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Good morning and welcome to Tuesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.41 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.44 minutes.)
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"Remain calm, serene, always in command of yourself. You will then find out how easy it is to get along."
–Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952)
*Correction: We mistakenly attributed yesterday's quote to author James Allen, when it actually came from the Bible (Proverbs 23:7). Thanks to James' great-great-great grandson Jack (who by a pure stroke of luck is a subscriber!) for bringing this to our attention.
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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🏘️ Zillow is Offloading a Lot of Homes
 Image: Zillow
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🎁 Zillow is looking to sell ~7,000 homes as it recovers from a fumble in its high-tech home-flipping business. The company is seeking roughly $2.8 billion for the houses, which are being pitched to institutional investors, Bloomberg reports.
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📖 Backstory… The website we use to browse homes in Austin we can’t afford started a side-hustle in 2019 buying houses mostly sight unseen (powered by an algorithm), lightly renovating them, and then putting them back on the market.
That side hustle turned into a full-time gig, with Zillow bringing in almost 60% of its revenue in Q2 through this mostly automated iBuying process. It bought more than 3,800 houses in the second quarter and has a stated goal of acquiring 5,000 homes a month by 2024.
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We’ve been stressing “mostly” for a reason. Prior to officially closing, the company sends a rep to inspect the property and do a gut check on the offer, and it also needs to hire contractors to perform the renovations after closing. A few weeks ago, the company announced it was halting all new iBuying purchases due to a labor shortage.
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The decision also came after the company tweaked the algorithms to make higher offers, leaving it with a bunch of winning bids just as home-price appreciation started to cool off. An analysis of 650 homes owned by Zillow showed two-thirds were priced for less than the company bought them for, according to an Oct. 31 note from KeyBanc Capital Markets.
📉📈 Zoom out: Zillow shares dropped almost 9% on Monday. The stock tripled in 2020, but has now decreased more than 29% on the year – and its competitors are licking their chops.
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After Zillow announced it was halting home purchases for the rest of the year, iBuying startup Opendoor boasted it was “open for business.” It more than doubled Zillow’s home-buying total in Q2 with 8,494 purchases.
+Coming later today: Zillow’s earnings report.
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⚖️ SCOTUS Tackles TX Abortion Law
 Image: J Scott Applewhite/AP
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🎁 The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in two cases over whether the DOJ or abortion providers can mount legal challenges to a Texas law banning virtually all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
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📜 Background… In neither case is the right to an abortion directly at issue. (Those arguments will be heard on December 1.)
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In this case, the DOJ and abortion providers are looking to sue because the Texas law conflicts with current SCOTUS precedent that prevents states from banning abortion before the start of the third trimester.
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Texas’ abortion measure was designed so private parties would be in charge of enforcing the law, rather than state officials, in an effort to make it harder to mount legal challenges. Typically, state officials would be sued to block enforcement of the law.
🗣️ The arguments: Those challenging the law contend that if the Court allows the measure to remain in place, it would open the door to other states passing similar laws that sidestep legal precedent since they would be enforced by citizens instead of government officials.
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Those in favor of the measure say abortion providers and the DOJ lack the right to go to federal court and can’t sue state judges and clerks who aren’t responsible for enforcing the abortion ban.
👁️ Looking ahead… Under the Court’s usual timeline, a decision would be expected sometime in Spring 2022. But given its atypical speed in this case – hearing arguments just ten days after agreeing to consider the matter – a ruling could come even sooner.
+By the numbers: The number of abortions in Texas fell by nearly 50 percent in the three months after the state enacted its abortion ban in July (compared to the same period a year ago).
From the Left: NBC News
From the Right: WSJ
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🍩 DONUT Holes…
 Image: Axios
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☝️ The official global death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 5 million yesterday.
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✈️ American Airlines canceled nearly 500 flights yesterday, an improvement over the ~900 flights canceled the day before.
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🎭 Actor Kal Penn, who played Kumar in “Harold and Kumar,” came out as gay.
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🥤 Coca-Cola acquired full control of BodyArmor for $5.6 billion, the company's largest ever brand acquisition; the estate of early investor Kobe Bryant is set to receive more than $400 million.
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🏦 Jes Staley, CEO of the British bank Barclays, is stepping down following a report from UK regulators on his relationship with sex trafficker and financier Jeffrey Epstein; the investigation found Staley misrepresented details of his ties to Epstein but didn't find evidence he was “aware of any of Mr. Epstein’s alleged crimes.”
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💉🗽 NYC's vaccine mandate took effect yesterday, impacting hundreds of thousands of municipal workers; so far, 91% of city employees have complied with the mandate and 9,000 are currently on unpaid leave. (From the Left | From the Right)
+Bonus: What's going on between Elon Musk and the Exec Director of the UN's World Food Programme ?
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine… "Holding this [infrastructure] bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for the reconciliation bill." –Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told reporters yesterday, likely delaying Democrats’ plan to pass both bills this week. (From the Left | From the Right)
🔢 Stat of the Day: Amazon and Ford-backed EV startup Rivian is seeking a market valuation of as much as $54.6 billion in its upcoming IPO, according to documents filed yesterday.
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That would make Rivian slightly less valuable than traditional automotive giants like Ford ($71+ billion) or GM ($81+ billion) – though none of them are even remotely close to Tesla’s $1.2 trillion market cap.
📖 Worth a Peek… Trying to Get Famous Might Make You Miserable
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🇺🇸 Election Day is Here
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 Image: City of Mount Clemens
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🎁 Election Day 2021 is an “off-year,” but there are still several important races, including gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey and a mayoral election in America’s most populous city.
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👑 Virginia: The latest polls show Republican Glenn Youngkin, a former investment firm CEO with no political experience, holding a slight lead over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who formerly served as governor of Virginia from 2014-2018.
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The state is traditionally considered a political bellwether that reflects the overall sentiment of the American public.
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The party winning the presidential election the preceding year has almost always lost Virginia’s odd-year gubernatorial election going back decades – with the sole exception of McAuliffe’s victory in 2013.
⛽ New Jersey: Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy holds a nearly double-digit lead over his Republican opponent, former state Assemblymember Jack Ciattarelli, per the most recent polling data.
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Gov. Murphy is looking to break a decades-long streak to become the first Democratic governor reelected to a second term in NJ since 1977.
🗽 New York City: The winner of the Democratic primary, Eric Adams, is all-but-certain to defeat his GOP challenger, Curtis Sliwa, in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-to-1.
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Given the odds, Adams’ margin of victory will be the number to focus on. For context, outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio won the last two mayoral elections by an average of 46 points.
🗳️ Across the country: Democrats are poised to win mayoral races in Atlanta, Buffalo, Boston, Cleveland, and Minneapolis, while Republicans are favored to win in Miami and Hialeah, FL (the 100th largest city in the U.S.).
👁️ Looking ahead… Results are expected in most races by early tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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🚫 Spain Bans Unhealthy Ads for Kids
 Image: The Sun
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🎁 Spain will ban advertising for unhealthy foods and drinks aimed at children and adolescents via TV, radio, social media, websites, apps, cinemas, and newspapers starting next year, the country announced.
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The ban cues off recommendations from the WHO and extends to five categories: 1) candy made with chocolate or sugar, energy bars, sweet toppings and desserts; 2) a group of products including cakes, sweet biscuits or cookies and other baked goods; and three more categories that include juices, energy drinks and ice creams.
🚗 Driving the move… “Alarming” rates of childhood obesity. According to a 2019 study, which was based on surveys of children aged six to nine, 23.3% were overweight and 17.3% were obese.
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“In Spain, one in every three children is overweight or obese,” the Consumer Affairs Ministry said on Twitter. “Advertising is one of the causes of this figure.”
📺 Zoom out: Spain isn’t the only country to make a similar move. More than 30 countries, including many in Europe, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Korea, and the Russian Federation, have laws setting some limit on television advertising to children. Norway, Quebec (Canada), and Sweden ban all ads during children’s shows.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🦠 That’s So Metal
 Image: Nadac Reales
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🎁 A team of Chilean scientists discovered a special type of bacteria that can fully disintegrate a nail in three days as part of an effort to clean up waste from the country’s mining industry.
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Mining pollution, when not properly dealt with, can have devastating effects on the environment. According to the EPA, metal mines generated nearly 2 billion pounds of toxic waste in 2017 alone.
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The problem is especially prevalent in Chile, the world’s leading copper producer and a key supplier of other valuable metals.
🔬 Science to the rescue… A group of Chilean researchers recently identified a metal-eating bacteria called Leptospirillum, found in geysers located 4,200 meters above sea level. It’s what's known as an extremophile, or a microorganism that can survive and thrive in the harshest environments.
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At first, Leptospirillum took two months to fully disintegrate a nail. After two years of trials, the researchers were able to increase the speed at which the bacteria “ate” until it could devour an entire nail in just three days.
👁️ Looking ahead… The scientists are seeking funding to see if their method could successfully eat "a medium sized beam or a hopper."
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🎉🎁 Spanx Celebrates
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 Images: Instagram
Christmas came early for the roughly 750 employees of popular shapewear line, Spanx.
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After announcing she had sold a majority stake in the company to private equity firm Blackstone in a deal valuing Spanx at $1.2 billion, CEO Sara Blakely surprised her team with the gift of a lifetime.
Every single employee will receive two first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world, along with a $10,000 check to plan the trip of their dreams.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🇺🇸 Turn the Corner
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Which of these states is NOT a part of the Four Corners Monument ?
A) Arizona
B) Utah
C) New Mexico
D) Nevada
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) Nevada
The Four Corners Monument marks the point where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. It's the only place in America shared by four different states.
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