Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🔵 The state of the Democratic Party
• 🇷🇺☢️ Russia signals its readiness for nuclear action
• 🔤 The undisputed GOAT of Scrabble

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.73-minute read (1,260 words).

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“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”

–Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.)

A major political shift is underway in Washington and across the US – beyond new leadership changes at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Today is the finale of a two-part series focused on how both major political parties have changed in recent years. The Democratic Party, fresh off a disappointing 2024 election performance, is up next.

The Democratic Party’s base of support

Democrats hold a clear advantage among several major demographic groups, according to exit polls from the 2024 election. These include women, people of color (outside of Latino men), urban voters, and people with college degrees.

However, Democrats appear to be losing ground across the board. Data from this month’s election shows President-elect Trump gained ground in nearly every key demographic compared to his previous run – including gender, education, urban vs. rural, and age (except those aged 65+).

Democrats’ policy positions

In recent decades, Democrats have gradually redefined their political message to appeal to white-collar, highly-educated, affluent Americans occupying larger, metropolitan areas – rather than placing an emphasis on working-class voters.

These “professional-class” Americans tend to be socially progressive and concerned with issues like environmental protection, social inequality, and/or international affairs – as opposed to issues that are more likely to affect the working class (like inflation, immigration, and crime).

• Generally speaking, Democrats today are in favor of raising taxes on higher-income households while lowering rates for the middle class; expanding reproductive rights and access to abortion nationally; and widely believe America should play a leading role in international issues.

Looking ahead… Starting in January, Democrats will be the opposition party in Washington, with the GOP controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress. They’re expected to oppose many Republican policies with the help of the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold (the chamber will be 53-47 in the GOP’s favor).

📊 Flash poll: In general, do you prefer the Democratic Party of today, or the Democrats of previous decades?

• Democrats today
• Democrats in previous decades
• Unsure/other

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🇷🇺☢️ Russia signaled its readiness for nuclear action. In a decree issued yesterday, President Vladimir Putin updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold at which it could consider using nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack. Putin also updated the doctrine to allow Russia to use nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed country that doesn’t directly launch an attack on Russia, but supports one by a nonnuclear country – a clear reference to Ukraine and its nuclear-armed backers, which include the US. Putin’s decree was published hours after Ukraine reportedly took advantage of a new green light from President Biden to fire the first US-made long-range missiles into Russia – though Russia’s nuclear changes were initially announced in September.

🔍 Google could be forced to sell Chrome. DOJ officials will on Wednesday ask a judge – who previously ruled Google Search was an illegal monopoly – to force the company to sell Chrome, its industry-leading browser, Bloomberg reports. Why? Regulators view the browser, the world’s most popular, as a key feeder of proprietary user data (i.e., browser activity) that’s used to power the company’s ad products. But Chrome won’t be going gentle into that good night: Google plans to appeal the case, and the judge won’t make a final call until August 2025.

🥪 Blackstone is gobbling up Jersey Mike’s. The private equity firm is taking a majority stake in the sandwich chain – the #2-largest sub-style sandwich company in the US by sales – in a deal valuing the Danny DeVito-repped company at ~$8 billion, including debt. Consolidation has been picking up among restaurant owners, whose cash flows have drawn interest from a range of buyers, including deep-pocketed private-equity firms, the Wall Street Journal reports. Subway was purchased last year by private-equity firm Roark Capital for $9.6 billion.

Last year, The Beatles released a new song with the help of AI.

This year, “Now and Then” is up for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance at the Grammy Awards, putting the Fab Four up against some of today’s top artists including Sabrina Carpenter, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift.

Money can't buy me love (but it can buy the use of top-notch AI): The song originated from a demo recorded by John Lennon in the 1970s before his death, and features contributions from all four Beatles. The group previously tried to stitch a song together from the snippets, but the demo’s poor sound quality made it difficult to isolate Lennon’s voice from his piano playing.

Enter: Peter Jackson, filmmaker- and- restorer- extraordinaire. While filming a documentary on the Beatles in 2021 (Get Back), he and his team created technology that can take any soundtrack and split all the different components into separate tracks with machine learning (which they subsequently had to hide from Gollum). This was used to create “Now and Then.”

It’s making waves at the Grammys: The use of AI in music production has become a hot topic in recent years, with many artists divided over the ethics in an industry that values live talent. The current Academy rule states AI-assisted music must “enhance” rather than replace the work of humans in order to be submitted for Grammy consideration.

📅 Mark the cal: The 66th annual Grammy Awards will be held February 4 at 8 pm ET.

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• ☝️ 🚀 SpaceX completed a sixth test flight of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, but aborted an attempt to catch the booster with giant mechanical arms, which succeeded in flight #5; the company said Starship ignited one of its Raptor engines successfully while in space for the first time.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Tuft & Needle

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.4%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: +1.0%).
• 💪 Walmart reported strong Q3 results boosted by higher discretionary spending from households making $100,000/year.
• 🎧 Bose is purchasing McIntosh, the storied maker of high-end luxury audio equipment. | 🍔🤝 ✈️ Shake Shack + Delta: The two companies are partnering to bring the former's burgers to the latter's first-class customers. | 📺 Comcast is spinning off its NBCUniversal cable TV networks, which includes MSNBC, CNBC, USA, E!, Syfy, and the Golf Channel.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📰📲 1 in 5 Americans say they regularly get their news from “news influencers” on social media, per a new Pew Research study; that includes 37% of adults under 30, the largest share of any age group.
• 📱 Bluesky, the X/Threads competitor, recently passed 20 million users (though it's unclear whether that figure is daily, monthly, active, etc.); Threads reached 275+ million monthly active users this month.
• ⚾🏆 MLB Awards Week: The AL/NL Manager of the Year and AL/NL Rookie of the Year were announced this week; Cy Young winners are today, while league MVPs will be announced tomorrow. | 🏈 The New York Jets fired general manager Joe Douglas after five seasons with the franchise. (JETS: Just End The Season)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Cornbread Hemp

• 🗣️ Microsoft Teams announced an upcoming AI-powered translation tool that allows users to speak or listen in the language of their choosing during meetings.
• 🚀🌕 NASA tapped SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide lunar landers that would deliver large pieces of equipment and infrastructure to the Moon’s surface; the assignments fall under NASA’s existing human landing-system contracts.
• 🦠 Human fat cells carry a “memory” of obesity even after drastic weight-loss, per a new study; the results could explain why many people find it hard to keep weight off after losing it.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🏛️ President-elect Trump nominated TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Trump also nominated former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) as his transportation secretary, former WWE CEO Linda McMahon as education secretary, and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary.
• ✂️🌐 A pair of undersea communication cables linking Germany to Finland were recently severed in the Baltic Sea; US allies, including Germany, called the incident an act of sabotage targeting European countries who support Ukraine’s war against Russia.
• 🏛️ A witness told the House Ethics Committee she saw former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) have sex with a 17-year-old girl at a party in 2017, while he was serving in Congress, per the witness’ lawyer; the House committee was expected to release a report on its investigation into Gaetz last week, but didn’t do so after Gaetz resigned from Congress to pursue the attorney general nomination offered by President-elect Trump. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🥇🎙️ Apple’s most popular podcasts of 2024.

🔠🏆 Stat of the Day: If you spoke a word in Spanish to Nigel Richards, he wouldn’t be able to tell you what it means – but he could tell you how many points it’s worth. The New Zealander took home the 2024 Spanish World Scrabble Championship title this past weekend, despite not speaking the language. And, while almost unbelievable, this isn’t out of character for Richards: the 57-year-old has also won two French World Scrabble Championships, despite not speaking that language either (to prep, he reportedly spent nine weeks studying the ~400,000-word French Scrabble dictionary). Overall, Richards has earned 11 North American and world championships in Scrabble, eight more than any other competitor in history. Read a full profile on Richards from 2019 here.

🤔 Did You Know? In South Korea, only blind people are eligible to become licensed massage therapists, under a law that’s repeatedly been upheld by the country’s Supreme Court in recent years.

📰 Worth a Read: The British politician who was caught faking his own death → (BBC Culture)

Eniola Shokunbi was in fifth grade when she designed an air filter device that’s able to remove viruses from the air for a school project. 

Built from a box fan, four furnace filters, duct tape, and cardboard, her filter worked so well that it was tested and certified by the EPA (99% effective). 

• Last month, Eniola received an $11.5 million grant from Connecticut's government to install her filters in schools statewide. 

💬 What she's saying: “A lot of people, they don’t realize sometimes that the only thing standing between them and getting sick is science,” Eniola said. “If we’re not investing in that, then we’re not investing [in] kids’ future.”

😋 That’s helpful: Here’s 50+ different recipes to help you plan your Thanksgiving menu.

🥵 That’s hot: Saunas are becoming the new place for investors and founders to socialize and raise money.

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Which movie has the largest budget in history (adjusted for inflation)? 

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): $575 million adjusted, $447 million nominal

Honorable mention:

• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018): $524 million adjusted, $432 million nominal
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011): $513 million adjusted, $379 million nominal

Source