Good morning. Our second-annual Pet Playoffs begin today. Head on over to our Instagram (@donutdailynews) to vote and follow along. May the cutest creature win!

In today's edition:

• 🎓 New deets on student loan forgiveness
• 🤖 “Leader Lars,” the AI chatbot in charge of a political party
• ⚖️ Suspected serial killer captured in California

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.66 minutes to read.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

–Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

The Department of Education launched a beta test of its new student loan forgiveness website on Friday. But procrastinators fear not – officials said there’s no advantage to applying before the full launch later this month, since applications won’t start being processed until then.

🎓🌐 More deets… The department said the beta portal (found here) will be available on-and-off for the next couple of weeks, as its technical team pauses the site for assessments, refinements, and maintenance.

• The overall application process reportedly takes five minutes to complete. Applicants only need their name, birthday, phone number, email, and SSN.
• No income verification documents are required, but applicants must attest to earning less than the income caps set for relief, either in 2020 or 2021 ($125,000 for individuals, $250,000 for couples filing jointly).
• The beta will end at an unspecified date later this month, at which point the app will be available to the public. It’ll remain open until December 2023 (more good news for procrastinators🥳).

⚖️ On the legal side of things: There have been a total of five lawsuits filed against the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, three of which are still ongoing.

• The first major legal challenge involved an Indiana lawyer who argued he would be harmed by the cancellation tax burden in his state. That suit was later thrown out, after the Education Department announced borrowers could opt-out of relief.

👀 Looking ahead… Republican attorneys general from seven states sued to stop federal student loan forgiveness last month (AR, AZ, IA, KS, MO, NE, and SC). Decisions in those cases have yet to be handed down.

📊 Flash poll: Do you agree with President Biden’s decision to forgive some amount of federal student loans?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

🇬🇧 UK PM Liz Truss fired her Treasury chief and reversed a pledge to limit corporate taxes on Friday. Truss said the moves were an effort to “reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline.” The PM has now dropped ~$20 billion of the $45 billion in planned tax cuts that were announced days after she took office, which sent the British pound to a record-low against the dollar and forced the Bank of England to step in to prevent losses to pension funds.

🇨🇳 President XI Jinping delivered the opening address of China’s 20th National Congress yesterday. In his nearly two-hour speech, Xi celebrated China’s strict zero-Covid strategy, restated his opposition to Taiwan’s independence, and pledged to build the country’s army into a “world-class military.” Xi is widely expected to claim an unprecedented third five-year term as China’s leader later this week.

🇩🇰 A new Danish political party emerged – and it’s being led by an AI. The Synthetic Party in Denmark is dedicated to following “Leader Lars,” an AI chatbot that’s been programmed to represent the values of the ~20% of Danes who don’t vote in elections. While Leader Lars won’t officially be anywhere on the ballot, his human minions are hoping to elect one of their own to a seat in Denmark’s Parliament. Prospective voters (or the general public) can chat with Leader Lars on the party’s Discord server.

Meta unveiled the Quest Pro, its latest productivity-focused VR headset, at an event last week. At the same event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled metaverse-focused partnerships with Microsoft and NBCUniversal.

The first aims to bring gaming and Office 365 to Horizon Worlds, best described as Meta’s manifestation of the metaverse, and the second promises to bring content (i.e., as part of the deal, Peacock will be available on Quest headsets).

But in spite of this progress, one major problem remains: people aren’t really using Horizon Worlds (including the project’s development team). And the ones who are, aren’t sticking, the WSJ reports.

• Meta set an initial goal of reaching 500,000 monthly active users by the end of this year, a figure it recently revised down to 280,000. The current tally is less than 200,000.
• Most Horizon visitors don’t return to the app after the first month. Only 9% of worlds built by creators are ever visited by at least 50 people, while most are never visited at all.
• More than half of Quest headsets aren’t in use six months after purchase.

👥🥽 Zoom out: Meta isn’t alone in its adoption struggles. Metaverse platforms Decentraland and the Sandbox, both with market caps north of $1.2 billion, have 379 and 616 daily active users, respectively.

+Yes, but: Patience is a virtue – and a necessary one, when we’re talking about a nascent industry and new technologies. “We’re trying to land on the moon, and people are complaining that the coffee machine’s not working,” per Rolf Illenberger, CEO of VRdirect, a virtual-reality software company, in a recent interview.

To be honest with you… we don't know. But what we do know is that we're the DONUT, and we like hedgehogs!🦔👍

• Though tbh, we do like one in particular. It's The Hoglet, a computer mouse with squishy nubs and textures designed to help unique learners – or anyone for that matter – concentrate better.

🧩🖱️ By combining a fidget toy with a computer mouse, The Hoglet provides a calming effect and sensory feedback many children with ADHD/ASD need to focus. Students love the bright, fun colors – and probably because it's built with kids in mind. Which also means it's easy to clean and super durable.💪

Improve focus today with The Hoglet from Hedgehog Health.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Pan Solo”

• A Bay Area bakery created a life-sized bread sculpture of Han Solo, depicting the gunslinging protagonist as he appeared after being frozen in carbonite in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

🦀 Stat of the Day: An estimated 1 billion snow crabs have disappeared from the waters around Alaska over the past two years, equivalent to 90% of the entire population, leading Alaskan officials to cancel the winter snow crab season for the first time in history. Experts are uncertain about what’s behind the drop, though many cite warming waters.

🤯 Did You Know?... Before refrigeration became commonplace in the 1850s, Australia would import all of its ice from Boston, MA.

📖 Worth a Read: Psychiatry wars: the lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial → (The Guardian)

• ☝️ A 6,000-pound giant sunfish found in the Azores is the heaviest bony fish ever recorded, per a new peer-reviewed study.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🍎 Apple workers in Oklahoma City became the company's second-ever group of US employees to officially unionize, voting 56 to 32 in favor of doing so on Friday.
• ⚖️ Nikola founder Trevor Milton was found guilty of securities fraud by a federal jury on Friday due to false statements he made to inflate the EV company’s stock price.
• 🤝 Kroger officially agreed to buy Albertsons for $24.6 billion, linking the second- and fourth-largest US grocery chains – though the deal still needs to pass regulatory scrutiny; together, the two would have almost 16% of the market, while leader Walmart has ~21%.
• 🌱🥩 Beyond Meat cut 19% of its workforce, including its COO who allegedly bit the nose of another man after an Arkansas football game. (Background)

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🙏 Notable deaths: ​​Actor Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, died at 72. | Bruce Sutter, baseball Hall of Famer and Cy Young winner, died at 69.
• 🍿 Halloween Ends topped the domestic box office with $41+ million in its first weekend.
• ⚾ MLB playoff results: The Phillies, Padres, and Astros all advanced to the Championship Series, while the Guardians will face the Yankees in a deciding Game 5 tonight at 7 pm ET.
• 🏈 The Tennessee Volunteers jumped to No. 3 in this week’s AP Top 25 poll after defeating former No. 3 Alabama 52-49 on Saturday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀⛽ Colorado-based startup Orbit Fab recently won a $13.3 million contract from the US Space Force to build a gas station in orbit.
• 😩 Pain may be a form of protection, rather than simply an alarm bell signaling that something is wrong, per a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell.
• 📜 A manuscript attributed to Galileo that was found to be a forgery in August has led to the discovery that a different, controversial book was authored by the astronomer himself. (Background)

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🚗 California recently passed a bill allowing motorists to use digital license plates, joining Arizona and Michigan.
• 🚨 A suspected serial killer was arrested in Stockton, CA, early Saturday morning while he was likely searching for another victim, per local officials; the suspect is thought to be involved in a series of shootings that have killed six men.
• ⚖️ The DOJ appealed the appointment of an independent special master to review documents taken by the FBI from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🏰 This family owns a ‘princess cottage’ in Disney World’s gated community, where homes sell for $12 million: Take a look inside.

On Monday, we asked what y’all thought was the biggest problem facing America today.

• 25% said inflation, 12% said violent crime, 13% said climate change, 16% said school quality/education, 11% said health care affordability, 10% said inequality, and 13% thought a different problem ranked at the top.

See the full 360° view.

Monday: A new FDA rule change goes into effect allowing people to buy hearing aids without a prescription

Tuesday: NBA regular season tips off; National Chocolate Cupcake Day😋

Wednesday: The UK and Canada report inflation numbers

Thursday: Weekly unemployment claims

Friday: Taylor Swift's latest album, Midnights, is set to be released; DC’s Black Adam, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, hits theaters

Not only was this brain surgery patient (☝️) kept awake during his nine-hour operation last month, but he played the saxophone throughout the whole thing.

🎶🏥 Music heals... Patient "G.Z." was kept awake and alert throughout the surgery to remove a tumor in his brain. According to the team of doctors, his saxophone playing allowed them to map the different functions of his brain as they operated.

• Thankfully, the surgery was a success, and the operating team even got a free concert out of it. 🎷😉

Can you guess the definitions of these Greek/Latin root words?

1. Pisc
2. Scend
3. Visc
4. Posit
5. Ide

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Pisc: Fish (e.g., Pisces, piscivore)
2. Scend: Climb (ascend, transcend)
3. Visc: Thick (viscosity)
4. Posit: Put (position, deposit)
5. Ide: Thought (idea, ideology)