Good morning and Happy Halloween. Quick reminder: your pets will want breakfast an hour early on Sunday, as clocks “Fall back” for Daylight Savings time this weekend.

• 🤝 US-China trade truce
• 🇺🇸 Plummeting obesity rates
• 👑 Prince Andrew

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.90-minute read (1,038 words).

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“The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome.”

–Publius Syrus (85 BC – 43 BC)

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a trade truce during a high-stakes summit in South Korea early yesterday morning, in a deal that de-escalates recent tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

What’s in the agreement?

Trump and Xi emerged from their first face-to-face meeting in six years with an agreement to reduce steep US tariffs on Chinese goods, in exchange for a pledge by Beijing to halt export controls on rare earth elements.

Trump pledged to cut fentanyl-related tariffs on China in half (from 20% to 10%), in a move that drops the average tariff rate on many Chinese products to around 47%.

On the flip side, Beijing agreed to pause its sweeping export controls on rare earths—for which China controls the global market—for one year, in a deal Trump said will be “very routinely extended as time goes by.”

• China’s move to impose such export controls had initially touched off the trade dispute between the two countries earlier this month.
• Rare earth elements are vital to the manufacturing of cars, planes, batteries, bombs, and many other critical products.

The deal also includes several other clauses, though the specifics are currently unclear.

According to Trump, China agreed to take “very strong action” on chemicals used to produce fentanyl domestically, and could soon agree to buy a large amount of oil and gas from Alaska.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said Beijing agreed to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans from the US annually over the next three years, though Chinese officials simply said the two sides agreed to expand agricultural trade without providing specifics.

In other US-China news

Just one hour ahead of his meeting with Chinese leadership, President Trump announced the US will resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in 30+ years. He said the move is “because of other countries testing programs”—citing Russia and China—and that America will start testing nukes “on an equal basis.”

• The announcement comes as China has roughly doubled its nuclear arsenal in the past five years (to ~600 warheads), and is expected to do so again by 2030.
• Russia currently has slightly more nuclear warheads than the US, at ~5,500 compared to America’s ~5,200, per independent estimates.
• However, there have been no public reports of Russia or China conducting tests with live nuclear weapons since the 1990s, similar to the US.

📊 Flash poll: At the present time, which nation do you feel is stronger in terms of combined economic and military power: the US, or China?

• The US
• China
• Unsure/other

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

💰 Nvidia is the first company in history to reach a $5 trillion valuation, with shares rising nearly 50% on the year-to-date. The chip giant’s valuation is more than the GDP of every country in the world except the US and China.

📉 The obesity rate among US adults has fallen to 37% in 2025, down from a record-high 39.9% in 2022 (or ~7.6 million fewer obese adults). The drop is largely attributed to the rise of new GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.

🎮 A controversial update for the video game Counter-Strike—which shifted the exchange rate between various items—has erased ~$3 billion in value (~50% of the market) due to falling prices for in-game items.

🚗 The average US car commuter is spending a record-high 63 hours/year stuck in traffic, per the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.

🧥 Prices across the fashion industry are an average of $17 higher per item this year compared to last, with jackets and outerwear seeing the largest bump (+24%), per consulting firm AlixPartners.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏘️ 30-year fixed mortgage rate has risen by 20 basis points since the Fed’s rate cut on Wednesday; analysts say markets had already priced in the cut, but didn’t like Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s commentary.
• 📺 Netflix announces 10-for-1 stock split for existing shareholders as of November 10; streaming giant is one of ten stocks in the S&P 500 with a price above $1,000.
• 📊 Earnings corner: Amazon beat analysts’ expectations on earnings and revenue, sending shares up over 10% after-hours. | Apple reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue, sending shares up nearly 3% after-hours.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ Washington Nationals to reportedly hire 33-year-old Blake Butera as the team’s new manager; Butera, who became a minor-league skipper at age 25, would be the youngest MLB manager since 1972.
• 🍿 Call of Duty movie in the works at Paramount, with Taylor Sheridan co-writing and Peter Berg directing.
• 🏀 Los Angeles Lakers sale to billionaire businessman Mark Walter by the Buss family is unanimously approved by the NBA Board of Governors.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦖 Teenage T. rex remains may actually be a fully grown example of a hotly debated species known as Nanotyrannus lancensis, according to new research.
• 📲 Text-based therapy—or as-needed messaging with a therapist asynchronously—is effective in treating mild to moderate depression, with effects similar to video-based therapy, new study finds.
• 💻 New mathematical proof claims to disprove the theory that our universe exists inside of a computer simulation.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 👑 Prince Andrew was stripped of all his titles by King Charles III—including Prince and Duke of York—and kicked out of his 30-room Windsor mansion due to his association with Jeffrey Epstein and related abuse allegations.
• 🕵️ Five more arrests made as part of probe into recent Louvre heist of French crown jewels; officials say ~100 investigators are working seven days/week on the case.
• 🏛️ Senate votes 51-47 to nullify President Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on 100+ countries, with four Republicans joining all Democrats; it marks the third vote by the Senate this week against Trump’s tariff plans, though the House is unlikely to take any action. | Pentagon is creating National Guard riot control forces in every state that could respond to civil unrest, per multiple reports.

☝️French mountain climbers Benjamin Védrines and Nicolas Jean became the first people ever to summit the Himalayan giant Jannu East. While not the tallest, the 24,501-ft peak has long been considered one of the most dangerous in the world; it took the duo three perilous days to reach the summit from their base camp.

🤔 Did you know? For decades, the Korean War Memorial in DC listed 54,246 American deaths due to the war—until 2000, when officials realized a government clerk had miscounted, and the true number was actually 36,940.

📰 Worth a read: Scientific papers written and reviewed by AI? A look into the experiment.

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

Answer these questions three:

1. A pizza is cut into 10 equal slices. John eats four slices, after which Mary eats half of the remaining slices. How many slices are left?
2. I am twice as old as my sister. In 4 years, the sum of our ages will be 35. How old am I now?
3. What is the lowest number divisible by both 3 and 4?

🔎 A volunteer search-and-rescue dog recently found a toddler missing in the New Hampshire woods, after the little one wandered away from her backyard. With temperatures dropping fast, the pup may have saved her life.

1. Three slices
2. 18 years old
3. 12

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