Good morning. A pair of 1880s-era Levi's jeans, found in an abandoned mine out West, recently sold at auction for more than $87,000, one of the highest prices ever paid for some denim.

Have you ever wondered how blue jeans originated? The story behind their creation is quite riveting.

In today’s edition:

• 💰 Ye is buying Parler
• ✈️ Holiday flights this year are... pricey
• 📱⌚️ Are you included in the Apple attach rate?

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.81 minutes to read.

“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”

–Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.)

Kanye West agreed to buy Parler, a social media app that bills itself as a "free speech Twitter alternative," in a deal with undisclosed terms, the company announced yesterday.

"In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves," said West, who legally changed his name to Ye last year. He wasn't available for any further comments.

📱🌐 Background… Parler has raised a total of $56 million at undisclosed valuations, including a $16 million Series B round last month. The app had an estimated 725,000 monthly active users in the US through the first half of the year.

• Parler was previously removed from Google, Apple, and Amazon’s services in the wake of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol for failing to moderate violent and unlawful content.
• The app circumvented Amazon by signing up with a different cloud provider, was allowed back on Apple’s App Store in May 2021, and eventually returned to Google’s Play Store last month. The company has an ongoing lawsuit against Amazon over its denial of service.

⏩ That brings us to this month: In an interview published yesterday, Parler CEO George Farmer said discussions about a potential deal began when his wife, conservative commentator Candace Owens, attended Ye’s fashion week in Paris two weeks ago.

• Ye’s purchase of Parler was announced one week after his Insta and Twitter accounts were restricted in response to antisemitic posts. (The rapper turned fashion mogul tweeted that he would go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” and suggested on Instagram that Jewish people controlled Diddy, repeating longstanding antisemitic tropes.)

👀 Looking ahead… The acquisition is expected to officially close later this quarter.

+Dive deeper: From the Left | From the Center | From the Right

In some more not-so-dynamite news for BTS fans, all seven members of the “Dynamite"-singing boy band (our office's fav song btw) will serve in the South Korean military until "around 2025," when they plan to come back together as a group, the K-pop band announced yesterday.

This comes months after the bandmates said they were taking a break from performing together to pursue solo projects on their own.

🇰🇷🪖 A deeper dive… South Korea requires all able-bodied men to serve at least 18 months in the armed forces by age 28, due to ongoing threats from North Korea. Though some athletes and performers may receive exemptions.

• BTS had applied for such an exemption, and were granted a temporary stay until age 30. Jin, the band’s eldest member, will turn 30 in December.
• South Korean officials said earlier this month it would be “desirable” for the K-pop group to fulfill their military obligations to ensure fairness across the system.

🌎 Zoom out: Nearly 70 countries have mandatory military service or training for some or all of its citizens. Most policies only apply to men over the age of 18, but a handful of nations – including Israel, Norway, and Sweden – also require women to serve.

More than a dozen other countries, including the US and China, have laws that allow the government to compel citizens to serve in the military, but aren’t currently in use.

If you asked us fifteen years ago whether the following sentence would ever be real-life, weed have said “no.”

Toronto residents ages 19 and above can now order marijuana on-demand from Uber Eats through a new partnership with Leafly, which connects customers with local dispensaries. This is the first time weed will be available to buy through a major third-party delivery platform – a far cry from your friend's shady cousin Steve.

🚗🌿 More deets… The actual deliveries will be made by the cannabis retailers’ employees, not Uber drivers or riders. And those delivering the orders will have to verify the customer’s age and sobriety, per Canadian law.

• The illegal market accounts for ~50% of all cannabis sales in the province of Ontario, where Toronto is located.
• Per Uber Eats Canada head Lola Kassim, the partnership will “help combat the illegal market and help reduce impaired driving."

🇺🇸 Zoom out: Our neighbor to the north isn’t the only place where illegal cannabis is thriving, despite consumers being able to buy it legally. In California, where weed is legal both medicinally and recreationally, the illegal market is estimated at $8 billion – roughly double the amount of legal sales, per research firm Global Go Analytics.

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It’s going to cost a little more to get a sweet taste of home during the holidays this year. And we mean that literally (😋 + 💰), figuratively (❤️), and sarcastically (“how are you still single??”).

Thanksgiving domestic airfare prices are currently averaging $350 round trip, up 43% from last year, according to Hopper, a travel booking app. For Christmas flights, prices are higher than Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, averaging $463 round trip, up 39% from last year (though only 31% higher than in 2019).

• Those are the highest levels in at least five years, according to the website. And airfare outside of the holiday period is also up by ~42%.

✈️ Driving Flying the trend… The perfect storm of high demand for travel (the highest in three years), airline staffing shortages, delayed plane deliveries, and high fuel costs due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

💻 Bottom line: All that to say, prospective travelers should book ASAP, before prices get even higher (Hopper’s data indicates prices will remain relatively flat until October 20th). But that’s where our holiday tips stop – we haven’t figured out how to dodge prying questions from obscure relatives yet either.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Before 2030.”

• Professor Uğur Şahin and Dr. Özlem Türeci, the German husband and wife who co-founded Covid vaccine maker BioNTech, said recent breakthroughs have made them confident that mRNA vaccines targeting cancer could be produced by the end of the decade.

⌚📱 Stat of the Day: The Apple Watch attach rate – aka the amount of iPhone owners with an Apple Watch – reached 30% in the first half of this year, its highest-ever level, per a new report from Counterpoint Research.

🌎 Around the World: China unexpectedly delayed the release of its Q3 GDP figures, originally scheduled for this morning at 10 am ET, as the country’s 20th National Congress continues in Beijing.

🤯 Did You Know?... In order to get the rights to the song “Hard Knock Life” from Annie, Jay-Z wrote a letter to the copyright holders explaining how important the play (and song) was to him, telling them about the time he won a writing contest to see Annie when he was in 7th grade. There’s just one slight caveat: by Jay-Z’s own admission, he made the whole thing up.

📖 Worth a Read: How Xi Jinping made himself unchallengeable → (BBC News)

• ☝️ This photo, taken from the ISS and published last week by NASA, shows a pair of bright blue blobs in Earth's atmosphere, which just so happen to be two unrelated phenomena: a massive lightning strike (bottom), and the Moon's warped reflection (top).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US stocks rose across the board yesterday, with the Nasdaq turning in its best performance since July. (Dow: +1.9% | S&P: +2.6% | Nasdaq: +3.4%)
• 💳🪙 Mastercard announced a partnership with crypto platform ​​Paxos to help financial institutions offer crypto trading to consumers.
• 🏦 Goldman Sachs plans to reorganize its largest businesses into three divisions; the three units are: investment banking and trading, asset and wealth management, and fin-tech platforms.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎭 Harrison Ford is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• 🏀 Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and the rest of the NBA Tonight crew all signed extensions with TNT “for the foreseeable future,” including a reported 10-year, ~$200 million deal for Chuck.
• ⚽ Barcelona midfielder Alexia Putellas took home the women’s Ballon d’Or, an award given to the world’s best soccer player, becoming the first to win it twice; Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema was awarded the 2022 men’s Ballon d'Or. | The first round of the MLS playoffs concluded last night.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🥩 Ancient humans were apex predators on Earth for at least 2 million years, dining heavily on meat until roughly 12,000 years ago, per a new peer-reviewed study.
• 👑🍻 An ancient hall used for feasting by Anglo-Saxon kings and warriors was recently discovered in Suffolk, England.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🏛️ Two LA City council members were removed from their committee chairmanships and assignments yesterday, a week after the LA Times published leaked audio of a discussion between them and the former council president that featured racist comments.
• 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia sentenced three men to death for refusing to leave their homes to make way for the country’s ~$1 trillion Neom project, which aims to be a futuristic zero-carbon city. (Background)
• 🎓🌐 The federal government’s student loan forgiveness site – found here – is now out of beta and officially live to all Americans, President Biden announced yesterday; he also said 8 million people signed up during the beta test. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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We’ve been asking our readers what they think about student loan forgiveness since the initial news broke, in an attempt to track public sentiment as the process unfolds.

Q: Do you agree with President Biden’s decision to forgive some federal student loans?

• In yesterday’s poll, 43% said yes, 44% said no, and 13% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.
• The last time we asked this question (in September), 40% said yes, 52% said no, and 8% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.
• The first time we asked this question (in August), 43% said yes, 46% said no, and 11% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view from yesterday.

⬆️ This bus parks on the curb every Saturday in Brooklyn, NY, near the end of the local subway line.

• Operated by Brooklyn Community Services, the bus provides free showers, restrooms, toiletries, and clothing to anyone who needs it. 

🚿🚌 A life's work... Ramona Sargeant is the woman behind the shower bus. She's made it her goal to help as many homeless individuals as possible, before the cold NY winter sets in. 

• “Even if you don’t use shelters, you still need a shower and clean clothes – we fill that gap," she told the Canarsie Courier.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Abraham Lincoln (1865)
2. James Garfield (1881)
3. William McKinley (1901)
4. John F. Kennedy (1963)

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