Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤔 The world is divided over how to split the bill for climate change
• 🇮🇱🧑‍⚖️ The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders
• 🎢 Minecraft is getting the theme park treatment

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.88-minute read (1,300 words).

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“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

–Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)

COP29, the UN’s 29th annual summit on climate change, is scheduled to wrap up later today – but the main question officials hoped to address at the summit still remains unanswered.

Background: Heading into COP29, the key goal was to reach an agreement on how much money richer, developed countries should provide poorer, developing ones to help them fight climate change, with developing nations pushing for a significant increase to the current $100 billion/year commitment (through 2025).

But after nearly two weeks of discussion, many countries at COP29 still disagree over how much should be committed, who should be paying, and how the money should be used.

• UN officials estimate several trillion dollars in contributions are needed by 2030 to fully address climate risks to developing countries, with a recent study placing the minimum figure at $1+ trillion/year.
• However, richer nations have reportedly balked at that price tag, and are negotiating for a smaller sum in the range of a few hundred billion dollars annually.
• Many developed countries have questioned their level of responsibility for climate change, as well as the classification of China as a “developing” nation.

On Thursday, the UN published a draft document containing an “X” in place of a dollar amount for how much wealthy nations will pay poor countries, in a sign that negotiations have currently stalled.

Zoom out: This year, global average surface temperatures are “virtually certain” to exceed 1.5° C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels – the threshold at which countries agreed to try to limit warming as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement – for the first time in modern history, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Looking ahead… While COP29 is scheduled to wrap up later today, the summit is widely expected to overrun into the weekend as negotiations over financing continue to play out.

📊 Flash poll: In general, do you think developed nations should pay more or less money to developing countries to help them fight climate change?

• Pay more money
• Pay less (or no) money
• Unsure/other

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🏛️ Former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Trump’s AG. Gaetz has come under fire in recent weeks, as the House Ethics Committee prepared to release a report on its long-running investigation into allegations that Gaetz had sex with a minor and used illicit drugs while he was in office. The committee is currently divided on whether to publish the report, since Gaetz is no longer under its jurisdiction. In a social media post announcing his withdrawal, Gaetz said the prospect of his confirmation as Trump’s attorney general – which received pushback from some GOP senators – was “unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.” Last night, Trump named former Florida AG Pam Bondi to replace Gaetz as his nominee for US attorney general.

🍌 Grocery inflation is really getting out of hand. A single banana duct-taped to a wall – a piece of…artwork titled “Comedian” – officially sold for $6.2 million at auction on Wednesday, according to Sotheby’s. The artwork was purchased by crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who says he plans to eat his investment “in the coming days.” That won’t affect its value, however, as Sun technically didn’t purchase the banana – but rather a certificate of authenticity allowing him to reproduce “Comedian” and call it an original work of Italian artist and satirist Maurizio Cattelan.

🇮🇱🧑‍⚖️ The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders. The warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif all cite war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection to the 13-month Israeli-Hamas war. The ICC accused Netanyahu and Gallant of “causing extermination,” using starvation as a method of war, and deliberately targeting civilians. The court also charged Deif – whom Israel claims to have recently killed – with involvement in murder, rape, torture, and the taking of Israeli hostages. The defendants are now at risk of arrest when traveling abroad, though the warrants’ practical implications are limited since Israel isn’t a part of the ICC (along with the US).

Gladiator II and Wicked both hit theaters today, ahead of the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, kicking off an important stretch at the US box office for the movie industry.

• Gladiator II: The Ridley Scott-directed sequel is projected to make between $65 million–$75 million domestically in its opening weekend.
• Wicked: Part 1 of Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical is expected to open to the tune of $120 million–$140 million domestically.

Each film is packed with star power and has a dedicated two-decade-long fan base. Both have also been aggressively marketed; Wicked partnered with 400+ brands worldwide for promo purposes, while Gladiator II staged the biggest “roadblock” promo in history and also signed a controversial deal with Airbnb to bring gladiator battles to the actual Colosseum in Rome (seriously).

Can Glicked recapture the Barbenheimer magic? Some theaters are offering themed concessions menus for double-feature movie-goers. But critics are skeptical of it taking off due to the films appealing to such opposing audiences – though early tracking data indicates there could be more overlap than previously thought.

👀 Looking ahead… Projections indicate the five-day Thanksgiving weekend will bring in $300+ million at the domestic box office, a feat that’s only been done once before in 2018. But it hinges on the initial success of Glicked. Per The Hollywood Reporter: Movies opening the weekend before Thanksgiving, rather than midweek on Wednesday, can often come close to repeating their opening number during the official five-day holiday weekend – but only if audiences like them.

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• ☝️ The world’s tallest and shortest women met for afternoon tea in London this week to celebrate Guinness World Records Day; Rumeysa Gelgi stands 7 feet and 0.7 inches tall, while Jyoti Amge is 2 feet and 0.7 inches.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Tuft & Needle

• 💰 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +0.5%; Dow: +1.1%; Nasdaq: +0.03%). | 🏘️ US home sales in October were 2.9% higher than last year, marking the first annual increase in over three years. | 💼 Weekly jobless claims fell to a seven-month low.
• ⚖️ Gary Wang, former FTX CTO, will not serve any time in prison. | ✌️ Gary Gensler, chair of Securities and Exchange Commission, is stepping down on January 20.
• 🏦 Digital payment providers processing 50+ million transactions/year, including Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Cash App, PayPal, etc., will soon be subject to bank-like supervision under new rules being finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎤 Coachella announced the lineup for its 2025 music festival, headlined by Lady Gaga, Post Malone, Green Day, and Travis Scott. | ⚖️ Actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction for falsely staging and reporting a hate crime to Chicago police in 2019 was overturned by Illinois’ Supreme Court; justices ruled Smollett shouldn’t have been charged a second time after previously entering a nonprosecution agreement with authorities.
• 📖🏆 Percival Everett won the National Book Award for fiction – one of America’s most prestigious literary prizes – for James, a reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
• ⛳ The LPGA announced $131 million in prize money for the 2025 season, a 90% increase from 2021. | ⚾ The MLB will test robot umpires in 2025 spring training.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Cornbread Hemp

• 🦧 Chimps can share knowledge like humans do, according to a new study; researchers found female chimps who migrate to new social groups bring skills and technology along with them.
• ☢️ A nuclear fusion breakthrough from Princeton researchers could reduce the need for tritium in fusion reactors by a factor of 10x; tritium is a rare and expensive isotope of hydrogen that’s posed a major hurdle for scientists building nuclear reactors.
• 🛰️ The International Space Station performed a maneuver Tuesday to avoid a piece of space junk, which could have come within 2.5 miles of the station without preemptive action. | 🌌 Astronomers recently captured the first close-up image of a star outside our Milky Way galaxy.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🥪 The McRib is coming back to McDonald’s locations nationwide starting December 3; McDonald’s is also selling half-gallon jugs of McRib sauce starting this Monday.
• 🇧🇷⚖️ Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was indicted by the country’s federal police yesterday alongside 36 other defendants for allegedly attempting a coup to keep him in office after losing the 2022 election.
• 🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Moscow launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine early yesterday in response to Ukraine’s recent use of US and UK weapons to strike deeper into Russia; the missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but lacks the range of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). | 🇺🇸🇺🇦 The US agreed to send antipersonnel mines to Ukraine; the international community has long condemned such weapons due to their danger to innocent civilians.

CLICKBAIT

• ☀️👽 The fastest-moving stars in the galaxy may be piloted by intelligent aliens, new paper suggests.

🎮🐉 Stat of the Day: Those wanting to take a shot at the Ender Dragon IRL will soon have a chance. Minecraft, the #2-best selling videogame of all time, has entered into a $110 million partnership with the UK-based Merlin Entertainment to build and open two theme parks or city center attractions in either the US or UK by 2027. Merlin, which operates 135+ attractions across 23 countries, has previous experience bringing digital IP to the real world – including with Jumanji and Peppa Pig. The IP → theme park pipeline has also proven lucrative for Comcast, which operates Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood and Japan, as well as Disney.

🤔 Did You Know? Most of the claims about people around the world living to be 105+ years old are wrong, with many already having died years earlier, according to UK scientist and Ig Nobel Prize winner Saul Justin Newman, who personally investigated many of these instances. This is especially true in all of the world’s “blue zones” that purport to have a higher population of 100+-year-old individuals, Newman says.

📰 Worth a Read: In defense of slouching: the bad science behind good posture → (Psyche)

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• Red Lobster CEO says endless shrimp is never coming back because ‘I know how to do math’ → (Fortune)
• Mike Tyson reminds child reporter that she, too, will die → (AV Club)
• Swiss Church Uses AI-Generated Jesus Hologram to Hear Confessions → (Daily Boulder)
• Magic society launches hunt for first female member, expelled for posing as a man → (CNN)
• Google's AI Chatbot Tells Student Seeking Help with Homework 'Please Die' → (Newsweek)

Meet "Best Friend," a macaroni penguin at SeaWorld San Diego who recently celebrated his 40th birthday – far surpassing his species' 15-20 year life span in the wild.

Best Friend is a fan favorite at his SeaWorld home. His favorite daily activities include "bubble-blowing antics in his water tray," letting out "ecstatic calls when spoken to," and "joyfully playing with trickling hoses."

• He's the oldest known macaroni penguin in North America.

♟️ Read: The greatest chess player of all time is bored with chess.

🏎️ Down to a science: How organizers turn the Vegas Strip into an F1 track in just two hours.

🔤 Explore: Benjamin Franklin created his own phonetic alphabet.

📱 Interesting: Pokémon Go may be mapping the Earth, but Android phones are helping to map the ionosphere to help improve GPS accuracy.

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Our weekly news quiz is live. How well did you pay attention this week? Let’s find out.

Below are three lists of ingredients. Your job is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Turkey neck/giblets
• Walnuts
• Italian bread
• Onion
• Celery
• Butter
• Green apple
• Raisins
• Martini olives
• Parsley
• Poultry seasoning
• Salt & pepper

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Butter
• Water
• Salt
• Flour
• Eggs
• Cheddar cheese
• Thyme
• Pepper

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Sugar
• Orange zest
• Whole milk
• Eggs
• Flour
• Yeast
• Salt
• Butter
• Vegetable oil
• Cinnamon
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Orange juice
• Lemon juice

☝️ Recipe #1: Turkey stuffing

✌️ Recipe #2: Cheddar cheese puffs

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Orange breakfast rolls