Good morning. On today’s docket:

• 📈 America is facing a surge in migrants at the southern border
• 🥽 Apple’s mixed-reality headset is almost here
• 🤔 How rich were the McAllisters in Home Alone?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.88-minute read.

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P.P.S. We’ll be off next week for the holidays. See you back here in the new year🥳.

“How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.”

–Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

US immigration authorities have closed several bridges and ports of entry along the southern border with Mexico, in an effort to contain record-high levels of unauthorized migrant crossings in recent days.

By the numbers: US Customs and Border Protection officers along the southern border encountered more than 10,000 unauthorized migrants/day on several occasions over the past week, numbers which CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller described as “unprecedented.”

• The agency is currently holding 26,000+ unauthorized migrants in its custody, or ~10,000 people over capacity. 
• Officials say the migrants are coming from a wider range of nations than ever before, including some demographic patterns that are telltale signs of smuggler-directed operations.

The recent surge comes as Congress is negotiating over stricter border controls. GOP lawmakers have said they won’t approve President Biden’s proposed $110 billion package of aid for Ukraine, Israel, and other security priorities unless congressional Democrats agree to tighten enforcement of the southern border in return.

Lawmakers have been discussing a bipartisan deal that would expand deportations, curb asylum claims, and allow federal officials to quickly expel migrants during periods of mass crossings like the present day – but negotiations are stalled until at least after the holiday recess.

🏛️ On a state level: This week, Texas approved a new law allowing state police to arrest unauthorized migrants and granting local judges authority to order them to leave the country. The ACLU and other civil rights groups have sued to stop the measure from taking effect in March, calling it unconstitutional since Congress has given the federal government sole authority over immigration enforcement.

📊 Flash poll: Do you personally consider unauthorized immigration to be: a crisis, a fairly significant problem, a minor problem, or not a problem for the US?

• Crisis
• Fairly significant problem
• Minor problem
• Not a problem

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💥 Israel-Hamas: Israel’s national security adviser yesterday indicated that the country could accept a US plan for the Palestinian Authority – which currently governs the West Bank – to take over governance of the Gaza Strip once the war is over, though he also said such a transfer would require “a fundamental reform of the Palestinian Authority.” Separately, fighting in Gaza escalated yesterday with one of Israel’s most intense bombardments since the war began, in addition to a series of Hamas rocket attacks targeting Tel Aviv.

🇯🇵 Honda recalled 4.5 million vehicles worldwide over fuel pump issues. The recall, which includes 2.5 million US vehicles, comes after Honda previously issued two recalls since 2020 for the same issue due to increased risk of engine failure. The Japanese automaker will replace all fuel pumps free of charge, and plans to notify affected owners in early February. Honda’s recall includes a wide range of models from between 2017 and 2020, including certain versions of the Accord, Acura, Civic, and Odyssey.

🇦🇷 Argentine President Javier Milei signed an emergency decree to deregulate the economy. The 300+ measures include the removal of housing, land ownership, and export regulations, as well as the modification of laws for the airline, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and tourism industries to encourage competition. The new decree, which is subject to approval from Argentina’s legislature before it takes effect, also allows for privatizing state-owned airline, media, and energy companies.

Fans aren’t the only ones going crazy over college football. In Southern college towns across the country, real estate investors are buying and building homes for those who spend thousands of dollars on a weekend of housing to attend a game.

According to new data from AirDNA, which tracks the performance of Airbnb and VRBO rentals, many college towns have seen a sharp uptick in short-term housing supply over the past year, with some growth rates coming in more than 2.5x higher than the national average of 12.8%.

• Tuscaloosa: The Alabama Crimson Tide’s home city saw the supply of short-term rentals increase by 34% since November 2022.
• Athens: The hometown of the Georgia Bulldogs has seen its short-term rental supply increase by 31% over the past year.
• Columbia: The Missouri Tiger-linked city has experienced a 33% increase over the same period.

📝🏘️ Zoom out: Many larger US cities – including Atlanta, Dallas, Honolulu, Memphis, New York City, and Portland – have approved regulations aimed at limiting the total amount of short-term rentals, as well as which properties can be rented out. The moves come amid growing pushback from officials and locals, who say the increasing presence of short-term rentals drives up housing prices for existing residents.

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Production of Apple’s new Vision Pro mixed-reality headset is running at full speed in China and has been for several weeks, according to a new Bloomberg report. The device is reportedly slated to debut in February, so if you have an extra $3,500 to shell out for your gamer boo it could be a great Valentine’s Day present.

The Vision Pro is Apple’s first foray into a new product category since it began selling smartwatches in 2015. And instead of jumping feet-first into the deep end, the company is just dipping its toe into the mixed-reality headset pool. This is for a few reasons:

• The headset is complex to manufacture, and demand – especially at its pricepoint – is unproven.
• The product’s rollout also isn’t straightforward; entirely new sales strategies and equipment are needed (the headset has customized components that need to be assembled and boxed up at the point of sale).

👀 Looking ahead… The size of the mixed reality headset market is $3.62 billion this year, and projected to grow to $21.68 billion by 2030. Apple is hoping its first Vision Pro leads to a line of successful mixed-reality products – and that it can succeed where others failed.

• In addition to selling to consumers, the company is looking to target corporate customers and schools: markets in which competitors including Magic Leap and Microsoft have struggled to gain traction like a bald tire in mud.

💬 Quoted… “As much as we want to fight for what we believe is a fantastic product that really should exist, the truth is that we can’t win a cat-and-mouse game with the largest company on earth.”

• Beeper, the startup that developed an iMessage workaround for Android users, is done playing Whac-A-Mole with Apple and is shifting its focus to “building the best chat app on earth,” the company announced yesterday. When Beeper launched, users just had to download an app to bring iMessage to Android. But Apple has blocked the service multiple times since then, and Beeper’s workarounds have needed to get more complicated – for example: the latest one requires users to own or rent a jailbroken iPhone to access the service – so the company gave up. This whole saga could end up spurring some change, however – a coalition of more than a dozen tech advocacy groups wrote a letter to the DOJ yesterday calling for an investigation into allegedly anticompetitive behavior by Apple.

🏡🍿 Stat of the Day: If you’ve ever spent two hours watching a child lead robbers on a merry chase around a super nice house and wondered: “Just how much do I need to make to afford a place like that?” – the NY Times has your answer. Its reporters spoke with economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who estimated the McCallisters in Home Alone (1990) were in the top 1% tax bracket, pulling in ~$305,000/year (~$665,000 in 2022).

🤔 Did You Know?... It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the wordiest show on TV with 176.2 words per minute, per a new study by WordFinderX, making the FX sitcom the hardest series to follow if you’re watching with subtitles.

📰 Worth a Read: Her Brand Had $100 Million Ambitions. Now It’s Being Sold in a Fire Sale → (WSJ)

• 👆 The winners of the 10th annual International Landscape Photographer of the Year contest were announced this week.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The HOTH

• 💰 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +1.0%; Dow: +0.9%; Nasdaq: +1.3%). | 📉 Nike shares fell 10% after hours; the company cut its revenue outlook for the fiscal year and announced $2 billion in cost cuts.
• 🏘️ Mortgage rates fell week over week, per Freddie Mac; the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage sits at 6.67%, its lowest level since June.
• 🇦🇴🛢️ Angola announced it’s leaving OPEC; oil prices closed lower.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ The MLB approved multiple rule changes for 2024. | ⚽️ The European Court of Justice ruled that soccer governing bodies FIFA and UEFA can't ban the formation of a European-wide Super League; it could replace the Champions League with a new, 64-team competition.
• ⌚ Apple stopped selling watches on its website amid a patent dispute. (Background)
• 🏆🎥 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 2024 Oscars. See them here.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Sabavi Home

• 🧊🐙 The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is at risk of collapsing due to rising temperatures, which would cause global sea levels to rise an average of 16 feet, per a new Science study that mapped ancient octopus movements.
• 😢 Human tears carry a substance that dampens aggression, according to a new study published in PLOS Biology.
• ⚡☢️ US government scientists achieved net energy gain through nuclear fusion a total of three times in 2023, per a new report; the same team was behind the first-ever fusion reaction to produce net energy in December 2022. (Background)

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌡️ The Midwest and Eastern US are projected to see temperatures ranging 20°F to 35°F above average during Christmas week.
• 🎓 Harvard President Claudine Gay will update her 1997 dissertation after a university review of plagiarism allegations found she used “duplicative language without proper attribution,” but also said her actions didn’t rise to the level of serious wrongdoing.
• 🇺🇸🇨🇳 Military leaders from the US and China held discussions yesterday morning for the first time since Beijing froze communication in August 2022 following then-House Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

CLICKBAIT

• 🤯 10 of the most mystifying open questions in science.

A few months ago, chocolate bar wrappers started appearing all around Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, England. 

In weeks that followed, the saga dubbed "Wafergate" took the small community by storm. Local residents hopped on social media and group chats to try and find the littering culprit. No one 'fessed up. 

• The mystery was finally solved when a resident spotted and open case of chocolate bars in a dumpster. Later that day, another resident saw a group of squirrels scurrying up a tree with said chocolate in their mouths. 

🍫💬 What they're saying: “They have ramped it up even more since we found out, every day I’m picking up wrappers out of rose bushes,” said one community member Fiona Dowes. “It’s been hilarious working it out. ”

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Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Sugar
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• Salt
• Butter
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✌️ Recipe #2:

• Cooking spray
• Sugar
• Corn syrup
• Water
• Peppermint extract
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3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Ground cinnamon
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☝️ Recipe #1: Butter cookies

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