Good morning, and a giant DONUT welcome to the 10,000+ new readers joining us today! It’s Monday, and you know what that means: everyone gets doughnuts, coffee, and fast, impartial news that's actually enjoyable to read.

On today’s docket:

• 🗳️ The 2024 presidential race continues to take shape
• 📉 Why more economists are using the term “deflation”
• 📝 UPenn’s president steps down

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.56-minute read.

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”

–Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

We’re roughly one month away from the start of the 2024 presidential election cycle, which officially kicks off with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation GOP caucus on January 15.

And, much like embarking on a summer roadtrip with a broken AC, campaigning is off to a hot start.

🐘 On the Republican side: The Republican National Committee has hosted four debates in as many months, though none have included the current frontrunner, former President Trump. Overall, there are currently four candidates with at least 3% support among GOP voters, per FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregator:

• Former President Donald Trump (November: 59% → December: 59%)
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (13% → 13%)
• Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (8% → 12%)
• Former biotech exec Vivek Ramaswamy (5% → 4%)

🫏 On the Democratic side: Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) has launched a campaign to challenge President Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary elections, though the DNC has already committed to supporting Biden’s reelection and isn’t planning to hold any primary debates. Democratic leadership in some states – including Florida and New Hampshire – also aren’t planning to hold any primary elections, clinching Biden as their nominee.

🥊 Head-to-head: Former President Trump leads President Biden 47%-43% in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, per a new WSJ poll, representing Trump’s largest lead of this election cycle. Voters say they trust Trump over Biden when it comes to securing the border (+30%), taming inflation (+21%), and building the economy (+17%).

• One interesting thing: Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was recently endorsed by the Koch Network and other high-profile GOP donors, currently leads President Biden by a 51%-34% margin in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.

📊 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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🇨🇳🇵🇭 China’s coast guard reportedly assaulted Philippine vessels in the South China Sea on two separate occasions. On Sunday, the Philippine coast guard said their ships were en route to deliver supplies to Filipino forces when a Chinese ship targeted the vessels with a water cannon and rammed one of them, causing engine damage. Philippine officials said Sunday’s incident occurred one day after similar hostilities with a Chinese ship at another location in the South China Sea. Chinese officials denied any responsibility for the incidents, and claimed the Philippine ship intentionally collided with its vessel.

💥 Israel-Hamas war update: Israeli troops yesterday reached the center of Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, where officials say Israel’s military campaign is expected to last an additional 3-4 weeks. On Friday, the US vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, arguing it was imbalanced and didn’t include language condemning Hamas’s October 7 attack. It marks the second time the US has been the only opposing vote on such a resolution.

🇸🇪🇳🇴🇫🇮🇳🇴 Tesla’s fight with Nordic trade unions is escalating. On Thursday, a Finnish transport union joined an ongoing strike against Tesla in solidarity with a Swedish mechanics union, which is demanding a collective bargaining agreement with the EV maker. As part of the Finnish strike, local dockworkers pledged to blockade all Tesla vehicles or components starting December 20. Their announcement follows similar decisions by Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian dockworkers, meaning Tesla will be effectively barred from shipping its cars to Sweden.

For years, inflation – the ugly beast that it is – has been at the forefront of any economic-focused conversation. But a new term is now being thrown around by economists – deflation.

Deflation, which is when prices decrease (the opposite of inflation), is currently isolated to one part of the economy, however – durable goods, or products designed to last more than three years. This category includes consumer electronics, appliances, furniture, cars, etc.

• Prices for durable goods have fallen on a year-over-year basis for five straight months, per the Commerce Department. For some durable goods product categories, such as TVs, prices are lower now than before the pandemic.
• Another deflation example: cars. The average price paid for a new vehicle at retail was ~$45,300 in November, according to research firm JD Power, down from ~$47,000 in December of 2022.

But in other areas, prices are like a weed-smoker who refuses any suggestion to quit – staying stubbornly high. The price of admissions to a concert or football game has risen 10% year-over-year, and clothing and grocery prices went up 2.5% and 2.4% year-over-year in October, respectively.

👀 Looking ahead… We’ll get more inflation data tomorrow, when November’s CPI is released. And we should also (hopefully) get more of an indication into the Fed’s inflation strategy. Currently, futures are pricing in that the Fed will cut its key policy rate from 5.25%–5.50% currently to ~4% by the end of 2024.

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💬 Quoted… “Former President Liz Magill last week made a very unfortunate misstep.”

• On Saturday, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned, alongside the chairman of Penn’s board of trustees, following Magill’s controversial testimony at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism last week. In the hearing, Magill and the presidents of Harvand and MIT were each asked if calls for the genocide of Jewish people would violate the school’s harassment policy, to which Magill responded: “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes… It is a context-dependent decision.”

⚾🤑 Stat of the Day: The Shohei Ohtani free agency circus – which included conflicting reports of his final destination and a flight-tracking mishap involving Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec – is finally over. The two-way superstar and reigning AL MVP signed a record 10-year, $700 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday, which reportedly contains “unprecedented” deferrals. For context: prior to this weekend, the largest contract in US pro sports history was Patrick Mahomes’ 10-year, $450 million deal with the Chiefs.

🤔 Did You Know?... When it comes to the airline industry, consolidation has been king. The five biggest US airlines today – Delta, American, United, Alaska, and Southwest – have acquired 42 other airline companies since 1960, per a new Axios analysis.

📰 Worth a Read: The master forgers who saved thousands of lives during World War II → (Atlas Obscura)

• 👆 Rolls-Royce unveiled a conceptual design of a mini nuclear reactor that could one day power human settlements on the Moon.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Nutrafol

• 💰 US markets rose across the board on Friday (S&P: +0.4%; Dow: +0.4%; Nasdaq: +0.5%); the S&P and Nasdaq closed at their highest levels since early 2022. | 💼 The US economy added 199,000 jobs in November, above analysts’ estimates of 185,000; the unemployment rate fell to 3.7% (from 3.9% in October).
• 🦷 SmileDirectClub, the US-based teeth-alignment company once valued at $8.9 billion, is shutting down.
• 📲 Beeper Mini, a startup that successfully reverse-engineered Apple’s iMessage and made it available to Android users, was shut down by Apple on Friday; however, Beeper Mini posted on X Saturday that its service was once again working with iMessage.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• SCOREBOARD: 🏀 NBA: The LA Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers to win the inaugural In-Season Tournament; 🏈 NFL: See a full Week 14 recap; 🏆 CFB: LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels won the 2023 Heisman Trophy.
• 🎤💰 Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is the first tour to cross the billion-dollar mark, per new data.
• 🍿 The Boy and the Heron, a movie from Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, led the US box office with a $12.8 million gross on its opening weekend; it’s the first anime film to top the North American box office.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with moomoo

• ⚛️ The US particle physics community announced its plan for research over the next 5-10 years; if funded, the projects could help scientists better understand the laws of nature.
• 🦖 Scientists discovered prey inside the stomach of a T-Rex skeleton for the first time.
• 🛫 The US Space Force's secretive X-37B space plane is scheduled to be launched into orbit today by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ The Texas Supreme Court paused a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed a Dallas woman to receive an emergency abortion.
• ⚖️ The Oxford, Michigan, high school shooter who killed four people and injured seven others in 2021 was sentenced to life in prison without parole; his parents face their own manslaughter trial on January 23.
• ⚖️ The Justice Department filed nine tax-related charges against Hunter Biden, including evasion of assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and false or fraudulent tax returns.

CLICKBAIT

• 🥇🍿 Ranking the top 10 movies of 2023.

Monday: Former President Trump will testify in his NY civil trial

Tuesday: Consumer Price Index for November

Wednesday: The Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady for a third straight meeting; Taylor Swift turns 34

Thursday: National Free Shipping Day; final four episodes of Netflix's The Crown set to be released

Friday: Wonka, starring Timothée Chalamet, hits theaters nationwide

On Friday, we covered new climate data showing the Earth registered both the hottest November since data collection began in 1940 and the sixth monthly heat record in a row.

❓ Our question to you: Do you think the US government is doing too much, too little, or about the right amount when it comes to climate change?

• ⬇️ Too much: 25%
• ⬆️ Too little: 57%
• 👌 About the right amount: 18%

Click here to read the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 6,918 votes and 476 longform responses.

🤨 Do the crime... Over eight months ago, astronaut Frank Rubio, a former member of the International Space Station crew who's now back on Earth, lost a tomato. 

The rest of the astronaut team has jokingly accused him for the better part of a year of eating the tomato, which was one of the first ever to be grown in space. 

Months after the crop disappeared, however, it was found within the space station.

• "Our good friend Frank Rubio, who headed home [already], has been blamed for quite a while for eating the tomato," said fellow astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli. "But we can exonerate him. We found the tomato." 

🍅 Pay the time: While Frank returned back to Earth in September, he has found solace knowing that his name has been cleared from the case of the missing produce.

• "I spent so many hours looking for that thing," Frank said. "I'm sure the desiccated tomato will show up at some point and vindicate me, years in the future."

Guess the definitions of these Greek/Latin root words:

1. Apo
2. Cav
3. Hed
4. Eu
5. Hex

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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Start referring.👇

1. Apo = Away from (e.g., apostasy)
2. Cav = Hollow (cavity, cavern)
3. Hed = Pleasure (hedonist)
4. Eu = Good (euphoria)
5. Hex = Six (hexagon)