Good morning. In this edition:

• 🗳️ How Zohran Mamdani won over NYC
• 🤫 CIA secret codes
• 📚 The books everyone should read at least once

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.78-minute read (1,271 words).

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"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded."

–Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Zohran Mamdani is New York City’s unlikely new Democratic candidate for mayor, after he officially claimed victory in this week’s primary election when his main opponent, former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, conceded the race.

How we got here: Cuomo was polling at the top of NYC’s mayoral race for months leading up to this week’s Democratic primary. But Mamdani, a 31-year-old state representative who identifies as a democratic socialist, had an astounding rise from February—when he was polling at just 1% to Cuomo’s 33%—to take a slim polling lead heading into Tuesday’s contest, thanks to a strong social media campaign and cross-endorsements with non-Cuomo candidates.

• Early primary results show Mamdani earned 43.5% of the vote to Cuomo’s 36.4%, with nearly all votes counted.
• And while the race’s official outcome has yet to be finalized, Cuomo conceded shortly after the first results came in, leaving Mamdani the de-facto victor.

The winning pitch

Mamdani’s campaign promises include commitments to invest $70 billion in publicly subsidized housing, freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments, make childcare free, and create city-owned grocery stores aimed at keeping prices down.

And it resonated heavily with young, college-educated, and left-leaning residents.

• Mamdani led Cuomo by double-digit margins in middle-income and higher-income neighborhoods—like the artist-filled Bushwick, where he carried 79% of the vote—while lower-income areas voted for Cuomo by a similarly wide margin.

All eyez on NYC: Mamdani is a controversial figure on the national political stage—even within his own party.

• Many Democratic lawmakers in Washington don’t mess with the Zohran, either denouncing him or declining to rally around him following Tuesday’s victory, fearing he could hurt the party's brand nationally.
• On the flip side, many Republicans—including President Trump—have celebrated that Democrats elected a democratic socialist who previously called for reduced police funding and sided with Palestinians in the Gaza war.

Looking ahead…Next up for Mamdani is the general election in November, where he’ll face off against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (running as an Independent), the Republican challenger, and maybe even Cuomo again.

📊 Flash poll: In general, how do you feel about NYC residents electing state Rep. Zohran Mamdani as their Democratic candidate for mayor?

• It’s a good choice
• It’s a bad choice
• It’s too early to tell
• Other

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College students are increasingly being asked to help pay the Piper—last name Williams, an incoming five-star 6-ft-5 women’s basketball center from Bloomington.

The University of South Carolina last week announced a new $300/year athletics auxiliary fee will be added to students’ tuition bills, following a similar move by rival Clemson in October. Other universities are also looking into adding or increasing athletics-focused tuition fees, according to college sports officials and insiders.

The driving factor: The recently approved House v. NCAA settlement, effective July 1, which includes changes expected to result in a multimillion-dollar hit to schools’ bottom lines:

• The settlement establishes revenue sharing with athletes. D1 schools will be able to pass on a max of $20.5 million to players in 2025-2026, with this figure increasing 4% YoY for at least the first three years afterward.
• Colleges will be able to offer more scholarships across sports, a change expected to add ~$29 million/year in costs.
• The NCAA will be decreasing the amount it pays to the 350+ D1 schools annually.

To make the math math and stay competitive: Athletic departments are looking to juice their incomes, whether by securing additional school funds, charging extra fees on tickets/concessions, or trying to plop QR codes on football helmets to solicit donations.

But…These moves may not be well received—and also may not even be enough. The median FBS athletic department experienced a ~$19.3 million budget deficit in 2022, according to NCAA figures.

Mr. Robot's got nothing on the real deal.

Xbow, an AI model developed by a startup of the same name, recently became the first bot to reach the top of HackerOne’s prestigious US leaderboard by reputation.

Can you hack it? HackerOne connects US-based companies and organizations with ethical hackers to participate in bug bounty programs. Its leaderboard ranking system tracks which hackers have found and reported the most vulnerabilities, with each one weighted by how important it is.

• Xbow reached the top spot on HackerOne by a wide margin after submitting ~1,060 vulnerabilities within a 90-day period, including 54 classified as “critical” and 242 as “high.”

Good news, bad news: In a blog post describing the road to #1, Xbow notes ~45% of the vulnerabilities its AI discovered are still awaiting resolution, in yet another example of how security teams are struggling to keep up with AI-assisted cyberattacks.

Zoom out: Experts say malicious actors are increasingly using AI to not only launch autonomous cyberattacks at scale, but also craft highly convincing fake content that consistently “blur[s] the line between what’s real and what’s not” across audio, video, and text.

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US Q1 GDP revised lower, from -0.2% annually to -0.5%.
• 📱 Trump Organization scraps "made in the USA" tag for its gold T1 smartphone; website now refers to "American-Proud Design" and says the device will be “brought to life right here in the USA.”
• 🚗 Tesla executive Omead Afshar, who oversees sales and manufacturing operations in North America and Europe, has reportedly left the company. | Chinese EV- and- smartphone maker Xiaomi unveils its first SUV, receives 200,000+ orders in three minutes; price starts at ~$35,322, slightly cheaper than Tesla's Model Y.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with SUPA Power

• ⚖️ Closing arguments begin in sex trafficking trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs.
• 📝 Anna Wintour to step down as editor-in-chief of American Vogue after 40 years; will still retain editorial control. | Olympic sprinter Faith Kipyegon's Nike-backed bid to become the first woman to run a sub-four-minute mile falls short by around six seconds, though her time set a new women's mile record.
• 🍿 F1, the Apple-produced racing film starring Brad Pitt, opens in theaters this weekend; is projected to bring in $40 million-$50 million at the domestic box office.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 Meta can train its AI models on copyrighted works without the authors' permission, judge rules; it marks the second legal victory this week for AI companies in copyright lawsuits.
• 💉 UK health officials launch study into potential major side-effects of weight-loss injections, such as Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy; the move follows hundreds of reports of acute pancreatitis.
• 🪨 New study suggests a formation in northeastern Canada contains rocks ~4.2 billion years old; finding could shed insight into the early development of our planet, which formed ~4.5 billion years ago.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

in partnership with Your Everyday Heroes

• 🇺🇸 Heat records set in 282 locations across the US this week; 121 other areas tie previous highs. | US Marshals recover 60 “critically missing” children near Tampa Bay; it marks the most successful child recovery operation in US history. | Mysterious fireball reported over southeast US around noon yesterday; a fragment appeared to break off and fall through the roof of an Atlanta home.
• 🏛️ Senate parliamentarian blocks proposed Medicaid spending cuts in Trump-backed “big, beautiful bill”. | Trump admin declares California violated federal law by allowing trans girls on female sports teams; gives state 10 days to reverse policies or face “imminent enforcement action.”
• 🧑‍⚖️ SCOTUS to issue six major rulings today, marking the final decisions of its current term.

*From our partners: 🐢 Meet the hero saving sea turtles one nest at a time…Tracey Lemon retired early and chose conservation over comfort. Tracy volunteers full-time with Costa Rica's Tambor Bay Turtles, slashing poaching from nearly half of all nests to just two through education and protection efforts. Watch Your Everyday Heroes trailer here.

☝️ A Labrador retriever-sized dinosaur that was initially categorized incorrectly after being found is actually a brand-new species, per new research; it went on display yesterday, becoming the first new dinosaur at the Natural History Museum in London since 2014.

🤔 Did You Know? A statue called Kryptos in front of the CIA’s HQ in Langley, Virginia, contains four encrypted messages—three of which have been solved. The fourth message (K4) remains one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes.

📰 Worth a Read: A $250 million real-estate mystery is unfolding in Palm Beach

🖱️ Clickbait: The states with America's best tippers

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

🍔 In-N-Out Burger has the happiest employees in the restaurant business for the 10th straight year, per William Blair.

⛪ A Romanian startup claims its AI-powered Bible Chat app is the fastest-growing faith-based app in history, offering advice and spiritual guidance to ~5 million monthly active users and counting.

🫀 Heart attack deaths have declined ~90% in the US over the past 50 years, though heart disease overall remains the country’s top killer.

🏳️‍🌈 ~60% of all LGBTQ+ adults in the US live in one of the 32 states with trigger laws that would limit marriage equality if SCOTUS overturned its legalization of gay marriage.

🚫 Companies have canceled ~$15.5 billion worth of planned clean energy projects and factories in the US this year, per a report from two clean energy nonprofits.

How well did you pay attention this week? Find out here.

🇺🇸 Two teenage girls spent months researching and solving the mystery of American Civil War soldier Daniel Walterhouse, who died in 1910 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

🌳 The Kinderspital in Zurich features modern wooden architecture, greenery, marble sculptures—and, more importantly, a spa-like sanctuary for families to relax and decompress after rigorous treatments.

🌎 California resident Andy Wong has picked up so much litter around the San Francisco Bay Area that his efforts can be seen by satellite. Check it out here.

+Note: These stories appeared in a November 2024 edition of Positive DONUT, our weekly newsletter surfacing all the good things you don't hear about in the news.

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

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Chicken thighs
• Soy sauce
• Sambal oelek
• Garlic
• Plum jam
• Ginger
• Green onions

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Greek yogurt
• Garlic
• Salt
• Butter
• Tomato paste
• Red pepper flakes
• Ground beef
• Onion
• Ground black pepper
• Conchiglie or mezze rigatoni
• Parsley

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Cooking spray
• Blueberries
• Flour
• Sugar
• Baking powder & soda
• Salt
• Eggs
• Milk
• Canola oil
• Lemon zest

📚 Explore: The books everyone should read at least once.

🏟️ A walk through the valley of death: The top 25 toughest places to play in college football, according to EA Sports (spoiler alert: LSU is #1).

💧 H2-whoa: Water has what's known as a triple point, where it can exist simultaneously as a gas, liquid, and solid.

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☝️ Recipe #1: Retro plum jam chicken

✌️ Recipe #2: Turkish pasta

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Blueberry sheet cake