Good morning. We've got a jam-packed newsletter; no words of wisdom today. So let’s make like Jack Black and rock-on🎸. (Kick ME out of the band?!)

In today's edition:

• 🌐 The Kanye West fallout
• 🇸🇻🪙 El Salvador’s bitcoin experiment, one year later
• 🤔 How much plastic actually gets recycled?

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.89 minutes to read.

“The world only exists in your eyes – your conception of it. You can make it as big or as small as you want to."

–Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

At least six organizations have cut ties with Kanye West (Ye) over the past few days, including Adidas, Gap, Balenciaga, and the Creative Artists Agency. The moves follow multiple antisemitic comments made by the rapper-turned-fashion-mogul in interviews and on social media earlier this month.

• Examples include threatening to “go death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” in a tweet, and claiming that “I can say antisemitic things, and Adidas can’t drop me” in a recent podcast interview, among other things.

📝 More details… Ye is no longer a billionaire after the loss of his Adidas deal, per Forbes, which said the agreement had accounted for $1.5 billion of his ~$1.9 billion net worth. The termination also represents a heavy blow to Adidas’ bottom line; the German company said it’ll take a $246 million hit in 2022 alone.

• Overall, the Yeezy brand generates nearly 10% of Adidas’ annual revenue, per Morningstar analyst David Swartz (~$2 billion/year).
• Last month, prior to the antisemitic comments, Ye publicly accused Adidas and Gap of stealing his designs and breaking contractual promises to expand his Yeezy brand.

🛣️ In related news… Over the weekend, an antisemitic hate group called GDL hung banners from an overpass above a busy Los Angeles freeway prompting cars to honk if "Kanye is right about the Jews," per StopAntisemitism, a non-partisan org that monitors instances of antisemitism.

📊 Flash poll: People of all different ages, backgrounds, cultures, and faiths read this newsletter every day. So if anyone feels compelled to share their take on the Ye situation, reply to this email or do so here. We’ll share the most thought-provoking and insightful responses tomorrow.

🛢️ European natural gas prices are now ~70% lower than record-highs set in August. The price decline is widely attributed to milder weather combined with Europe’s buying spree over the summer, as the continent filled up its natural gas stockpiles to nearly 94% capacity (up from less than 80% a year ago). But Europeans shouldn’t rejoice just yet – stored gas on its own is only enough to cover 2-3 months of supply, and prices are projected to climb back near record highs by February.

🇷🇺 WNBA star Brittney Griner lost her appeal of a nine-year prison sentence in Russia yesterday. Griner, who plays offseason basketball in Russia, was arrested in February after authorities found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. She was ordered to a Russian penal colony yesterday to serve out the remaining eight years of her sentence, though another appeal is possible. In a statement, the White House said Griner is being “wrongfully detained,” calling yesterday’s ruling “another sham judicial proceeding.”

🇨🇳📉 US-listed Chinese stocks lost ~$75 billion in value on Monday, reaching their lowest level in 10 years. Monday was the first trading day following the conclusion of China’s twice-per-decade National Congress, where President Xi Jinping was handed a precedent-defying third five-year term as leader. Xi also removed his government’s No. 2- and No. 4-ranked leaders, replacing them with loyalists. Separately, China reported delayed GDP numbers for Q3 on Monday.

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The National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest biomedical research agency, formally acknowledged a causal link between repeated brain injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) for the first time on Monday.

• CTE is a neurodegenerative disease with symptoms similar to other forms of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s. It can manifest months, years, or decades after someone’s last brain trauma incident. Currently, CTE can only be diagnosed in patients after they die.

🧠 A deeper dive… The NIH’s new guidelines came in response to an open letter co-signed by 41 leading scientists and doctors over the summer. In it, they cited recent peer-reviewed research establishing a clear link between CTE and the type of recurrent brain injuries suffered by abuse victims, soldiers, and athletes in certain sports (football, soccer, boxing, etc.).

• The NIH’s change brings the org in line with CDC guidelines, which were updated in 2019 to say CTE “is caused in part by exposure to repeated traumatic brain injuries.” (So it’s not great for your brain if you bang your head against things over-and-over? Got it, thanks.)

🏈 In related recent news: The NFL just implemented a new concussion protocol, put in place after an incident where QB Tua Tagovailoa was allowed to keep playing despite visibly stumbling following a head injury.

It's been a little over a year since El Salvador became the first country to officially adopt bitcoin as legal tender. So put on some overalls, grab an oil rag, and sit with us as we pop the hood. Let's see how it's going.

🪙 Background: Over 70% of the country's citizens don't have a bank account. And President Nayib Bukele, who once admitted he buys crypto on his phone while in the nude (and whose Twitter bio previously read “the world’s coolest dictator”), championed bitcoin as a way to bank the bankless.

To help facilitate national adoption, El Salvador launched a virtual wallet called “chivo” – Salvadoran slang for “cool” – pre-loaded with $30 in crypto.

• In theory, the wallet also provided a way for citizens to process remittances, aka payments sent to family and friends back home by emigrants, a category accounting for more than a quarter of the country’s GDP.

🌎 In the real world… The results weren’t as rosy as the initial pitch, in large part due to a lack of adoption. While 60% of the population has used the chivo app, only 20% continued to use it after spending the $30 gift. More than three-quarters of the population never used crypto in 2022, per a recent poll, and “less than two percent" of remittances have been made using bitcoin since it was designated legal tender, according to data from the Salvadoran Central Bank released in early September.

📸 Big picture: The price of bitcoin has dropped ~60% since last September, when El Salvador’s move became official. Which may be part of why citizens are calling it a loss – according to a recent poll, 77% consider the country’s crypto initiative "to have been a failure."

💬 Quoted…​​ “An economic danger to the public.”

Justin Costello, a former fugitive accused of posing as a billionaire, a Harvard MBA, and an Iraq War vet to scam people out of ~$35 million, was denied bail pending trial yesterday by a federal judge.

• He faces a recommended prison term of 27 to 34 years under federal sentencing guidelines, if convicted on all 25 counts of wire and securities fraud.

🦠 Stats of the Day: People with mild/moderate Covid cases who took ivermectin recovered within an average of 12 days, while people with mild/moderate Covid cases who didn’t take the drug recovered in 13 days. That’s per a new study published in JAMA examining data from ~1,600 patients, which ultimately concluded ivermectin doesn’t meaningfully improve Covid recovery time.

🤯 Did You Know?... Just 5% of all plastic waste generated in the US last year was recycled, down from a peak of 10% in 2014, per new research from Greenpeace.

📖 Worth a Read: ‘Deepfakes’ of Celebrities Have Begun Appearing in Ads, With or Without Their Permission → (WSJ)

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• ☝️ A partial solar eclipse – the last of 2022 – could be seen for four hours yesterday across Europe, northeast Africa, and western and central Asia.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📺 Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, is looking to raise ~$150 million in a deal that values his video/restaurant empire at $1.5 billion, per Axios.
• 💰 Amazon will add Venmo as a payment option by Black Friday.
• 🧴 Unilever is recalling 19 dry shampoo aerosol products due to "potentially elevated levels" of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical; it’s the latest of a half-dozen such recalls.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🐦 Twitter is having a hard time keeping the interest of its most active users, Reuters reported yesterday, citing internal company documents; Twitter ‘power users’ account for less than 10% of its monthly active users, but generate ~90% of all tweets.
• 🦸🦹 Filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran were named co-CEOs of DC Studios, a new division at Warner Bros. in charge of the comic brand’s film, TV and animation efforts.
• 🎙️ CBS Sports' Jim Nantz will call his last Final Four in April after being the voice of March Madness for 32 years; he'll be succeeded by Ian Eagle.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 📱 Some Android users in California were preemptively warned about a minor earthquake yesterday, thanks to a new app from UC Berkeley called MyShake.
• 🗳️ Roughly 2% of the US voting-age population is ineligible to participate in the 2022 midterms due to state-level laws barring felons from voting, per new research from nonprofit group The Sentencing Project.
• 🛰️ The International Space Station was forced to swerve yesterday to avoid Russian space debris, its second such maneuver since Moscow blew up a defunct satellite last November.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🙅‍♀️✉️ Following backlash, the House Progressive Caucus retracted a letter they sent to President Biden yesterday urging him to seek direct talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• 🏛️ Pennsylvania Senate candidates Dr. Oz Mehmet (R) and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) held their first and only debate last night, in a race preliminary polls are calling a toss-up. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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Quick recap: In this section, we’re aiming to crowdsource details about epic trips – then provide the whole playbook for the experience to y’all.

• Have you ever gone on an epic, once-in-a-lifetime trip? Tell us about it here.

🚶‍♂️ Who: Sarah W. from Collingswood, NJ

☀️ Length of trip: 25 days

💬 Quick recap: I flew to the West Coast to explore Oregon, specifically to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Then, I visited my primary destination, Bali (via Bangkok), where I spent six days and nights falling in love with Balinese food, dance, and culture! Then, I flew back to the US for one night on the San Juan Islands, and I also spent several nights in Seattle (more than I planned for because I got Covid despite taking all precautions!).

🎭 Want to learn more? Dive deeper into Sarah's must-dos, must-don'ts, and trip expenses here.

P.S. Have your own epic trip you’d like to share? Tell us about it here for a chance to be featured in next Wednesday’s newsletter.

Lena and Yolanda met 75 years ago on a ship sailing from Italy to Ellis Island, when they were nine and ten years old. Though the two lost touch soon after, they never forgot their "travel buddy" for the journey across the Atlantic. 

🔎 Needle in a haystack... Fast-forward to today, and Lena's son was able to find Yolanda after looking up a manifest of his mom's ship in the Ellis Island archives. 

The two women were soon reunited after discovering they only lived 2.5 hours away from each other. 

• “Yolanda was the face and name that was synonymous with my transition from one life to another,” Lena said. “For that reason alone, I could never forget her. Now that we’ve been reunited, I am even more grateful to call her my friend and to have had the chance to share our stories.”

Which two candy bars were the first to go 'fun-sized' in 1968?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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Snickers and Milky Way