primaries."
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"Fact-based governance."
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"Human-centered capitalism."
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"Effective and modern-day government."
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"Universal Basic Income."
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"Grace and tolerance."
📜 The not-so-magic number... Throughout American history, no third party has won a presidential election or majority in either chamber of Congress. Experts attribute this to a few main reasons:
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The U.S. Electoral College requires that a candidate receive a majority of votes (270 out of 538) to be declared President. If nobody receives 270 electoral votes, it’s up to the House to elect the President from the three candidates with the most votes.
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Federal law mandates that all members of Congress are elected from single-member districts, meaning only one person - and one party - represents any single voting district (which naturally resolves into a two-party system).
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Democrat and Republican-controlled state legislatures have given themselves automatic pathways to being on the ballot each election while imposing petition signature requirements for other parties, which are often difficult and costly to meet.
📝 Looking ahead… The Forward Party faces an uphill battle to relevancy on the national stage, even though recent polling shows 62% of Americans believe a third major party is needed.
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It’s unclear what’s in store for 2022 and 2024, though Yang will likely provide some clarity when the party officially launches in conjunction with the release of his book next Tuesday.
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📱 TikTok Yesterday:
Image: Giphy
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🎁 TikTok revealed Monday it has 1 billion monthly active global users, joining Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and YouTube in the three comma club.
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Check out this growth curve:
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September 2016: Launches
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January 2018: 55 million global users
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December 2018: 271 million
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December 2019: 507 million
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July 2020: 700 million
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September 2021: 1 billion
💬 To drop in the group chat... Facebook was the first social media platform to ever hit 1 billion active users, and it took them eight years. In an almost too strange to be true coincidence, it also took Instagram and YouTube eight years to hit the 1 billion monthly active user mark.
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TikTok beat ‘em all by three years.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🌐 The Need For Speed
Image: OhMyGeek
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🎁 Engineers in Japan recently set a new world record for internet speed – and it’s about 7.6 million times faster than what you probably have at home (Google Fiber customers notwithstanding).
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Internet speed is usually measured by how much data can be transmitted between two devices each second.
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The new record speed is 319 terabits per second, nearly double the previous world record and fast enough to download nearly 80,000 movies every second.
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For reference, the average home internet speed in the U.S. is 42 megabits per second.
👀 All about the optics… To break the record, the Japanese researchers developed an experimental optical fiber with four cores instead of the typical one, then combined it with a laser that fires pulses at different wavelengths.
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Their setup allowed them to transmit data at breakneck speeds over a distance of more than 1,800 miles.
📝 The bottom line… The laser used to break the internet speed record doesn’t come cheap, so don’t expect a 300 Tb/s connection in your home anytime soon.
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But, but, but: The four-core optical fiber innovation shouldn’t be too difficult to integrate into today’s existing tech and could be put to use in new communication systems soon.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
📸 Scattered Scrapbook
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Image: GoodNewsNetwork
In the age of phones and social media, there’s something special about a printed, homemade photo album.
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Javier Folgar was absolutely devastated when, in a moment of forgetfulness, he drove off with his mother’s handmade scrapbook on the roof of his car – sending photos flying all over the neighborhood.
📖 On the same page… Luckily, Javier received a message from a woman who found one of the pages in the street. After spending all afternoon searching, Javier, his parents, and the woman and her daughter were able to find the entire book.
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“I am still in awe of the kindness shown by these two,” said Javier. “I can’t believe a mother and daughter would go out of their way to return these precious memories to us — people they have never met before.”
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🌍 Country Count
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According to the UN, how many countries are in Africa?
A) 39
B) 46
C) 54
D) 62
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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C) 54
The largest country in Africa by population is Nigeria, with just over 206 million people, and the smallest is Seychelles with nearly 100,000 people. (The full list.)
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