Good morning. On today’s docket:

• 📊 New 2024 presidential polling is out
• 🏡 How the process for buying and selling a home could change
• 💑 Dating apps are losing the college market

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.39-minute read.

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"By seeking and blundering we learn."

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

We’re roughly one year away from the next presidential election. And 2024 is starting to come into focus, thanks to new polling data and recent campaign announcements.

🐘 On the Republican side: There are currently four candidates with at least 3% support among GOP voters, per FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregator. That’s down from five the last time we covered this topic in early October.

• Former President Donald Trump (October: 57% → November: 59%)
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (14% → 13%)
• Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (8% → 8%)
• Former biotech exec Vivek Ramaswamy (7% → 5%)

🫏 On the Democratic side: Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) launched a campaign to challenge President Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary elections just over a week ago, though the DNC has already committed to supporting Biden’s reelection and isn’t planning to hold any primary debates.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who initially announced his presidential candidacy as a Democrat in May but consistently polled 45+ points behind Biden – officially switched his party affiliation to Independent last month.

🥊 Head-to-head: Former President Trump would defeat President Biden by a margin of more than 60 electoral votes if next year’s election were held today, per a swing state poll published yesterday by the NYT and Siena College.

• Trump and Biden are effectively tied among voters under 30 – a large shift from 2020, when that age group voted 59%-35% in favor of Biden.
• Biden is polling weaker against Trump than any other potential Democratic candidate, including VP Kamala Harris. A generic, unnamed Dem holds an 8% lead over Trump, while Biden trails Trump by 5%.

📊 Flash poll: If next year’s presidential election were held today, who would you vote for?

• The Republican candidate
• The Democratic candidate
• A third-party candidate
• I’m too young/I don’t vote
• Unsure/other

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🇭🇰 Asia’s first Gay Games kicked off in Hong Kong. The Gay Games (previously the Gay Olympics) is an international competition held once every four years since 1982 that promotes acceptance of LGBTQ+ athletes, artists, and other individuals. More than 2,300 participants from 45 countries – including the US, Britain, China, and South Korea – will participate in sporting and Chinese cultural competitions across the nine-day event, which is also being held concurrently in Guadalajara, Mexico.

💥 Israel-Hamas war update: Israel continued to launch airstrikes targeting the Gaza Strip over the weekend, with Hamas-led health officials saying over 9,700 Palestinians, including 4,800 children, have been killed in airstrikes over the past month. On the US side, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to the West Bank yesterday to meet with Palestinian Authority leaders and press for a humanitarian cease-fire. At least tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched in Washington DC on Saturday seeking a pause in the ongoing conflict, though Israeli officials say the fighting and airstrikes will continue until Hamas releases the remaining 238 hostages taken in the October 7 attacks.

🇷🇺 Russia says it successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from a new nuclear-powered submarine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its nuclear submarine fired a missile designed to carry up to six nuclear warheads – but featuring none for the test – and hit a target over 3,000 miles away. The vessel belongs to the first new generation of nuclear-powered and nuclear weapons-carrying submarines launched by Russia since the Cold War. The test came one week after President Vladimir Putin signed a law revoking Russia’s ratification of a 1996 global nuclear test ban, which the US hasn’t ratified.

Last week, a federal jury in Missouri found the National Association of Realtors and two real estate brokerage firms were liable for $1.8 billion in damages for conspiring to keep commissions artificially high.

NAR is appealing this verdict, so change to the real estate commission structure doesn’t appear imminent – however, much like winter, it’s coming.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what that could look like:

• Sellers’ agents can’t offer commissions upfront. Currently, sellers need to declare the proposed buyer’s agent commission when listing a home on the MLS. One outcome if this were to change: buyers would pay their own agents, but could negotiate for the seller to help cover the cost.
• Buyers must pay their own agents. Buyers in other countries often forego an agent, or pay them directly. However, this arrangement could affect first-time and low-income homebuyers the most, since they’re the least likely to have additional savings to pay for an agent on top of a down payment and closing costs.
• New models arise. Real estate startups like Purplebricks have experimented with flat fees in the past. Other models could also arise.

👀 Looking ahead… Selling Sunset could have a few less people in front of the camera. Ryan Tomasello, a real-estate industry analyst, predicts this lawsuit (and others) could lead to a 30% reduction in the $100 billion Americans pay in real-estate commissions every year and push more than half of the ~1.6 million agents out of the industry.

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💬 Quoted… “I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

• Investors and business leaders may not always agree with Warren Buffett, author of the above quote, but it’s hard to argue with the 93-year-old’s results. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway ended Q3 with a record-high $157.2 billion in cash and equivalents, up 7% compared to last year, the company reported on Saturday. Will he get greedy with all that cash soon? Stay tuned.

📱💔 Stat of the Day: 79% of college and graduate students in the US don't use any dating apps, even as infrequently as once a month. Instead, they prefer to do things IRL – which entails actually meeting people in person (gasp).

🤔 Did You Know?... Current peer-reviewed research indicates that running long distances is highly beneficial for overall knee and joint health. Or put a different way: if you don’t use it, you lose it.

📰 Worth a Read: The ‘Crispy R’ and Why R Is the Weirdest Letter → (Atlas Obscura)

• ☝️ Jeff Bezos said he’s officially relocating from Seattle to Miami, where the Amazon founder recently purchased two adjacent waterfront mansions in an area called “Billionaire Bunker” for a combined $147 million.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Nutrafol

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board last week (S&P: +5.9%; Dow: +5.1%; Nasdaq: +6.6%); all three indexes recorded their best weekly performance of 2023.
• 💼 The US economy added 150,000 non-farm jobs in October (below expectations of 170,000–180,000), per new gov't data; the unemployment rate rose to 3.9%, its highest level since January 2022.
• 📲🚗 Uber and Lyft will pay a combined $328 million to settle allegations they illegally withheld wages from drivers and failed to provide mandatory paid sick leave in New York state.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📰 The Washington Post named veteran media exec Will Lewis as its new publisher and CEO.
• 🎭📝 Striking actors are currently reviewing the “last, best and final offer” from Hollywood and TV studios, according to union officials.
• SCOREBOARD: 🏈 CFB: No. 2 Georgia beat No. 12 Missouri 30-21, while No. 8 Alabama beat No. 14 LSU 42-28; see other highlights from the weekend (link). | 🏈 NFL: Full Week 9 recap. | 🏀 The college basketball season officially tips off later today (see a full men's preview | see a full women's preview). 

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Paleovalley

• 🤖💬 xAI, Elon Musk’s new AI venture, launched its first AI chatbot named Grok that “answer[s] questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak”; Grok will be integrated into X (formerly Twitter) and will also have a standalone app.
• ☄️ An ongoing meteor shower called the Southern Taurids is set to reach its peak activity tonight, with an average rate of five meteors/hour.
• 🪦 The oldest burial site in the world, belonging to a small-brained distant relative of humans previously thought incapable of complex behavior, was recently discovered in South Africa, per a series of preprint papers published in eLife.​

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🍗 Tyson recalled ~30,000 lbs of dino chicken nuggets recently sold in nine states across the US after small pieces of metal were found in some products.
• 💀 An anthropologist in Fort Myers, Florida, discovered a likely human skull for sale in a local thrift shop; the store owner said the skull was found in a storage unit purchased years ago.
• ⚖️🗣️ Former President Trump will take the witness stand later today to deliver testimony in his ongoing civil fraud trial brought by NY AG Letitia James. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🧑‍🏫🤖 How teachers are using – or not using – ChatGPT in the classroom.

Monday: National Nachos Day

Tuesday: Election Day

Wednesday: Third GOP presidential debate in Miami

Thursday: Weekly unemployment claims

Friday: Veterans Day; The Marvels hits theaters nationwide; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III release date

On Friday, we covered how some US lawmakers and residents are pushing to do away with Fall Back/Spring Forward and make daylight-saving time permanent.

❓ Our question to you: Which of the following options regarding daylight-saving time would you most prefer?

• ✋ Keep the current system with two annual clock changes: 15%
• 🌇 Permanent DST (later sunrise/sunset year-round): 44%
• 🌅 Permanent standard time (earlier sunrise/sunset year-round): 31%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 10%

Click here to read more of the best responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 8,286 votes and 443 longform responses.

Throughout the 1950's, Marita Swenson and Claude Frable spent their weekends together. 

It all started at a school dance; the pair hit it off and decided to spend every weekend together from there-on-out. For the next few years, Marita and Claude were inseparable – until Claude went off to serve in the military. 

✈️ Never too late... The pair eventually lost touch, and each went on to get married and have families of their own. That is, until 2009, when Claude tracked down Marita and gave her a call. 

• The two have kept in touch via phone for the last 14 years. Then, last month, Marita flew from Arizona to Washington to visit her friend for a reunion 60+ years in the making.

💬 What they're saying: It was "an amazing day," according to Marita. “The friendship will never ever end until one of us is no more.” 

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Bront
2. Celer
3. Cyan
4. Dia
5. Fact

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Bront = Thunder (e.g., brontosaurus)
2. Celer = Quick (acceleration, celerity)
3. Cyan = Blue (cyanide)
4. Dia = Apart, through (diameter, diagram)
5. Fact = Make (factory, manufacture)