Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🗳️ Election results
• 🤳 History had its own version of digital filters
• 💰 Big Wellness

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.89-minute read (1,302 words).

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“A tiny change today brings a dramatically different tomorrow.”

–Richard Bach (b.1936)

Election Day is officially in the books, ending an unprecedented campaign season that featured two attempted assassinations of a presidential candidate, along with the incumbent president dropping out with ~100 days left in the race.

Here are the results so far (as of 4 am ET):

President: Former President Trump is on the verge of securing the 270 electoral votes needed to drop the “former” from his title. He leads Vice President Harris 267-244 after winning in key swing states, including Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and is leading in other battleground states yet to be called, such as Michigan and WIsconsin, according to the Associated Press. Trump is also on pace to secure the popular vote by 1.4%, per the NY Times’ election needle (though votes are still being tallied).

House: The chamber is still up for grabs, though Republicans hold a 196-177 advantage with ~60 races yet to be called. There were no major upsets to report in the early races, with House leadership on both sides of the aisle cruising to victory.

Senate: Republicans won a guaranteed majority in the chamber, with their margin over Democrats standing at 51-42, according to the AP. The GOP managed to flip control of at least two seats: Bernie Moreno knocked off Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Jim Justice won the West Virginia seat held by retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (I).

Ballot proposals: Voters in New York, Colorado, and Maryland approved measures protecting abortion access, while Florida rejected a measure to protect the right to an abortion up to the point of fetal viability. Florida also rejected a measure to legalize recreational marijuana, Washington, D.C., approved ranked-choice voting, and Oregon rejected ranked-choice voting. See a full breakdown here.

📊 Flash poll: Did you cast a ballot in the 2024 election?

• Yes
• No

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🇺🇸🗳️ Scenes from Election Day: Long lines, false bomb threats, and an arrest at the US Capitol. A series of bomb threats were reported yesterday at polling locations in Arizona and Georgia. The FBI says “noncredible” bomb threats in several states appear to trace back to a Russian email domain. Separately, a man was arrested at the US Capitol after showing up with a torch and a flare gun yesterday, prompting police to shut down the building. And when it comes to voting: exit polls show the most important issues for voters were the economy, immigration, and the future of democracy.

🇯🇵📦 Japan announced a new “conveyor belt road” for packages. The Japanese government’s plan involves creating a sealed-off, three-lane corridor alongside the highway connecting Tokyo and Osaka, which will ferry large wheeled boxes back-and-forth between the two major cities. Officials say the project – which starts testing in 2027-2028 and aims to come online by the mid-2030s – represents a potential solution to Japan’s shrinking labor force, which has led to a shortage of truck drivers.

💰 Nvidia founder/CEO Jensen Huang (pictured above) now runs the world’s most valuable company. Nvidia overtook Apple as the most valuable public company at market close yesterday ($3.43 trillion vs. $3.40 trillion), following a ~3% stock bump. Nvidia shares have almost tripled in 2024, with the company remaining at the forefront of chipmaking for tech giants pursuing AI dominance – who will collectively spend a record $200+ billion this year on AI.

Beauty filters may not be as contemporary an idea as we thought. Last year, while cleaning a 17th-century portrait of Diana Cecil, conservators discovered that Diana’s image was altered more than 100 years after the painting was completed.

• The retouching wasn’t as obvious as Snapchat’s dog filter, but Diana’s face was clearly altered – her lips plumped, double chin removed, and hairline lowered to appear more full.

Diana isn’t the only case of Renaissance retouching. A similar discovery occurred in 2014, when a 16th-century portrait of Isabella Medici that Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art was about to toss out was revealed to have been retouched in the 19th century.

Retouching, online filters – have we ever truly been happy with our appearances?

Regardless of the answer (“no”), social media and all of its available filters haven't helped. In a 2021 study conducted by City, University of London:

• 94% of women said they felt "pressure to look a certain way on social media.”
• 75% said they felt they would “never live up to the images [they] see,” and 60% said they “sometimes felt depressed as a result.”
• Nearly 80% said social media made them feel bad about themselves most or at least half of the time.

🤳 Zoom out: 600 million people use augmented reality filters on Instagram or Facebook monthly, while 76% of Snapchat users use them daily, according to data from 2020, the most recent we could find.

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“I did a double take…I was imagining, you know, grandparents who got gift cards for their kids in college and then it got thrown away.”

As TGI Fridays navigates through bankruptcy, its franchisees are worried about getting stuck carrying the to-go bag. The company has $49.7 million in outstanding customer gift card obligations – far more than the cash it has in the bank, even after taking into account a $5.9 million loan secured to fund its bankruptcy proceedings.

The dilemma: When gift cards are used at franchised restaurants, the location accepts the gift card as payment, then asks for reimbursement from corporate. In this instance, franchisees want to honor the gift cards – but, given the situation, are concerned the funds may end up coming from their own pockets.

• Most TGI Fridays' restaurants are franchises, due to the company's "asset-light" business strategy. 122 of its 161 open locations in the US are franchises.

Following a judge’s ruling on Monday (who the above quote is taken from), the gift-card program will continue on an interim basis, giving franchisees more time to review both it and the company’s finances before the program is approved for the remainder of bankruptcy.

✌️ Part of a trend: Several other US restaurant companies have also filed for bankruptcy in 2024, including Red Lobster, Buca di Beppo, and Rubio's Coastal Grill.

• ☝️ The purported discovery of Amelia Earhart’s plane by adventurer Tony Romeo earlier this year turned out to be an “unfortunate rock formation” on the ocean floor, according to new images gathered by Romeo.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with 120/Life

• 💰 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +1.2%; Dow: +1.0%; Nasdaq: +1.4%). | 😬 Super Micro, at risk of being delisted by the Nasdaq, reported unaudited quarterly results after the bell; revenue and guidance missed estimates, while the release of its 2024 financials has no timetable; shares fell 17% in extended trading.
• 🤖 Perplexity, an AI search startup, is raising $500 million at a $9 billion valuation; the company was valued at $3 billion in a funding round this past summer, and $520 million at the start of the year.
• 🙏 Bernard Marcus, billionaire philanthropist and cofounder of Home Depot, died at age 95.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎤🕺 Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic starring the late pop star’s nephew Jafaar Jackson, had its release date pushed back six months to October 2025.
• 📽️💰 The American Film Market, an annual film festival debuting in Las Vegas this year, is projected to generate $1 billion in movie sales from Tuesday-Sunday; buyers are reportedly targeting horror and action titles, and shying away from comedies and dramas.
• 🏈🤝 The NFL trade deadline came and went yesterday afternoon. See a full breakdown. | 🏈 Oregon, Ohio State, Georgia, and Miami sit atop the season's first College Football Playoff rankings.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Manscaped

• 🛰️🪵 The world’s first wooden satellite, developed by Japan’s Kyoto University, was successfully launched into space yesterday; the satellite, which should burn up when re-entering the atmosphere, is part of a study on using wood to help reduce space junk.
• 🚁 Amazon received FAA approval to fly its newer, smaller delivery drones beyond pilots’ visual line of sight. | 🏥🤖 Roughly 1 in 5 UK doctors use a generative AI tool – like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini – to assist with clinical practice, per a recent survey of ~1,000 doctors.
• ⚾ UPenn scientists studied the special mud rubbed on all MLB baseballs – which is harvested from a secret spot along a Delaware River tributary – and found it contains “magical” properties allowing it to spread smoothly but also grip like sandpaper.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🥤 Coca-Cola is reintroducing Barrilitos, an 86-year-old fruity Mexican soft drink it acquired in 2008, in Nevada, Oklahoma, California, and Texas; Barrilitos will be reformulated to appeal to younger consumers.
• 🌀 Tropical Storm Rafael is projected to strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall in Cuba later today.
• 🇮🇱 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu fired the country’s defense minister yesterday, following disagreements over the war in Gaza and domestic political issues.

CLICKBAIT

• 🦛 Who Deng? A baby pygmy hippo in Scotland named Haggis is the new sensation.

🧖 Stat of the Day: Move over Big Pharma, there’s a new sheriff in town – Big Cold Plunge. The global wellness industry increased 25% from 2019-2023 to reach $6.3 trillion, making it larger than both the sports and pharmaceutical industries (~$2.7 trillion and ~$1.5 trillion, respectively), per a new report from the Global Wellness Institute, a leading industry group.

However – that figure is partly due to the GWI’s relatively broad definition of wellness. By comparison, McKinsey, which has stricter guidelines, puts the global wellness economy at $1.8 trillion as of January 2024.

• Either way, the industry has seen a revenue boost in recent years due to a combination of peoples’ increased focus on health during the pandemic, as well as trends like an aging global population, chronic disease, and mental health awareness.

🤔 Did You Know? Humans emit a very low level of light due to our metabolic processes – meaning we technically glow in the dark. This glow is ~1,000x weaker than what human eyes can detect, but it can be picked up by certain types of cameras.

📰 Worth a Read: The thriving business of looking good on Zoom → (The Hustle)

Twice a week, Lois White hits the pickleball courts in Gardner, Kansas, to play in the senior league. At 95, she's one of the oldest players – and she almost always wins. 

👵🏻 Lois has become a fan favorite in the league, proving time-and-time-again there's almost nothing she can't do. The great-great-grandmother also plays cards every week, takes square dancing lessons, and recently picked up the mandolin. She'll be 96 in January. 

See her in action here.

How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the given value.

1. 🍽️ 3.3x/minute: The rate at which the average adult swallows while eating
2. 👂 80%: Percentage of people who eavesdrop
3. 🛌 1,500: Number of dreams the average person has per year.

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1. 🍽️ Over; 5 swallows/minute
2. 👂 Over; 84%
3. 🛌 Under; 1,460