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But don’t worry – we’ve got the perfect gift idea that’ll cost you precisely $0. Ready? Call your mom or dad and say, with a hint of gratitude in your voice, “Hey, I just wanted to let you know… you were sooooooo right.”

Don’t say anything after that. Simply wait – they’ll “know” what you’re talking about. And it’ll make them happier than any sandalwood candle or cozy slippers ever could.

P.S. It also costs a sweet $0 to give someone you love a subscription to The DONUT. So pls do that, too🙃 (share link located at the bottom of this email).

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.93 minutes to read.

“A good character is the best tombstone. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.”

–Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)

The House approved a bill enshrining the right to same-sex marriage into law on Thursday, sending it to President Biden’s desk. The vote was 258 to 169, with all Democrats present joined by 39 Republicans in supporting the measure.

📝🏳️‍🌈 A deeper dive… The Respect For Marriage Act (RFMA), which passed the Senate by a 61-36 margin late last month, would require all US states and territories to recognize valid marriages from other states where same-sex marriage is legal.

• The bill would also explicitly protect the right to interracial marriage, as well as repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which set the federal definition of marriage as between opposite sexes.

⚖️ Viewpoints: The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across all 50 states in its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, but proponents of the RFMA say the new law is necessary in case the Supreme Court later re-evaluates its stance.

Opponents of the bill argue it addresses a problem that doesn’t exist, and raise concerns about the liberties of people and organizations that oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds.

• An amendment added during congressional negotiations ensures faith-based organizations wouldn’t lose tax-exempt status or risk federal grant money over objections to same-sex marriage. The bill also wouldn’t change existing laws allowing places of worship to refuse to conduct such marriages.

👀 Looking ahead… President Biden has said he’ll “promptly” sign the bill.

📊 Flash poll: Do you support the Respect For Marriage Act?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

⚽ American sports journalist Grant Wahl died while covering the World Cup in Qatar. The 49-year-old was a longtime Sports Illustrated journalist who wrote the magazine's first cover story on LeBron James in 2002, and previously attempted to run for FIFA president. He reportedly collapsed in his seat during a match between Argentina and the Netherlands on Saturday, passing away shortly thereafter. An official cause of death has yet to be announced. Earlier last week, Wahl wrote that he was feeling under the weather and visited a local medical clinic, where he was diagnosed with bronchitis.

🇨🇳 Schools and businesses across China were closed over the weekend due to a rise in Covid cases. It’s unclear exactly how much infection numbers have increased in recent days, since China ended mandatory testing for its citizens last week. But outside experts and local business owners are reporting that economic activity has decreased in major cities like Beijing since Covid restrictions were loosened, with many attributing the decline to rising case numbers.

🇬🇧 Hundreds of thousands of UK workers are planning to strike this month for higher pay. Some 115,000 postal workers held the first of six planned strikes on Friday, while tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, security guards, railway and airport staff, and other employees across the country have announced similar intentions. Labor leaders say they’re seeking increased wages amidst historically high inflation in the UK.

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Following a loooong journey through space, NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashed into the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California yesterday morning. And with its touchdown, the first mission of the multi-step Artemis program – which aims to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – is now complete.

The main objective of this now-completed mission, called Artemis 1, was to send the Orion spacecraft in orbit around the Moon, then guide it safely back to Earth. The craft was unmanned, which allowed the agency to test Orion – especially its heat shield – in preparation for subsequent manned Artemis missions.

All-in-all, the program’s first mission was about as successful as a neurosurgeon with four other advanced degrees. The heat shield successfully withstood temps of nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or about half the temp of the Sun’s surface, upon reentry. And the Orion spacecraft also put up some impressive numbers over the course of its travels.

• The spacecraft journeyed more than 1.4 million miles over its 25.5 days in space.
• At one point, Orion was 268,563 miles away from Earth – the furthest a craft designed to carry humans has ever gone (previously 248,655 miles).
• It also came within 80 miles of the Moon’s surface, twice.

👩‍🚀 Next up: Artemis 2, which involves similar steps to Artemis 1 – except with a crew of live astronauts. This mission is expected to launch sometime in 2024.

+Fun fact: Specific re-entry maneuvers combined with three huge parachutes slowed Orion from 24,000 MPH – its speed when entering the upper atmosphere – to around 18 MPH, its speed when hitting the ocean.

Like a sprinter at a track meet, a class-action lawsuit brought by three Canadian parents against Fortnite-maker Epic Games just cleared a major hurdle. On Friday, a member of Canada’s Supreme Court deemed the case to have merit, allowing it to proceed through the courts.

The suit accuses Epic Games of deliberately designing Fortnite – which has more than 350 million registered users and raked in almost $6 billion on in-game purchases last year – to be highly addictive, consulting psychologists, statisticians, and others over the course of its development to further that goal.

This has led to real-world consequences, per the parents in the suit, who say the game’s addictive properties have caused their kids to become dependent upon it, forgoing eating, sleeping, and showering.

• One of the children cited in the lawsuit reportedly played 7,700+ hours of the game in less than two years. For context, a full-time job takes up roughly 2,000 hours/year.

🤔 So, what’s next?... Per the judge’s ruling, players who live in Quebec and experienced symptoms of addiction after playing Fortnite can join the legal action – which Epic Games plans to fight. In a statement provided to the BBC, the company pointed to the game’s parental controls, which allow parents to block unapproved purchases and track their child’s time-played.

🎮🧠 Zoom out: The WHO deemed video game addiction to be an official mental health disorder in 2018 (though not all mental health professionals agree).

💬 Quoted…​​ “There’s a disconnect between what everyday Americans want and deserve from our politics, and what political parties are offering.”

On Friday, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced she’s leaving the Democratic party to become an Independent. 

• The move won’t change the power balance in the Senate, as Sinema said she doesn’t plan to caucus with Republicans – meaning Dems still have a 50-49 majority in the chamber without her support (plus VP Kamala Harris as a tie-breaking vote, if necessary).
• Over her first three years as senator, Sinema voted with the Democratic party 97% of the time, per data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

📉 Stats of the Day: The average US retail investor’s stock portfolio is down 30% so far this year, per data from Vanda Research. The S&P 500 has fallen 17% over the same period.

🤯 Did You Know?... The iconic beat from the theme song in Mission Impossible – “long long short short” – was inspired by the initials ‘MI’ in Morse code.

📖 Worth a Read: The sneaky economics of Ticketmaster → (The Hustle)

😮‍💨 Inflation has peaked. The Fed stops raising interest rates. Markets have finally bottomed, and a new bull market begins. The question is, will you be prepared?

📈🏃‍♀️ Well, we know over 40,000 investors that'll thank The Average Joe — one of the most engaging and concise investing newsletters filled with market insights, trends, and ideas.👌

🗣️ Here’s how one reader feels: “I enjoy the humor including memes, the info-rich one-liners, the more in-depth articles and the interesting charts. Thanks! A nice job in a short form that I like.”

Don’t just sit on the sidelines. Subscribe to The Average Joe today, for free.

• ☝️ You’re looking at one of National Geographic’s 2022 Pictures of the Year; the image is a combination of 44 photos showing a sunrise, a full moon, and a rare alignment of four planets in Bear Ears Mountain National Park, Utah.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell for the fourth straight week to reach 6.33%, per Freddie Mac; that’s down from 7.08% in early November.
• ⚖ FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will testify before the House Financial Services committee, per his tweets last Friday; SBF had previously missed the deadline to respond to the Committee’s invitation to testify. | The Block, a crypto news outlet, received funding from SBF’s trading firm for over a year w/o disclosing it, per Axios.
• ☑️ Twitter is relaunching Twitter Blue today; the subscription service will cost $11/month through Apple's App Store, or $8/month on the web.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈🏆 Caleb Williams won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday; Lincoln Riley, Williams’ head coach at USC, has now coached three Heisman winning quarterbacks in his six-year career.
• ⚽ Morocco upset Portugal 1-0 to become the first African team ever to reach the World Cup semifinals; France, Croatia, and Argentina round out the final four, which begins tomorrow.
• 🍿 The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser, brought in an average of $60,000/screen over its opening weekend limited release, the highest for an arthouse film this year. | Taylor Swift will write and direct a feature film for Fox Searchlight.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 📱👶 The more time women spend on mom-focused social media sites, the higher their stress levels, per a new study from Pepperdine University.
• 🚀 Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa handpicked an eight-person crew of artists to bring on his upcoming trip around the moon set for sometime next year; the list includes DJ Steve Aoki, K-pop rapper T.O.P., and YouTuber Tim Dodd.
• 🌕 A UAE moon lander blasted off into space yesterday atop a SpaceX rocket; the mission, facilitated by Japanese startup iSpace, will attempt to land the first Arab-made lander on the moon around April 2023.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🛢️ The Keystone oil pipeline was shut down on Friday after more than 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled in a small Kansas county; the cause of the leak was still undetermined as of yesterday.
• ✈️ A Libyan man suspected of making the bomb that destroyed a passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 – killing 270 people, including 190 Americans – has been taken into US custody, authorities announced yesterday.
• 🏛️ Newly-elected Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), the first Gen Z member of Congress, said his application for an apartment in D.C. was denied last week over “really bad credit.”

CLICKBAIT

• 🎄📅 Why is Christmas celebrated on Dec. 25?
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CORRECTION: On Friday, we mistakenly said Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision Blizzard was $75 million instead of $75 billion🤦‍♀️. Apologies for any confusion.

On Monday, we covered the growing number of US state governments and federal agencies banning TikTok from their devices over national security concerns.

❓ Our question to you was: In your opinion, should TikTok be banned from every device in the US?

• 👍 Yes: 61%
• 👎 No: 22%
• 🤷‍♀️ Other/unsure: 17%

See the full 360° view.

+Note on sample size: We received 12,183 votes, and 728 long-form responses (this was quite a popular one).

Monday: Gingerbread House Day

Tuesday: Consumer Price Index for November is released

Wednesday: The Federal Reserve will likely raise interest rates following its two-day meeting

Thursday: Ticketmaster’s CEO testifies before Congress over its recent Taylor Swift situation

Friday: College football bowl season kicks off with the Bahamas Bowl and Cure Bowl; Avatar 2 hits theaters

+This weekend: Hannukah begins Sunday evening

When Brenda Gomez Hernandez went into labor on November 9th, she knew for obvious reasons it would be a day to remember. Labor went smoothly, and soon Brenda was holding her baby girl in her arms. 

And as if welcoming her daughter wasn't enough of a gift, just a few hours later Brenda won the lottery. 

👶 Good luck charm?... Brenda was shocked when she discovered her ticket would claim that day's $100,000 Powerball drawing. The best part? The devoted mom used the birthdays of her other children to pick the numbers. 

• “I feel like she brought me my luck,” shared Brenda of her new bundle of joy. “When I found out I cried... I’m just so excited and happy.”

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

1. Nomin
2. Junct
3. Oper
4. Pen
5. Potam

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Nomin = Name (e.g., nominate)
2. Junct = Join (conjunction, junction, what’s that function?)
3. Oper = Work (operate, opera)
4. Pen = Almost (peninsula, penultimate)
5. Potam = River (hippopotamus, Mesopotamia)