Good morning. On today’s docket:

• 📝 Meta was sued by 40+ attorneys general
• ☄️🫙 NASA is struggling to open its asteroid sample container
• 👻 How “voluntary scare experiences” can be beneficial

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.94-minute read.

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"Success is built sequentially. It's one thing at a time."

–Gary W. Keller (b.1957)

US lawmakers across the political spectrum are asking the Supreme Court to overturn two recent court decisions limiting the ability of local governments to enforce camping bans on homeless residents.

🤔 What’s going on?... Over the past month-and-a-half, dozens of organizations and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle – including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and a group of 20 Republican state AGs – have filed amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to strike down a pair of Ninth Circuit Court rulings from 2018 and 2022 concerning homelessness.

• Collectively, the rulings deem it unconstitutional for cities to clear homeless camps or issue citations to campers, unless local governments can also offer them adequate housing.

🗣️ The arguments: Judges on the Ninth Circuit Court previously ruled that enforcing anti-camping restrictions on people who don’t have “access to adequate temporary shelter” is a violation of the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Homeless rights advocates also contend that local governments should focus their efforts on solving the root causes of homelessness, instead of penalizing its victims.

On the flip side, many city leaders, civic groups, business organizations, and law-enforcement officials have expressed frustration with the Ninth Circuit’s rulings. These groups say the decisions prevent them from addressing a recent surge in homeless encampments that often place local residents and businesses in danger, since very few cities have enough shelter beds to serve their entire homeless populations.

📸 Big picture: An estimated 580,000 Americans are currently experiencing homelessness, with roughly half living in the nine Western states covered by the Ninth Circuit Court. The overall figure includes ~234,000 homeless individuals who sleep outdoors in tents or other places not intended for habitation, per a recent federal tally.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should local governments be allowed to clear homeless camps without also offering alternative housing to all homeless residents?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

🇧🇷 A record drought in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest has revealed ancient human face carvings. The Amazon River has fallen as much as 50 feet since July, revealing an array of 1,000- to 2,000-year-old rock carvings last seen during a similar drought in 2010. In addition to anthropomorphic faces and depictions of water, some rocks display grooves that suggest the site was also used to produce stone tools.

💥 Israel-Hamas war update: Israel’s military continued to launch airstrikes targeting Gaza, with Hamas officials saying such attacks killed at least 704 people over the 24-hour period ending yesterday afternoon (which couldn’t be independently verified). A UN agency that represents the largest provider of humanitarian support in the Gaza Strip said it would be forced to shut down operations by tonight if more aid, including fuel, doesn’t arrive before then. On the US side, President Biden held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman yesterday, in which the two leaders agreed to pursue efforts aimed at preventing the war from spreading to other countries in the Middle East.

🇮🇸 Iceland experienced its first full-day women’s strike since 1975. At least 25,000 women and nonbinary people, including Iceland’s female prime minister and other women in her Cabinet, went on strike yesterday to push for an end to unequal pay and gender-based violence. While Iceland has been considered the most gender-equal country in the world by the WEF for 14 years running, the country’s collective gender pay gap between women and men stands at 10.2%, and over 40% of Icelandic women have experienced gender-based or sexual violence.

Did you miss out on the massive returns in the SmartHome space? Like Roomba and Ring being acquired by Amazon for $1.7B and $1.2B each? Or when Google paid $3.2B for Next?

Don’t worry, friend. Roomba changed vacuums. Ring changed doorbells. And now, RYSE is changing SmartShades (a market growing 55% annually)… and you can still get in before they launch in over 100 Best Buys later this month.

• RYSE’s technology retrofits regular shades and installs in just minutes, giving the masses an easy and affordable way to upgrade to SmartShades.

👏 They already have 100s of investors, and even received a $4M grant from the Canadian government to develop clean-tech products.

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More than 40 attorneys general sued Meta yesterday, accusing the social media company of illegally misleading the public about the harm its products could impose on children and teens. The result? It helped fuel a youth mental health crisis, the complaints allege.

The crux: Meta’s business model is dependent upon users spending as much time on its apps as possible. Which, the attorneys general allege, causes the company to intentionally design its products to keep young users engaged longer and repeatedly coming back, despite the negative mental health effects. Think: constant notifications, as well as features like infinite scroll and disappearing Stories (which creates FOMO, at least one suit alleges).

• An internal Meta finding revealed in the WSJ’s 2021 Facebook Files investigation showed 32% of teen girls who felt bad about their bodies said using Instagram made them feel worse.

✋ Yes, but: Meta has argued that research on this topic is mixed. And the science is complicated. A 2020 meta-analysis of meta-analyses (aka the gold standard of statistical reviews) found increased use of digital technology led to a small negative effect on well-being, but a causal link between the two was difficult to pinpoint.

📸 Big picture: The AGs’ overall legal strategy has been compared to the various lawsuits filed against Big Tobacco in the 1990s, which led to hundreds of billions of dollars in damages and changed how the industry markets its products.

NASA is currently struggling to open a container holding samples from the asteroid Bennu – and it’s not like they can just call on the Incredible Hulk to brute-force the lid open (like with a jar of pickles).

Background: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission dropped off a container with a sample from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert this past September.

The good news? The space agency was already able to extract 70 grams of samples collected from the asteroid, above the minimum threshold it was shooting for.

The bad news? It’s still unable to access the bulk of the materials, which are stored inside something called a Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). Per NASA, "two of the 35 fasteners on the TAGSAM head [can’t] be removed."

• Herein lies the challenge: the TAGSAM is enclosed in what’s essentially a glass container purged with nitrogen to prevent any Earthly contamination (shown above).
• With the tools already inside the glass container, scientists are unable to open the TAGSAM. They’re currently trying to come up with a workaround that doesn’t contaminate the sample.

🤔 Why study asteroids?... They could help us ascertain how both the Earth and life on Earth came to be. Bennu appears to be rich in both water and carbon, supporting the theory that space rocks may have played an important role in the development of life on our planet.

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💬 Quoted… “When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits.”

• In an order published yesterday morning with immediate effect, California’s DMV suspended the permits allowing GM-owned Cruise’s self-driving taxis to operate within the state. The agency said its suspension came after it determined Cruise vehicles weren’t safe for public operation, and that Cruise misrepresented information related to its autonomous vehicle technology. Over the past year, Cruise vehicles in San Francisco have held up traffic, disrupted emergency situations, and injured pedestrians.

⚾ Stat of the Day: Last night marked the Philadelphia Phillies’ first MLB postseason Game 7 in the team’s 141-year history – a timeframe longer than their opponent, Arizona, has been a US state.

🤔 Did You Know?... Voluntary scare experiences (aka haunted houses or related attractions) typically put people in better moods and induce calming effects similar to meditation, according to a 2019 peer-reviewed study in the journal Emotion (after they leave, that is).

📰 Worth a Read: The Laughing Cavalier: The masterpiece that became a meme → (BBC Culture)

• ☝️ You’re looking at a visual representation of the world’s fastest-growing economies in 2024, according to recent projections from the International Monetary Fund.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Finance Buzz

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board (S&P: +0.7%; Dow: +0.6%; Nasdaq: +0.9%). | 🪙 Bitcoin topped $35,000 for the first time since May 2022.
• 🚗 GM reported Q3 earnings above Wall Street estimates, but lowered its full-year guidance due to the UAW strike. | 🪧 Speaking of: The UAW expanded its strikes against GM hours after the automaker reported earnings. (Background)
• 🔤 Alphabet reported earnings and revenue that outpaced analysts’ projections, but its cloud business missed estimates; shares dropped ~7% in extended trading. | 💻 Microsoft reported earnings and revenue that beat estimates; shares jumped as much as 6% in extended trading.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📖🎤 The Woman in Me, a memoir by Britney Spears, hit bookshelves nationwide yesterday.
• 🍎📺 Apple is reportedly planning to launch a redesigned version of its TV app around December, in a step towards consolidating its video offerings.
• ⚾ MLB Playoffs: The Diamondbacks beat the Phillies 4-2 in Game 7 of the NLCS last night to advance to their first World Series since 2001.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Tenikle

• 🏞️❄️ A vast, hidden landscape of hills and valleys that has been “frozen in time” underneath Antarctica’s ice sheet for 14+ million years was recently discovered by an international team of scientists.
• 📅 Early humans bred with Neanderthals as early as 250,000 years ago, more than 3x further back than scientists previously thought, according to a new peer-reviewed study.
• 💉🦠 AstraZeneca asked the FDA to allow Americans to administer their own annual flu shots at home.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ✈️ An off-duty pilot who police say tried to cut the engines on an Alaska Airlines flight believed he was experiencing a mental breakdown and had taken psychedelic mushrooms 48 hours prior to takeoff, per a federal criminal complaint.
• 🏥 The number of clinician-provided abortions in the US rose by 0.2% year-over-year to reach ~988,000 over the 12-month period ending in June 2023, with abortions rising in mostly-legal states and falling in states where it’s restricted, per a new report.
• 🏛️ House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) dropped out of the speaker race about four hours after he became the GOP nominee; House GOP Vice Chair Mike Johnson (R-LA) was then chosen as the nominee in a late-night round of voting; the full House is set to vote on a speaker this afternoon. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🗣️👂 Hear what ancient languages might have sounded like.

👆 A farm in Southampton, UK, took their pumpkin art very seriously this year.

The team at Sunnyfields Farm spent days planning the pumpkin and squash mosaic; when it finally came time to put the piece together, it took them about five hours to complete. 

• The mosaic depicts Jack Skellington's famous moonlight stance, and is in honor of the 30th anniversary of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

🎃 Slay the day away... The pumpkin piece measured an massive 200 meters, claiming the Guinness World Record for the largest Cucurbita mosaic – the genre for varieties of pumpkins and squashes.

Can you name the following poorly-explained movie plots?

1. Impulsive girl discovers a magical world and annoys everyone she meets.
2. Man survives cancer while retaining sense of humor.
3. Startup company learns the importance of a proper IT budget.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Alice In Wonderland (1951)
2. Deadpool (2016)
3. Jurassic Park (1993)