Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🏘️ “Yes, in my backyard”
• 🤝 Jony Ive and Sam Altman are teaming up
• 👻 Hollywood loves horror

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.88-minute read (1,299 words).

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“Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.”

–W. Clement Stone (1902-2002)

In recent years, a growing number of Americans have joined the “yes, in my backyard” (YIMBY) movement, which aims to address a lack of affordable housing by changing local regulations around single-family homes.

How it works: The YIMBY movement seeks to address steep housing costs and low supply across the US by eliminating most single-family zoning restrictions – which cover ~75% of residential land in US cities – and allowing the development of multi-family units like apartments, condos, and/or townhouses in those areas.

A few recent examples:

• A Montana Supreme Court decision this month paved the way for a new state law allowing municipalities to develop more multi-family housing units on single-family land.
• The city of Minneapolis moved forward with its 2040 Comprehensive Plan this summer, which aims to eliminate single-family-only zoning restrictions and expand residential building requirements.
• Officials in Austin, Texas, approved significant changes to the city’s land development code this year to allow increased residential density closer to single-family homes.

On the flip side: Critics have strongly pushed back against the policies associated with the YIMBY movement. Activist groups in Montana and Austin cite concerns over decreased property value, violations of homeowners’ rights, and strains to local infrastructure, among other things.

Big picture: Data across multiple sectors shows the US is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. Over the past several years:

• Rent growth has continued to outpace inflation (+30.4% vs. +20.2% between 2019-23)
• Mortgage rates have remained at a multi-decade high of 6%-7%.
• America’s housing shortage, aka the gap between the number of US families and overall housing units, has grown to reach 4.5+ million.
• The median existing-home price in the US has risen from ~$257,000 in 2019 to ~$417,000 today.

📊 Flash poll: In general, do you agree with the YIMBY movement’s push to eliminate most single-family zoning restrictions and allow the development of multi-family housing in those areas?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇷🇺 A Russian missile touted as the “world’s deadliest weapon” apparently failed a recent test. According to satellite images, a Russian test of its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this month resulted in a 200-foot-wide crater and extensive damage to the surrounding area, indicating the missile unexpectedly detonated on the ground or shortly after launch. The Sarmat, which is Russia’s most modern ICBM, has been referred to by the country’s lawmakers in recent threats against Western nations, including the US.

💥 Hezbollah says Israel is dropping leaflets in Lebanon with a “very dangerous” barcode. Yesterday, Hezbollah’s media office issued a public warning over leaflets allegedly dropped by Israel into eastern Lebanon containing a barcode that, if scanned, will “withdraw all information” from any device. Israel’s military hasn’t publicly commented on the accusation.

🇨🇳 China rolled out a major stimulus package aimed at boosting its economy. Top financial officials unveiled a series of new measures yesterday designed to pull China’s ~$18 trillion economy out of a recent slump marked by significant issues with its real-estate industry. The stimulus measures include interest rate cuts, more cash for banks, increased incentives for Chinese residents to buy homes, and plans to consider a stock stabilization fund. Following the stimulus announcement, China’s benchmark CSI 300 stock index posted its biggest daily gain since July 2020.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has approached former Apple design guru Jony Ive’s company, LoveFrom, about building the ChatGPT-maker’s first consumer device – the “iPhone of artificial intelligence” – according to multiple reports.

Ive, who was instrumental in the creation of the actual iPhone, has reportedly held multiple brainstorming discussions with Altman about what the device would look like and how it would operate. As outlined by The Financial Times:

• The pair are hoping to create a more natural and intuitive user experience for interacting with AI, in the same way the iPhone’s innovations in touchscreen computing unleashed the mass-market potential of the mobile internet.
• However, discussions are still early, with no specific decisions having been made.

AI fuel incoming: The venture has secured private funding from the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs’s company, and is in advanced talks with Softbank regarding a $1+ billion investment. Masayoshi Son, Softbank’s CEO and founder, has also been involved in some discussions, per the FT, and is pushing for Arm – the chip designer in which his conglomerate holds a 90% stake – to play a central role.

🤖📱 Zoom out: The Ive/Altman project will have to succeed where others have failed. So far, attempts to build standalone AI devices have done nothing but deliver subpar products – just look at Rabbit and Humane, whose debut product, the AI Pin, is selling so badly the company is seeking a bailout.

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“WE the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…”

In 2022, while appraising the value of items in a historic house in North Carolina, Ken Farmer opened a folder he came across in a file cabinet and saw these words👆 at the top of a creased, old-looking sheet of paper. He was looking at a carbon copy of the US Constitution dating back to the late 1700s, which had been sent to the state’s governor around the time of its ratification.

Now, it’s up for auction and expected to fetch millions.

Background: After a complete draft of the Constitution was finalized in 1787, the founders needed to get it ratified by at least nine of the original 13 colonies in order to make it binding to the government of a new nation, the NY Times reports.

• Since email wasn’t yet a thing, Congress printed out 100 copies and sent them around the country so states could read the document and discuss it.
• The document Farmer found in the North Carolina house, which used to belong to Samuel Johnston, governor of North Carolina from 1787–1789, is one of those copies, according to an Asheville auction house handling the document’s sale.

👀 Looking ahead… The starting bid for the copy is $1 million, and could go as high as $40 million, according to experts. An earlier copy of the Constitution was purchased by billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin in 2021 for $43.2 million.

• ☝️ Tropical Storm Helene is forecast to rapidly intensify into a major hurricane before making landfall in Florida tomorrow evening; evacuations began yesterday for some coastal Florida residents facing a potentially dangerous storm surge.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Niphtio

• 💰 US markets closed higher (S&P: +0.3%; Dow: +0.2%; Nasdaq: +0.6%). | 📉 Consumer confidence recorded its biggest monthly decline in over three years in September.
• ⚖️🪙 Caroline Ellison, key witness in FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial, was sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the crypto exchange’s financial fraud. | 💉🏛️ Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard testified before Congress yesterday regarding the company’s blockbuster diabetes/weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
• 💳 The DOJ sued Visa over allegations it illegally monopolized the debit card industry; Visa processes ~60% of all debit card transactions in the US.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎓 Utah State has reportedly agreed to join the Pac-12 starting in 2026, while UNLV is considering a similar offer; separately, the Pac-12 filed a lawsuit over $50+ million in “poaching fees” the Mountain West Conference is seeking from the Pac-12 for adding five MWC schools.
• 🧠 NFL legend Brett Favre said he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease during congressional testimony yesterday over his potential misuse of taxpayer money.
• 🎶 The Cure is scheduled to release a new song tomorrow for the first time in 16 years.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Manscaped

• 💥☄️ Precisely detonating a nuclear bomb above a theoretical incoming asteroid could move it 2-3 miles off course and help Earth avoid a cataclysmic impact, per a new study.
• 🤖 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman published a personal blog post laying out his vision for an AI-driven future; it includes a prediction of AI superintelligence within “a few thousand days.”
• 🦣 Human hunters in the Ice Age may have killed wooly mammoths and other large animals by driving them into sharp, stone-tipped pikes braced into the ground, rather than by throwing or thrusting spears, per a new study.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ️👮 Sean “Diddy” Combs is living in the same unit of a Brooklyn jail as FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, per multiple reports. | 📱💬 Telegram will begin providing some user information, including names and IP addresses, to authorities when legally requested; the policy change comes weeks after CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France.
• 🏥⚖️ At least 210 US women were charged with crimes related to their pregnancies in the year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the highest such figure since at least 1973, per a new study; almost none of the crimes involved violating state abortion bans.
• 🏛️ Congress unanimously approved a bill to boost Secret Service protection for presidential candidates; President Biden is expected to sign it into law shortly.

CLICKBAIT

• ⚡ We Finally Know What Creates Static Electricity, After Thousands of Years.

🍿😱 Stat of the Day: The end of October is fast approaching – but in Hollywood, it’s spooky season all year ‘round. Over the past decade, horror movies have captured a growing share of the North American box office and now regularly account for ~$1 billion in annual ticket sales, or 10% of the entire domestic industry, per a new Bloomberg report. Overall, data shows the movie industry has mainly prioritized big-budget action films and low-budget horror films since the early 2010s.

🤔 Did You Know? Termite queens have the longest known lifespan of any insect in the world, at up to 50 years for some species.

📰 Worth a Read: America's secret opinions → (Axios)

Matt and Carrie Tessmer were renovating their bathroom when they discovered a pair of love letters hidden in the walls. The two letters were both signed by the same name – but addressed to two different women.

• It appears the letters were written by a teenager who seemed pretty desperate to find a date for his school's dance. Upon searching the home's owner history, the couple discovered the letters dated back as far as the 1920s. 
• The couple made sure to put a picture of themselves (with a note about who they are) for future homeowners to find before sealing up the bathroom wall. 

💬 What they're saying: "To us, it's kind of cool to see a little bit of the past," said Matt. "It's truly a mystery how any of this stuff made it into our wall," Carrie added.

+Editors Note: This story first appeared in the Daily DONUT in February 2024.

🏡 Explore: What a $600,000 house budget will buy around the country.

😞 Back-to-office blues hitting different? Here are six tips to help you adjust.

🍝 Yummy…medicine? With cold and flu season upon us, check out this dish lovingly referred to as “Italian Penicillin.”

🪛 Attention DIYers: How to fix loose door hinges.

📧 Read: TLDR is a great newsletter supplement to The DONUT, with quick-read stories on startups, tech, and programming.*

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1. 👅 3: How many times a woodpecker can wrap its tongue around its head
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