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Wednesday, Oct 16 2024

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Good morning. In today’s edition:

  • 🗳️ A 2024 election breakdown
  • 🐼 Panda diplomacy is back
  • 🤔 Undiagnosed ADHD?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.97-minute read (1,323 words).

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🗣🌐 Dose of Discussion: A 360° Look at a Hot-Button Issue

The 2024 election is in full swing

Image: Max Pepper/CNN

The 2024 election is just under three weeks away – but for some voters, Election Day is already here.

This week, the critical battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina are kicking off early in-person voting, joining dozens of other states where early voting and mail-in ballots are currently available.

This comes as both presidential candidates are hot on the campaign trail. Both candidates held rallies in Pennsylvania on Monday, and are scheduled to campaign in other key battleground states like Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin later in the week.

  • Both Vice President Harris and former President Trump are also scheduled for separate appearances on Fox News later today, which would mark Harris’ first formal interview with the network. The candidates have also each appeared on multiple podcasts in recent weeks, including Call Her Daddy (Harris) and This Past Weekend with Theo Von (Trump).
  • Additionally, the Harris and Trump campaigns have reportedly met with popular podcaster Joe Rogan’s team to discuss potential interviews on The Joe Rogan Experience ahead of the election, though the appearances have yet to be confirmed.

Polling update: Harris is currently leading Trump by a slight margin in polling aggregators from RealClearPolitics (+1.4%), FiveThirtyEight (2.4+%), and The Hill/Decision Desk HQ (+2.9%). However, Trump is currently projected to defeat Harris by a 302-236 margin in the Electoral College based on individual state polls, per RCP.

  • Overall, the presidential election is expected to be determined by the ~13% of voters who are still persuadable, according to polling from Pew Research.

As for Congress: All 435 House seats and 33/100 Senate seats are up for election this year. According to 270toWin, Republicans are projected to win 207 House seats compared to 204 for Democrats, with the remaining 24 seats rated as toss-ups. In the Senate, Republicans are projected to hold 51 seats after the election compared to 48 for Democrats, with the final seat being a toss-up.

Looking ahead… Election Day, the final date to cast an in-person vote or send a mail-in ballot, is on Tuesday, November 5. Here’s everything you need to vote.

📊 Flash poll: If you were going to vote in the 2024 presidential election today, which candidate would you choose?

See a 360° view of what media pundits are saying →
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🔥📉 In partnership with 120/Life

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⏱💥 Speed Rounds: Quick, Impactful Stories

Pics du jour

Images: AFP/NY Post

🐼 A pair of giant pandas arrived in Washington, DC. The three-year-old pandas are on loan to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo for the next 10 years, and will become available for public viewing in late January. They’re the first pandas to be sent from China to Washington in 24 years, and come amidst a renewed era of panda diplomacy between Beijing and the US.

Images: Benoit Tessier/Reuters | Riccardo Milani/AFP | CNBC

🇫🇷 Automakers are showcasing their latest concepts and models at the Paris Motor Show. The biennial trade show, which runs from Monday-Sunday of this week, features a wide range of designs from major auto manufacturers. Examples include: A plug-in hybrid SUV from Chinese EV maker BYD that’s able to “swim” for up to 30 minutes, and a rectangular steering wheel design from Peugeot resembling a video game controller.

Images: Universal Studios

🏰🪄 Universal’s new Epic Universe theme park will reportedly open early next summer. The entertainment giant is planning for its 750-acre park in Orlando to be fully open as early as Memorial Day weekend, with tickets on sale as soon as this month, per a new Wall Street Journal report. The park – which will feature a marquee Harry Potter-themed area, Super Nintendo World, and a monster-themed Dark Universe – is projected to draw ~1 million visitors away from Disney World during 2025 and 2026.

Life-expectancy growth is slowing

Image: Tenor

Take notice, all vampires looking for a romantic relationship – human life expectancy will increase much slower in this century than the last, according to gerontologist Dr. S. Jay Olshansky.

For the past 30 years, Dr. Olshansky has studied trends in aging in some of the world's biggest cities. And his recent work indicates the surge in increased life expectancy has finally slowed down:

  • Before the mid-1800s, human life expectancy at birth was between 20–50 years. Improvements in survival were slow – think: pandemics, death by infection, etc.
  • Advances in public health and medicine in the early 1900s kicked off a “longevity revolution,” characterized by large and rapid increases in life expectancy at birth (referred to as “radical life extension”).
  • By 2000, US life expectancy at birth had reached 76.5 years. Since then, however, it’s plateaued – life expectancy at birth in 2020 was 78.8 years, a slight decline from the year before.

The conclusion: “Our analysis suggests that survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males, altogether suggesting that, unless the processes of biological aging can be markedly slowed, radical human life extension is implausible in this century.”

🏥 Another takeaway: Healthspan > lifespan. Aging already comes with risks of diseases like dementia, Alzheimer's, and other serious health challenges. According to Olshansky, unless we find a way to slow down biological aging and extend a person’s “health span,” living to 120+ may be as un-enjoyable as being trapped inside on a beautiful day.

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🔥🧘‍♀️ In partnership with JadeYoga

The right tools to support your yoga practice

Beyond top-rated mats, JadeYoga also delivers props designed to enhance your comfort, alignment, and stability. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned yogi, these essential props empower you to deepen your practice with confidence…

  • 🧘‍♀️ Yoga blocks made with sustainably harvested cork
  • 🙌 Heavy-duty yet soft yoga straps allow you to modify poses and get deeper stretches
  • ☁️ Soft and supportive bolsters that enable you to truly open up your poses

And just like with their award-winning mats, JadeYoga gives back to the earth with each item sold.

Explore JadeYoga’s best-selling props here.

💬 Overheard

"Although [he] can't play, I think he can help us select a quarterback in the future and potentially train [him] as well."

If you’ve ever wondered whether animals can own NFL franchises, it seems the answer is “yes.” The GOAT 🐐 Tom Brady officially became part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders yesterday, after all 32 NFL teams voted unanimously to approve his bid.

The bid, a joint effort between Brady, Knighthead Capital co-founder Tom Wagner, and Brady's Hall of Fame former Patriots teammate and ex-Raider Richard Seymour, reportedly secures ~10% ownership of the franchise at a $3.5 billion valuation – a seemingly great deal for the trio.

  • The Raiders are the NFL’s fifth-most valuable franchise, according to CNBC’s Official 2024 NFL Team Valuations, worth $7.8 billion. This implies a discount of 50+%; sports bankers say the typical discount for a limited partner with no say in how the team is run and no path to control ownership is 20%–25%.
  • Brady's deal was initially agreed upon in May 2023, but it took owners 17 months to give their approval over concerns he was receiving too big a discount from Raiders majority owner Mark Davis.

Stipulations: Brady, who’s currently in the front-end of a 10-year, $375 million broadcasting deal with Fox Sports, will have to abide by restrictions on how he covers the team, as well as the NFL’s fine policy for owners that prevents criticizing game officials or other franchises.

🏈 By the numbers: Brady and Seymour are the third and fourth former NFL players to become owners.

🍩 DONUT Holes

  • ☝️ Travis Gienger of Minnesota won his second straight title in the 51st annual World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California; his winning pumpkin weighed in at 2,471 pounds, falling short of the world record Gienger set last year (2,749 pounds).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Armoire

  • 💰 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.8%; Dow: -0.8%; Nasdaq: -1.0%). | ✈️ Boeing will sell at least $10 billion in shares; could issue up to $25 billion in shares or debt over the next three years, per new regulatory filings. (Background)
  • 🚫 Walgreens is closing ~1,200 stores over the next three years; there are currently 8,000+ Walgreens locations in the US.
  • 🏦 Bank of America beat estimates for Q3 profit and revenue on better-than-expected trading results. | 🏦 Goldman Sachs topped estimates for Q3 profit and revenue on strong results from trading and investment banking.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

  • 🏀 College basketball: Kansas, Alabama, and Connecticut (the two-time defending champs) lead the AP men’s preseason Top 25 poll; on the women’s side, defending champ South Carolina, UConn, and USC are atop the AP preseason poll.
  • 📖🎶 Taylor Swift unveiled a new hardcover coffee-table book about her ongoing Eras Tour, aka the highest-grossing concert tour of all time ($1+ billion).
  • 🏈🤝 The Las Vegas Raiders traded All-Pro WR Davante Adams to the New York Jets for a conditional third-round pick. | 🏈🤝 The Cleveland Browns are trading Pro Bowl WR Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills in a deal that includes a Buffalo third-round draft pick.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Cornbread Hemp

  • 📺 YouTube announced a host of new features across web, mobile, TV, and YouTube Music, including a sleep timer and the ability to playback video in 0.05x speed increments. | 🍎 Apple announced a new iPad mini for the first time since 2021; it’ll hit stores October 23.
  • 🤖 Tesla’s prototype Optimus robots were being partially controlled by human teleoperators at last week's "We, Robot" event, per multiple reports.
  • ⚡⚛️ Google agreed to buy electricity from next-generation nuclear reactors starting as early as 2030; the tech giant says it marks the world’s first corporate agreement to purchase electricity from advanced small modular reactors (SMRs), which are still in development.

*From our partners: 🌿🦅 USA-made quality you won’t find elsewhere… Cornbread THC Gummies are lab-tested to ensure all ingredients are free of pesticides and impurities. Non-GMO, gluten-free, and vegan-friendly, they’re USDA-Organic certified and 100% legal in almost every state. Shop Cornbread Hemp here.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • 🌀 90+ people remain missing in North Carolina more than two weeks after Hurricane Helene; state officials have confirmed 95 deaths from the storm thus far.
  • 🇺🇸🇮🇱 The Biden admin sent a letter to senior Israeli government officials telling them to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days or risk a cut in US arms sales to Israel.
  • ⚖️ Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for North Carolina governor, filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN over its recent report that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a porn website’s message board. | 🤖⚖️ A Massachusetts couple sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project; it appears to be the first case of its kind in the US.

CLICKBAIT

🔥 The Hot Corner

🧠 Stat of the Day: 1 in 4 US adults (25%) suspect they have undiagnosed ADHD, per a new national survey commissioned by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine. Officially, just 4.4% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 44 have the condition, though many people aren’t diagnosed until they’re older.

🤔 Did You Know? Author Mark Twain invented a detachable clothing strap in 1871 that closely resembles the clasps used in modern-day women’s bras.

📰 Worth a Read: He Was a Monk, Then a Billionaire, and Now an Alleged Tax Cheat → (Wall Street Journal)

🤗 Daily Dose of Positive

Matt from the Block

Image: Matt Brusich

Chicago resident Matt Brusich prefaced the city's annual marathon last Sunday by running his own. 

The day before the big race, in an attempt to raise money for the homeless population in his Lincoln Park neighborhood, Matt ran a full 26.2-mile marathon – all around his one city block.

🏃 Matt circled his block 79.38 times to reach his goal, and took on challenges along the way to break up the monotony. He ran a few laps in a banana costume while his friend chased him in a gorilla outfit. He drank a can of Budweiser during a lap in exchange for a $100 donation.

  • By the end of the day, Matt had raised $11,000 for the local homeless community.
  • Brusich was able to get the race sanctioned by the US Track and Field National Office, and he even got a pizza named after him for his acheivement.

🧠 Trivia

🎃 True or False?... A pumpkin is a fruit.

🤔 Riddle Me This: What can you hear, but not touch or see – yet still control?

🤑 DONUT Dealz

Looking for a deal?

As you may have noticed, we’re no strangers to bargains around these parts.

If there’s one that caught your eye but you let it slip by, it’s probably on our DONUT Dealz page. And we’re updating it all the time with new deals and partners, partner.

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🧠 Answers

🎃 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: Your voice

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