Good morning. The average human brain has around 6,200 thoughts per day, according to a study published in Nature Communications. And atm, every one of ours is focused on the next two days.

Happy Halloweekend.😈🎃

In today's edition:

• 🖼️ Art-related climate protests are going mainstream
• 🚂 A rail worker strike is looming… again
• 🐦📱 It’s official. Twitter has a new owner, er, Chief Twit

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.03 minutes to read.

“Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.”

–Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

From tomato soup splattered on a Van Gogh, to cake thrown at a wax statue of King Charles, to mashed potatoes flung at a Monet – young protesters across Europe have been targeting famous works of art with food this month, in an effort to spur action against climate change.

🖼️ A deeper dive… Both of the priceless works of art had protective coverings and weren’t harmed by the stunts, though their frames suffered damage. The King Charles wax statue wasn’t as lucky, ending up with a face full of cake.

• Members of Just Stop Oil, the group behind the protests, said its demonstrations weren’t intended to destroy the art, but rather to gain media attention and pressure governments to halt new fossil fuel licensing and production.
• The group was previously responsible for a spate of similar art-related protests over the summer.

🌎 Zoom out: The protests are set against three major climate reports published this week ahead of COP27, an international climate conference.

1. The World Meteorological Organization found atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide hit all-time highs last year.
2. The International Energy Agency found renewable electricity generation reached a global record-high last year, and said the world’s fossil-fuel demand could peak starting later this decade.
3. The United Nations estimates the world is on track for a 5.0°F increase in average temperatures by the end of this century, and has “no credible pathway” to keeping the 2.7°F limit set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

✋ Yes, but… Even if Western nations took drastic action to cut their emissions, it would have a limited overall effect. China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas-emitter, is responsible for 27+% of global emissions, while the US sits at 11%, India makes up 7%, and all 27 EU nations combined account for 6%.

📊 Flash poll: Do you think the US government is doing too much, too little, or about the right amount to combat climate change?

Too much

Too little

About the right amount

🏦📈 The European Central Bank raised interest rates by 0.75% to combat inflation. It’s the second-such increase in two months, and comes as annual inflation in the eurozone reached an all-time high of 9.9% in September. Canada’s central bank also raised interest rates this week in a bid to tame high inflation, while the US Federal Reserve is expected to deliver another 0.75% rate hike next Wednesday.

🇷🇺 Russia said it could target US commercial satellites if they’re used to help Ukraine. The comments by a Foreign Ministry official didn’t mention SpaceX’s Starlink by name, though the satellite internet service has emerged as an important tool for Ukraine. Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated claims that Ukraine plans to detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ of nuclear radiation on its own territory – allegations US officials have denied – while saying “it doesn’t make sense” for Moscow to conduct a nuclear strike in Ukraine.

🇲🇽 Evidence in a ‘bombshell’ Mexican gov’t report about 43 missing students was recently invalidated. In August, a truth commission report blamed the country’s police and military, along with drug traffickers, for abducting and murdering the students in 2014. But since then, arrest warrants for police and military suspects have been revoked, the lead prosecutor of the investigation resigned, and the head of the truth commission said much of the evidence in its report couldn’t be verified as true.

+In other Mexico news: Mexico's northeastern border state of Tamaulipas voted to legalize same-sex marriages on Wednesday, becoming the last of the country’s 32 states to do so.

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Two unions have now voted to reject a Biden administration-brokered agreement between rail workers and freight railways, bringing back the possibility of a nationwide strike. And if that happens, the US economy is looking at a more than $2 billion hit… per day.

🚂 Background: After contract negotiations between workers and freight railways stalled, unions collectively representing 125,000 rail workers organized a work stoppage set to begin in mid-September. The Biden admin stepped in to broker a deal, with the two sides ultimately reaching a tentative agreement the day before workers walked off the job. But for the deal to become official, each of the 12 unions involved needed to ratify it before November 19.

🤔🗳 Where are we now?... So far, six unions – representing about 20% of the 125,000 workers covered by the proposed contracts – have voted to ratify their deals. Two unions, representing around 25% of the workers, have voted no. Four still have to vote, including the two largest and most influential.

• The sticking point for those voting no is the same as last time: paid sick leave. Per union leaders, the Biden-brokered deal doesn’t go far enough to address work-life balance or poor working conditions; workers say they’re essentially on-call 24/7, outside of paid vacation and personal leave days, which have to be scheduled in advance.

🏛️ The bottom line: If no agreement is reached before the deadline (which seems likely), Congress has the power to step in and prevent workers from going on strike.

Stay tuned.

The Houston Astros host the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 of the World Series tonight. And nobody's paying more attention than furniture mogul Jim McIngvale, aka 'Mattress Mack,' who’s on the verge of the largest win in legal sports betting history ($75 million).

🛏️💰 More details… Mattress Mack owns the Gallery Furniture chain in Houston, TX. And just like his favorite team, the Astros, the mattress mogul is known for taking swings – but in the gambling sense. He previously wagered a record $16.2 million on the Cincinnati Bengals to win this year’s Super Bowl (they lost), dropped $6+ million on Alabama to win the 2022 CFB National Championship (they didn’t), and bet $13 million on the Astros to win the World Series in 2019 (they – you guessed it – also lost).

• Over the past five months, Mack has wagered a total of $10 million on the Astros to win the World Series across several bets, with odds ranging from 10-to-1 to 5-to-1, per the Houston Chronicle.

🎰 Behind the bets: Losing $10 million won’t make or break it for Mack – and the $75 million he stands to win wouldn’t be all profit. The businessman is famous for holding generous in-store promotions tied to the results of local sports franchises, which he hedges against with massive sports bets. So regardless of the final result, he always comes out on top (in theory, at least).

• Before the Astros made it to the World Series and the promotion was cut off, Mack had guaranteed that any customer who spent $3,000+ on certain mattresses would receive double their money back if the Astros won the whole shebang – $6,000+ in total.

👀 Looking ahead… Game 1 starts tonight at 8:03 pm ET.

+In the know: A historic bet isn’t the only thing riding on this series. Over the past century, every Phillies World Series victory has been immediately followed by a US economic crisis (1929, 1980, 2008).

💬 Quoted…​​ “It is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square… That said, Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape.”

• Elon Musk posted an open letter to Twitter's advertisers yesterday, laying out his reasoning behind acquiring the social media platform and his vision for it moving forward. It came hours before Musk officially took charge and reportedly fired at least four Twitter execs, including its CEO, CFO, and general counsel.

💼 Stat of the Day: About 31% of all US workers have been with their current employer for at least 10 years, per data from Chartr.

🤯 Did You Know?... China has the most skyscrapers in the world – around 3,000 – by a significant margin. How significant? If you combined the next 13 countries on the list, the result would still fall short of China’s total.

📖 Worth a Read: Inside the Secret Prisoner Swap That Splintered the U.S. and China → (WSJ)

🙌 We see you in the gym. We see you stocking up on kale.

Maybe you even tried several diets. But still, every morning, the number on the scale doesn’t budge. … what gives?

It could be several factors, but did you know there’s a way to lose weight while – get this – still eating your favorite foods?🤯

It’s a 750-year-old fat-burning solution from Vietnam that’s helped thousands of people lose weight – like Jason Mitchell who lost 52 lbs, or Cheryl who lost 29 lbs.

That doesn’t explain everything, but our friends at Exipure Results put together a free video presentation that tells you exactly why this weight loss solution works so effectively.

🍩😉 And DONUT Readers get a special gift just for watching.

Sign up to watch the free video here.

• ☝️ You’re looking at a view of the Earth-Moon system captured by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which recently embarked on a six-year journey to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. (Earth = right; Moon = left.)

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉📈 US stocks had a mixed day, with the Dow turning in its fifth straight session of gains. (Dow: +0.6% | S&P: -0.6% | Nasdaq: -1.6%) | US GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.6% in the third quarter, higher than estimates of 2.3%, per new Commerce Department figures. | The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage broke 7% yesterday for the first time since April 2002.
• 📝 Earnings reports: Amazon’s stock fell more than 20% in extended trading after the company reported $127.1 billion in Q3 revenue and lowered its forecast for Q4. | Apple reported $90.1 billion in quarterly revenue, ahead of analysts’ estimates of ~$89 billion.
• 🏦 Credit Suisse announced plans to cut ~9,000 jobs and raise $4 billion in fresh capital after a lackluster earnings report; the bank’s stock closed down ~19%, its worst trading day on record going back to 1985.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 Hocus Pocus 2 – which debuted on Disney+ on Sept. 30 – had the biggest opening weekend for a movie in streaming history, per new data from Nielsen, beating out second-place Encanto.
• 🎤 Rihanna’s first single in six years – “Lift Me Up,” from the soundtrack of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – was released today.
• 🎓 Donda Academy, the $15,000/year private school founded by Kanye West (Ye), is shutting down for the school year “at the discretion of [its] founder.”

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🪐 NASA’s Mars InSight lander felt the shockwaves from a major meteor strike on the red planet, per a trio of new peer-reviewed studies published this week.
• ⚡ Scientists at UChicago created a new material that can be molded and shaped like plastic, but conducts electricity like a metal, per new research published in Nature.
• 🐝 Bumblebees appear to enjoy playing for play’s sake, without prior training or being rewarded, per a new peer-reviewed study.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🌋 Hawaii officials are warning residents of the Big Island that Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, may erupt soon.
• ⚖️ A Washington state judge fined Meta nearly $25 million for violating campaign finance disclosure laws, in what’s believed to be the largest such fine in American history.
• 🔎 The issues Americans are Googling two weeks from the midterms.

CLICKBAIT

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• Why is Koda's therapy so effective? Jena has an idea: “Koda driving around in her car is nothing but pure, saturated happiness." 

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Rotini pasta
• Green pepper
• Gala apple
• Tomato
• Catalina dressing
• Red onion

✌ Recipe #2:

• Butter
• Chocolate
• Sugar
• Brown sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Flour
• Cocoa powder
• Confectioners’ sugar
• Milk
• Peppermint extract

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Pulled pork
• Cheddar cheese curds
• French fries
• Italian parsley
• Gravy

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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☝️ Recipe #1: Catalina pasta salad

✌ Recipe #2: Mint chocolate brownies

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Pulled pork poutine