Good morning and Happy Election Day (November EIGHTH)! Make sure to go vote, if you haven’t already.

You can find your nearest polling location here.

In today’s edition:

• 🗳️🤔 So, you voted. What happens next?
• 🪙 The Feds seize billions in illicit crypto
• 🍿 Hollywood is becoming less original

…and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.68 minutes to read.

“Take interest and even delight in doing the small things well.”

–Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

Yesterday we accidentally said Election Day 2022 was on Tuesday, November 7, instead of Tuesday, November 8🤦‍♀️. Our apologies for any confusion. (And would you believe us if we chalked it up to Daylight Savings Time?)

Over the next 17+ hours, millions of Americans will fill out or drop off a midterm election ballot at their respective polling locations across the country. But the real work begins after polls close, when election officials in all 50 states start canvassing, aka counting up the votes.

🗳️ A deeper dive… While voting rules vary from state to state, all of them use electronic vote tabulators. Research shows it’s much faster and slightly more accurate than counting by hand.

• Different safeguards are in place across all 50 states to guarantee the accuracy of machine-counted votes, including frequent audits and the existence of paper ballots for recounts.
• As of 2020, less than 9% of America lived in a county that used electronic voting machines without paper trails for all voters – the lowest level on record.
• Rules for recounts also vary by state. Some are automatically triggered in the event of a close result (often 0.5%), while other states allow candidates the option to request a recount.

👀 Looking ahead… Though it depends on the state – each has different rules for when and how votes are counted – we probably won't get the results before heading to bed tonight, thanks to a rise in voting by mail. And in close races, where recounts are possible and legal challenges expected (and, in some cases, already underway), we likely won't know the outcome for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

🇵🇪 Thousands of protesters gathered across Peru over the weekend for anti-government demonstrations☝️. Protesters are seeking the resignation of embattled President Pedro Castillo, who's currently the subject of six ongoing criminal corruption investigations (but denies any wrongdoing). Peru is also facing a number of economic issues, including spiraling living costs, per BBC News. The country has yet to fully recover from Covid, with nationwide poverty levels forecast to remain above pre-pandemic levels for the next two years, per the World Bank.

🇨🇳 China’s Covid lockdowns are affecting iPhone 14 production. In a statement, Apple said its primary iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max assembly plant in Zhengzhou is operating at “significantly reduced capacity,” warning of longer wait times for consumers when ordering the devices. Chinese officials are reportedly considering steps toward ending the country's strict zero-Covid policy, but are proceeding slowly and have set no timeline, per the WSJ.

🇵🇰 After being shot last Thursday, former Pakistani PM Imran Khan alleged the country’s leader and government were behind the attack. Though Khan hasn’t offered any evidence for this claim, which the government and incumbent PM have denied. Khan was shot in the leg as he stood atop a makeshift stage mounted on a truck while leading a protest convoy to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. The Pakistani government said a lone religious fanatic was caught at the scene and confessed to the attack.

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Tens of thousands of innocent bitcoin are now sleeping safe and sound in their beds at home, thanks to a recent federal investigation. The DOJ seized more than $3.36 billion worth of the cryptocurrency late last year as part of a fraud case involving the Silk Road dark web marketplace, federal authorities announced yesterday. It's the second-largest crypto recovery in US history.

🌐 More details… The Silk Road was a dark web marketplace that facilitated the sale of illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services. From when it was created in 2011 until 2013, when the Feds shut it down, about 9.5 million bitcoins changed hands on the platform (context: it dealt exclusively in bitcoin).

More than 175,000 bitcoin ended up being seized by authorities as part of the initial investigation leading to the marketplace's closure, but it was suspected tens of thousands more were still missing.

• Last November, the FBI raided the home of a 32-year-old Georgia man named James Zhong and discovered over 50,000 bitcoin on a computer in his basement. Zhong later pleaded guilty to stealing the crypto from Silk Road in 2012.
• The agency declined to say how exactly it traced the stolen bitcoins to Zhong. But in previous high-profile cases, authorities tracked missing funds through different crypto wallets until they found exchanges where the suspects had input their real names.

📉 Zoom out: In a prime example of how crypto hasn't favored the bold, the Feds’ $3.36 billion seizure is worth around $1 billion today – a ~70% drop.

+Dive deeper: Crypto is often hailed as an anonymous way to do business… but that’s only partially true.

As inflation continues to drive the price of… basically everything higher, one rogue government actor is bucking the trend: the TSA.

According to a Friday announcement, the agency is dropping the price of its enrollment fee for TSA PreCheck ahead of the holiday travel season. Now, it’ll cost you $78 instead of the previous $85. And accessing the program’s perks is like singing backup in the Jackson 5 – as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Apply. First-time applicants must apply online, then schedule an in-person interview at one of more than 500 US enrollment centers.
2. Interview. Undergo a background check and get fingerprinted. Once approved, a process typically taking three to five days, then comes step #3.
3. Unlock. For the next five years, this stamp of TSA approval grants access to the special airport security line – where shoes stay on and the people actually smile. 93% of PreCheck passengers spent less than five minutes at security checkpoints in September, per the agency.

✈️📈 Zoom out: Outside of the PreCheck bubble, inflation, high travel demand, and plane and labor shortages are taking their toll. The price of taking a flight has jumped 25% this year, the largest increase since the government started tracking airline ticket prices in 1989, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

+In the know: The number of people traveling in US airports surpassed pre-pandemic levels for the first time in late October. And it’s only expected to get busier through the end of the year: 44% of America plans to spend money on flights or hotel stays during the holiday season, per a recent Nerdwallet survey.

💬 Quoted…​​ “We will work with the school to resolve the situation."

The College Board is currently working to “determine a remedy” after the SATs of 55 Texas high school students were lost when their test papers flew out of a UPS truck.

• The affected students will be allowed to take the ACT next month at no cost, though one student told CNN he already missed an early application deadline for Texas A&M University.

🎥🍿 Stat of the Day: It’s not just your imagination – the data also says Hollywood is becoming more and more unoriginal. In 1981, 16% of the top twenty-five box office films were sequels, spin-offs, or remakes. In 2019, that number clocked-in at 80%, Harper’s Index reports.

🤯 Did You Know?... Emotional heartbreak can actually, physically break your heart, resulting in heart attack-like symptoms – and in rare cases, death.

📖 Worth a Read: Building American Dynamism → (Future)

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• ☝️ You're looking at the winner of the 2022 Ocean Photographer of the Year awards, depicting the moment a surfer in French Polynesia gets wiped out by turbulence from one of the heaviest waves in the world.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🛻🔋 Foxconn, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer for electronics, announced a new $170 million investment in EV truck maker Lordstown Motors.
• 🔎🏘️ Airbnb will soon allow guests to filter their search results by the total cost of the stay before taxes – including the infamous cleaning fees – per CEO Brian Chesky.
• 👓 Meta will notify employees of large-scale layoffs later this week, per the WSJ.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 Netflix announced that its Monster series – the first season of which was about Jeffrey Dahmer – has been renewed for two more seasons as an anthology series; the streaming giant also ordered Season 2 of The Watcher.
• ⚽️💰 Fenway Sports Group, owners of the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins, are reportedly interested in selling English Premier League's Liverpool, currently valued at $4.45 billion.
• 🥊 A UFC fight on Saturday, which ended abruptly in the first round, is being investigated by a US-based betting integrity firm after several sportsbooks across multiple states reported suspicious wagering.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚁 Scientists from the University of Ontario created a drone that can “see through walls” using WiFi.
• 🩸 Blood grown in a laboratory was recently transfused into humans for the first time ever in a landmark UK clinical trial.
• 🤖 Google researchers developed a robot that can program itself by writing code based on natural language instructions.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🚨 Tyson Foods CFO John Tyson, son of Chairman John H. Tyson, was arrested early Sunday after allegedly becoming intoxicated and falling asleep in the wrong house.
• 🌍 What happened yesterday at COP27 climate talks in Egypt.

CLICKBAIT

• 🍿 At long last, David Chase explains Tony's fate in The Sopranos.
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Yesterday, we covered the 2022 midterm elections, which take place today (Tuesday, November 8).

❓ Our question to you: Which generic Congressional candidate do you plan on voting for this election?

• 🔴 The Republican one: 29%
• 🔵 The Democratic one: 36%
• 3️⃣ One from a third party: 12%
• 🙅‍♀️ Who votes anyways? (OR under 18): 14%
• 🤷‍♀️ I haven’t made up my mind yet: 9%

See the full 360° view.

+Note on sample size: We received 8,419 responses.👏🥳

When multiple truckloads full of avocados were about to go bad in Philadelphia, word spread quickly through the local community. 

Hoping to reduce the amount of food waste – and knowing people's affinity for the nutritious green fruit – the nonprofit Sharing Excess hosted an event to give away as many free avocados as they could. 

And boy, did people show up.

🥑 Avogeddon is here... More than 10,000 people lined up to get their free case of 'cados. By the end of the day, ten staff members and a handful of volunteers had distributed 444,672 avocados, with another 153,600 sent to local food banks😳.

Name the movies these poorly-explained movie plots describe.

1. Man’s midlife crisis endangers his family and the entire city.
2. Billions of dollars in subsidies for a potato farmer.
3. Immigrant adoptee experiences culture shock and prejudice.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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Start referring.👇

1. The Incredibles (2004)
2. The Martian (2015)
3. Elf (2003)