Good morning. We’ve got a jam-packed newsletter, so let’s rock ‘n roll📰🤘🎸.

In today’s edition:

• 🗳 We’re one day away from midterms
• 🎰👀 The Powerball jackpot is almost at $2 billion
• 😬 It was a rough weekend for Philly sports fans

… and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.78 minutes to read.

“There is peace even in the storm.”

–Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

We're officially one day away from the midterm elections, held this year on Tuesday, November 7. Though early voting is already in full swing across the 46 states where it’s allowed.

🏛️🗳️ A deeper dive… All 435 House seats are up for election, as are 35 Senate seats – 14 currently held by Democrats and 21 by Republicans. The GOP only needs to flip one seat to win back the Senate, and four seats to gain control of the House.

• So far, more than 40 million Americans have voted early. That’s already more than the previous midterm early-voting high, set during the 2018 elections.
• Overall, more Democrats (43%) have voted early than Republicans (34%), a trend also seen in 2020.

☝️ What do the polls say?... In generic polling, Republicans appear to have pulled ahead of Democrats, gaining a 2.5% lead this month per RealClearPolitics. Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight projects there's a 54% chance Republicans take control of the Senate, and an 83% chance the GOP wins back the House (compared to 45% and 81% when we last covered the midterms two weeks ago).

• Historically, a first-term president’s party usually suffers some losses in the midterms. Especially when that president is as unpopular nationally as Biden, who’s currently hovering around 42% job approval (down 1% from last month), the lowest non-Trump rating at this point in the presidency since Ronald Reagan.

📊 Flash poll: Which generic Congressional candidate do you plan on voting for this midterm election?

The Republican one

The Democratic one

One from a third party (Libertarian, Green, etc.)

Who votes anyways? (OR our under-18 folks)

I haven’t made up my mind yet

🌎 More than 120 world leaders arrived in Egypt for COP27, a two-week climate conference that kicked off yesterday. In a World Leaders Summit later today, heads of state and government leaders from around the world will each deliver five-minute addresses outlining what they want from the climate summit. Which began around the same time a new UN report was published that found the past eight years were the warmest on record going back to 1850.

🇮🇷 New protests erupted in Iran on Sunday across a dozen-plus northern cities. Mass anti-government protests, inspired by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police, are entering their seventh straight week, with no signs of slowing down. 318 protesters have been killed in the unrest as of Saturday, including 49 minors, per activist HRANA news agency. Thirty-eight members of Iran’s security forces have also been killed.

🇮🇳 Toxic smog engulfed India’s capital city of New Delhi on Friday, halting daily life for ~20 million residents. The city’s average air quality index, which measures the concentration of particularly harmful pollutants in the air, crossed 470 on Friday – well above the 300 threshold classified as “hazardous.” Many parts of New Delhi even recorded an AQI of more than 600. Local authorities closed schools and businesses for the day, and said they’re considering a system where vehicles with odd and even-numbered license plates would be banned from operating on alternating days.

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Saturday's record $1.6 billion Powerball drawing has come and gone – and still no winner. Since then, the record jackpot ate a Mario mushroom and powered-up (😉) to reach $1.9 billion, according to California officials, the new largest lottery prize in history.

And if you think this news is just something for your grandpa or wacky aunt, you may want to reconsider. Since its revival in 1964, the lottery has grown to become something of an American institution.

• 42% of US adults report playing the lottery at least once last year.
• Americans spent over $105 billion on lottery tickets in 2021. That’s more than on books, concert and movie tickets, and video streaming services… combined.

🎟🎰 Looking ahead… The next drawing is tonight. And should a lucky human beat the 1 in 292+ million odds of winning, they can take their loot in one of two ways: lump sum or annuity.

Choosing the lump sum route would result in a one-time payment of $929.1 million (before the taxman cometh, of course). Opting for the annuity route means the entire jackpot would be doled out in a series of increasing payments over 29 years.

+Dive deeper: Into the history of the lottery here.

Astronomers have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth, per a new peer-reviewed study published last week. Called Gaia BH1, it’s a comparatively small specimen – about 10x more massive than the Sun😳 – that’s around 1,600 light-years away.

🌌 Background: A black hole is a place in space where gravity is so intense that even light, the fastest known entity in our universe, can’t escape. Scientists believe virtually all large galaxies, including the Milky Way, have a supermassive black hole – millions, or even billions, times more massive than the Sun😳😳 – at their centers.

Then, there are stellar-mass black holes.

• These weigh 5x–100x the mass of the Sun, and are much more common than supermassive black holes.
• Astronomers estimate the Milky Way alone contains 100 million stellar-mass black holes, though only ~20 have been confirmed to date.

🔭 Back to Gaia BH1… The newly-discovered stellar-mass black hole is about twice as close to Earth as the previous record holder. And unlike all other known black holes, which pull in matter from nearby stars that orbit them, Gaia BH1 and its companion star are quietly orbiting in space at about the same distance from each other as the Earth and Sun – like a lion and its prey, quietly stuck in the pre-chase stage.

+Dive deeper: Learn more about black holes here.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Today’s report shows that the job market is losing altitude, but isn’t in danger of slamming into the ground yet,” per Glassdoor economist Daniel Zhao.

The US economy added 261,000 jobs last month – higher than the 205,000 jobs economists expected and lower than the 315,000 jobs added in September, per new Labor Department data published Friday.

• The nationwide unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7% (from 3.5%), while average wages rose 0.4% month-over-month.

🦠 Stat of the Day: About 3 in every 100,000 US patients with the flu are being hospitalized, the highest rate in over a decade, per new CDC data.

🤯 Did You Know?... Most non-human primate infants actively use their hands to help themselves out of the birth canal – and while human babies don’t, studies show that their grip strength is elevated in the hours after they’re born. (The baby version of dad-strength.)

📖 Worth a Read: TikTok’s Stratospheric Rise: An Oral History → (WSJ)

😓📉 That’s not cigar smoke you smell, it's your investment portfolio after the complete market meltdown. Let’s face it – the bull run is over.

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• ☝️ 🎸 Dolly Parton, Eminem, Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Lionel Richie, and Carly Simon were all officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony on Saturday.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈📉 US stocks rose across the board on Friday, but finished the week lower for the first time in over a month. (Dow: + 1.3% | S&P: +1.4% | Nasdaq: +1.3%)
• 🌿 Sean “Diddy” Combs signed a deal worth up to $185 million to create America's "biggest Black-owned and licensed cannabis company," if approved by regulators, per the WSJ.
• 🐦 ​​Twitter formally rolled out its $7.99/month "Twitter Blue" subscription service; CEO Elon Musk tweeted yesterday that accounts “engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying 'parody' will be permanently suspended without warning."

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆⚾⚽ Tough luck, Philly: The Houston Astros defeated the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday to win the World Series, with ‘Stros shortstop Jeremy Peña earning World Series MVP; Los Angeles FC defeated the Philadelphia Union 3-0 on penalty kicks to win the franchise’s first-ever MLS Cup. (Though there is some good news for Philly: the Eagles are 8-0.)
• 🎽 Evans Chebet and Sharon Lokedi completed a Kenyan sweep of the men’s and women’s races at the TCS NYC Marathon yesterday.
• 🎤 Singer Aaron Carter, 34, who became a teenage sensation in the 2000s following his hit "I Want Candy" and singing about how he beat Shaq in a game of HORSE, was found dead at his home on Saturday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌘 A ‘blood moon’ eclipse will take place early tomorrow morning (5:00–6:45 am ET); it’ll be the last total lunar eclipse until 2025.
• 🚀 Another Chinese rocket plunged uncontrollably back to Earth over the weekend, this time landing harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean; it marks the fourth such Chinese rocket re-entry in the past three years.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🎁 72% of US consumers plan to look for less expensive alternatives this holiday season as a result of inflation, per a new Morning Consult survey.
• 🏛️ President Joe Biden and former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama all campaigned in Pennsylvania over the weekend ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 💉 Why don't we have a vaccine for the common cold?
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On Friday, we covered the record-high number of migrant arrests on the US southern border last fiscal year, driven largely by an influx of Venezuelan, Cuban, and Nicaraguan migrants attempting to cross the border.

❓ Our question to you: Do you personally consider illegal immigration to be: a crisis, a fairly significant problem, a minor problem, or not a problem for the US?

• Follow-up: ​​In your view, do you think US immigration should be kept at its present level, increased or decreased?

RESPONSES

• ❗ Crisis (37%): Of this group, 19% said immigration should be increased, 63% said it should be decreased, and 18% said it should be kept at its present level.
• 🤔 Fairly significant problem (29%): 31% said immigration should be increased, 34% said it should be decreased, and 35% said it should be kept at its present level.
• 🤷‍♀️ Minor problem (21%): 52% said immigration should be increased, 10% said it should be decreased, and 38% said it should be kept at its present level.
• 🙅‍♀️ Not a problem (13%): 78% said immigration should be increased, 4% said it should be decreased, and 18% said it should be kept at its present level.

+Dive deeper: See the full 360° view.

Note on sample size: We received 9,054 responses.👏🥳

Monday: Activision Blizzard, BioNTech, Groupon, and Lyft report earnings

Tuesday: Election Day 2022

Wednesday: National Louisiana Day

Thursday: Consumer Price Index for October; the Marine Corps’ 247th birthday

Friday: Veterans Day; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters

Margaret Masters loves to dance. The 99-year-old Louisiana woman has been a member of the Silver Sneakers Zumba classes at her local fitness center for years. 

• Through surgeries, the pandemic, and even a hurricane, Margaret never stopped dancing. 

💃🏆 Now that's commitment... The nonagenarian was honored with the Silver Sneakers' Member of the Year award last summer for her commitment to health and wellbeing. 

• "I don't let myself sit down and slow down," she shared."You need to move!"

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

1. Hydr
2. Feder
3. Graph
4. Mort
5. Gust

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Hydr = water (e.g., hydro, hydrate)
2. Feder = treaty/agreement (confederation)
3. Graph = draw/write (graphic)
4. Mort = death (mortality, mortician)
5. Gust = taste (disgusting)