Good morning. In today’s edition:

• ⚖️ The father of the Georgia school shooter was charged with murder
• 🎧 The NSA is getting into podcasting
• 🧀 Americans + cheese

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.95-minute read (1,319 words).

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"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow."

–Ronald E. Osborn (1917-1998)

Last week, the father of the 14-year-old Apalachee High School shooting suspect was arrested in connection with the Georgia attack that left four dead, in a case that pushes the legal limits of parental responsibility for a child’s alleged gun crime.

The details: The arrest warrant accuses the father of causing the deaths of others “by providing a firearm to [his son] with knowledge that he was a threat to himself and others.”

Officials say a key part of the case stems from an interaction the father and his son had with law enforcement more than a year prior to last week’s mass shooting.

• In May 2023, the FBI alerted local police to online threats about a school shooting associated with an email address linked to the then-13-year-old suspect.
• A sheriff's deputy went to interview the boy – who denied making the threats – as well as his father. According to an FBI statement, the father told police he had guns in the house, but his son didn’t have unsupervised access to them.
• Seven months later, the suspect’s father purchased the AR-15-style rifle that was allegedly used in the mass shooting as a holiday present for his son, according to multiple reports citing law enforcement sources.

Why it’s a big deal: The case marks the second time in US history that a parent has been charged in connection with a mass shooting by a minor, after the parents of the 16-year-old who carried out a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each convicted and sentenced to 10+ years in prison earlier this year.

• It also features the most serious charges levied in such a case: two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight counts of cruelty to children. Altogether, they carry a prison sentence of up to 180 years.

Looking ahead… The Apalachee High School shooting suspect and his father are both scheduled to appear in court for separate preliminary hearings in early December.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should parents be held legally responsible for gun crimes carried out by their children?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇸🇲 San Marino hired Ted Lasso. San Marino, a country nestled inside Italy with a population of ~33,000, defeated Liechtenstein by a score of 1-0 in an official competitive match last Thursday to earn its first-ever competitive win in men’s international soccer. Prior to the victory, the San Marino men’s soccer team had an overall competitive record of 0-171-5 since they first began competing on the global stage in 1990.

🇨🇳 China is ending foreign adoptions of its children by non-relatives. Since 1992, international families have adopted 160,000+ Chinese children, with just over half being placed with US families. Over the years, the international adoption program became a means for Chinese families to evade punishment for violating Beijing’s one-child policy, which was scrapped in 2015. China’s recent decision to halt foreign adoptions comes as the country faces a declining birth rate and rapidly aging population.

🇪🇸 Venezuela’s opposition leader was granted political asylum in Spain. Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González fled to Spain yesterday in response to an arrest warrant from Venezuelan authorities accusing him of terrorism, conspiracy, and other crimes related to July’s disputed presidential election. Incumbent Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the election by local officials, despite the main opposition party and some Western nations – including the US – claiming González won the presidency.

If newly released figures are any indication, OnlyFans Dad is raking in the cash.

Users spent $6.6 billion on OnlyFans last year, according to a UK regulatory filing published Thursday. The platform’s creators are entitled to 80% (OnlyFans takes the rest), meaning they pocketed ~$5.3 billion, an ~18% increase from 2022.

A breakdown: With 4.1 million creators on the platform, that works out to average earnings of $1,300/creator. But in reality, a majority of the payouts goes to a limited number of accounts. Bhad Bhabie, for instance, reportedly makes ~$34 million/year from OnlyFans (how bout dat?).

• Another creator fun-fact: 1 out of every 1,470 people living in Connecticut makes OF content, the highest per capita rate in the country.

Zoom out: OF creators’ bank accounts aren’t the only things going up (mind out of the gutter). The company’s profit and user growth also increased year over year. OnlyFans generated a pretax profit of $658 million in 2023, a 25% increase over 2022. As for users, 305 million people had “Fan” accounts on the platform as of November 30, 2023, a 28% increase from the year prior.

👀 Looking ahead… The latest results come as OnlyFans is being investigated over whether it is doing enough to prevent underage users from accessing porn through its site. The platform synonymous with porn is also focused on non-porn related growth, and has been building up its stable of comedians, chefs, personal trainers, and other types of creators.

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“[It] just might surprise you!”

In a surprising turn of events, the NSA is allowing Americans to listen in on them for a change. Last Thursday, the agency published the first two episodes of its inaugural podcast, called No Such Podcast – a play on the agency’s nickname, No Such Agency, from back when its existence was still a secret.

• The NSA says its new show will feature declassified stories from agency experts, with a goal of highlighting the expertise of employees who represent “the world’s best codemakers and codebreakers.”
• The pilot episode includes a declassified story of the NSA’s contributions to the takedown of Osama bin Laden following the September 11 terrorist attacks, along with interviews from leaders on cybersecurity, AI, advanced research, and more.

👀 Looking ahead… No Such Podcast will publish one episode per week through mid-October.

• ☝️ 2,000+ costumes, props, set pieces, and memorabilia from Game of Thrones will go up for auction next month through Heritage Auctions; starting bids range from $500-$20,000 for items like Jaime Lannister’s full suit of armor, sections of Daenerys Targaryen’s wardrobe, and Jon Snow’s Longclaw sword.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Going

• 💰 US markets fell across the board on Friday (S&P: -1.7%; Dow: -1.0%; Nasdaq: -2.6%); the S&P turned in its worst week since March 2023; the Nasdaq turned in its worst week since January 2022.
• 📱 Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 16 later today.
• 🙅 7-Eleven parent company, Seven & i Holdings, rejected a ~$38.6 billion takeover offer from Circle K operator Alimentation Couche-Tard. | 🤝 Boeing reached a tentative agreement with a union representing 32,000+ workers in the Pacific Northwest; if approved, the deal would avert a strike that could begin as early as September 13. | 📺🥊 The DirecTV/Disney spat continues. Magic 8 ball says: Outlook not so good for watching Monday Night Football. (Background: Millions of DirecTV customers can’t access Disney’s channels)

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• SCOREBOARD: 🏈 CFB: #3 Texas defeated #10 Michigan, unranked Northern Illinois upset #5 Notre Dame, and unranked Iowa State took down #21 Iowa; see a full Week 2 recap (link) | 🏈 NFL: See a full Week 1 recap. | 🎾 US Open: World #2 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus defeated American Jessica Pegula on the women’s side to claim her third Grand Slam; on the men’s side, world #1 Jannik Sinner of Italy defeated American Taylor Fritz to earn his second Grand Slam. | 🥇 The 2024 Paris Paralympic Games wrapped up this weekend; see final medal count.
• 🏟️🎤 Kendrick Lamar will headline the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans. | 🤝🏈 Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott signed a four-year, $240 million contract extension, making him the highest paid player in NFL history.
• 🎭🏆 The Creative Arts Emmy Awards took place this weekend; the primetime Emmy Awards ceremony is set for this Saturday. | 🍿 Beetlejuice Beetlejuice earned $110 million in its opening weekend, making it the second-highest grossing September opener of all time, behind It (2017).

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with NoNetz

• 🌌 The Milky Way galaxy’s outer boundary may stretch much further into space than initially thought (and is already touching its closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy), per a new study published in Nature Astronomy.
• 🧠 Students who suffered a sports-related concussion were found to have slightly improved cognitive performance compared to student-athletes who didn’t, per a new study; the researchers speculate this could be explained by these type of personas having increased access to higher education.
• 🚀 Boeing’s Starliner space capsule safely returned to Earth early Saturday without any passengers onboard, ending its troubled test flight that launched June 5.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🥚⚠️ The CDC issued a warning over recalled eggs sold in stores and restaurants across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, citing 24 hospitalizations linked to salmonella.
• 🇷🇺 Two NATO members – Romania and Latvia – yesterday reported separate incidents of Russian drones violating their airspace.
• ⚖️🗽 The judge in former President Trump's New York hush-money case delayed his sentencing until after the election (November 26) "to avoid any appearance" of political motivations. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🏆📺 The 100 best TV episodes of all time.

⛰️🥤 Stat of the Day: As part of a new contest, Mountain Dew is giving five people willing to move anywhere within the Mountain Time Zone – "the official, unofficial time zone of Mountain Dew" – up to $10,000 to cover moving costs. The contest is being held exclusively via TikTok, with entrants required to post a video explaining their reasoning and plans for the move. Mountain Dew is also offering a free 20-ounce soda to registered participants who enter the Mountain Time Zone – via plane, train, automobile, on foot, or otherwise – through the end of this year. And now that they're attempting to conquer time, space must be next (coming soon: Moontain Dew).

🤔 Did You Know? The average American eats an estimated 42 pounds of cheese each year – more than butter, ice cream, and yogurt combined. That figure has more than doubled since the US government first started tracking dairy consumption in 1975.

📰 Worth a Read: Nobody Was Reading Him. Now He’s the World’s Best Spy Writer → (Wall Street Journal)

Monday: First Monday Night Football of the NFL season

Tuesday: Trump and Harris square off on ABC News in their first and only scheduled presidential debate; Megan Thee Stallion hosts the MTV Music Awards

Wednesday: 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks

Thursday: National Hug and High-Five Day

Friday: the 13th; Speak No Evil starring James McAvoy hits theaters

On Friday, we covered how the 2024 election officially began on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state to start mailing out absentee ballots to voters.

❓ Our question to you: If you were going to vote in the 2024 presidential election today, which candidate would you choose?

• Former President Trump: 30%
• Vice President Harris: 44%
• A third-party candidate: 11%
• Not planning to vote/Too young to vote: 8%
• Unsure/other: 7%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 4,812 votes and 473 longform responses.

Taboo doesn't need a burglar's mask for her daily crimes – though the UK kitty has become somewhat of a local celebrity for her sneaky thievery.

Taboo's owner, Sandra Danskin, constantly comes home to stolen items left by her sneaky 12-year-old tuxedo cat, and often posts them on Facebook so people can claim their things. 

• Taboo even has a specialized cat-call to signal when she's completed a new burglary: “Whenever she gets something, she sits outside and makes this high-pitched whining noise to let me know,” said Sanda told SWNS. “I’ve tried talking to her about it but she doesn’t change her ways. Underwear, socks, shoes… she just keeps bringing them.”
• Thankfully, the neighbors have a good sense of humor about it, and Taboo is well loved around town. 

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

1. Acr
2. Caud
3. Dub
4. Fric
5. Hypn

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1. Acr = Height (e.g., acrobat)
2. Caud = Tail (caudal)
3. Dub = Doubtful (dubious)
4. Fric = Rub (friction)
5. Hypn = Sleep (hypnosis)