Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🧑‍⚖️ SCOTUS is back in session
• 🍿 Biggest box office bomb ever?
• 🎰 How everything became gambling

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.18-minute read (1,113 words).

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In Friday’s edition, the Worth a Read section (“Why barcodes are about to go extinct”) was missing a link—you can read the article here. Apologies for the mistake.

“Try all things, hold fast that which is good.”

–John Locke (1632-1704)

The 2026-2027 term of the Supreme Court officially begins today. And while Justices may be starting a new term, they're not exactly coming back from a quiet summer. A series of emergency appeals has kept the Court busy through its traditional recess, requiring Justices to issue temporary rulings on cases while they continue through lower courts.

What’s next on the docket?

Much like last term, there’s no shortage of major cases scheduled to be heard in the coming months:

• Climate change: The Court opens its term today with Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, centering on whether federal law prevents Boulder, CO, from suing Suncor and Exxon Mobil under state law over the sale and alleged deceptive marketing of fossil fuels.
• Gun rights: The justices will consider two cases over whether the 2nd Amendment gives Americans the right to own AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles. The cases challenge state-level bans in Illinois and Connecticut, while 10+ other states and Washington, D.C., have similar restrictions.
• Religious liberty: Catholic preschools in Colorado argue the state violated their 1st Amendment rights by denying them access to a universal preschool program over school policies that ban children from same-sex couples. The program provides public funding to private and religious preschools, but requires participating schools to agree to accept students regardless of their family’s religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
• Third-country deportations: The justices will consider whether the Trump admin’s policy of deporting some immigrants to countries other than their own is legal, and whether immigrants must be given sufficient notice and a chance to challenge their removal before being deported to a third country.
• Immigration detention: Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha centers on a Trump admin policy requiring immigrants who entered the US unlawfully to remain detained during removal proceedings without access to a bond hearing, even if they’ve lived in the country for years. The justices will decide whether federal immigration law requires that mandatory detention or allows immigrants to seek release on bond.

Big picture: Public approval of SCOTUS currently sits near a record low. Some 34% of Americans approve of the court’s performance while 61% disapprove, according to Gallup polling published last month. That’s essentially unchanged from a record-low 33% in July, and down from 42% approval as of September 2025. The Court currently has a favorable rating among 65% of Republicans, 31% of Independents, and 12% of Democrats.

📊 Flash poll: Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job?

• Approve
• Disapprove
• Unsure/other

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💼 US economy added 29,000 jobs last month, far below analysts’ expectations of 84,000 new jobs, per Labor Department’s September jobs report; US unemployment rate edged up slightly to 4.2%, but remains at a historically low level.
• 🛢️ G7 world leaders agree to release a combined 100 million barrels of diesel and other ​reserves in an effort to stabilize global energy markets amid the Iran war; President Trump hails the move, and says he was “never going to do” a US diesel fuel export ban.
• 🚘 Tesla reports 486,532 EVs sold globally in Q3, down 2% year-over-year but ~25,000 EVs above analysts’ estimates; automaker’s stock rises ~4% on the news.

SPORTS, MEDIA, & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏟️ CFB: #25 Missouri blew out #8 Florida, while #7 Alabama handily beat #16 Mississippi St. | NFL: Bengals star WR Ja’Marr Chase exits with concussion in loss to Jaguars, while Eagles RB Saquon Barkley suffers hamstring injury in loss to Rams; see the full Week 4 scoreboard. | MLB Playoffs: The best-of-five Divisional Round kicked off on Saturday; see the latest results.
• 🍿 Verity leads domestic box office with $32.6 million in its opening weekend, marking Anne Hathaway’s third #1 movie of 2026; Tom Cruise-led Digger opens in fifth place with $8 million domestically, on track to be potentially one of the biggest bombs of all time (based on $160M–$180M production budget).
• 🏆 Avengers: Endgame reclaims spot as highest-grossing movie of all time following recent theatrical re-release ($2.925 billion), taking the title back from Avatar ($2.923 billion) once again.

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SCIENCE, SPACE, & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖🏛️ Jay Clayton, US Director of National Intelligence, selected by President Trump to lead new “Super Intelligence Force,” that’ll make recommendations on what role the government should play in overseeing AI.
• 🩸 Short-term fasting has a minimal effect on routine laboratory blood tests, while fasting for 12+ hours shows no meaningful difference in results, per new large study.
• ⚛️ Particle collider experiment involving gold nuclei smashing at nearly the speed of light produces unexpected pattern in the collision particles, new study reveals; findings could help reveal how the hot “soup” of quarks and gluons that filled our universe in its first few microseconds post-Big Bang cooled and condensed into protons and neutrons.

US, WORLD, & POLITICS

• ✈️ Co-pilot who attacked the captain of a FlyDubai plane headed for Israel was attempting a terrorist attack, and used a crash axe located in the cockpit, according to UAE officials. | Medical transport plane traveling from Bermuda to Boston lost contact off the coast of Massachusetts early Saturday, prompting a continuing search for the aircraft and six people on board; a debris field was located in water hours after the plane went missing, with passengers still unaccounted for.
• 🏥💰 President Trump announces plan to distribute one-time $90 payments to 20+ million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part B, which he says comes from $2 billion approved by Congress ​to improve the Medicare fee-for-service program.
• 🚨 US Marine arrested in Okinawa on suspicion of killing a 39-year-old Japanese woman in an alleged robbery; 20-year-old male Marine denies the allegations.

☝️ You’re looking at some of the finalists from the 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, which received 10,000+ entries from 112 countries. Winners will be announced on December 8.

🤔 Did you know? The precursor to LASIK eye surgery was discovered by accident when a nearsighted boy in Russia got in a fistfight and his glasses shattered, sending pieces into his eyes. After a doctor removed the glass, he found the tiny cuts had flattened the boy’s cornea and cured his bad vision.

📰 Worth a read: How the logic of casinos and prediction markets is taking over everything.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• What grip strength can tell you about your health
• Successful people ‘always’ do this in the first 90 days of a new job
• Where does America rank in global math scores?

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Monday: Monday Night Football: Saints v. Falcons

Tuesday: NCIS: New York debuts on CBS

Wednesday: Fed publishes minutes from last month’s policy meeting; Carrie debuts on Prime Video

Thursday: Weekly jobless claims; PepsiCo reports earnings

Friday: The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to 2010 hit The Social Network, debuts in theaters; Matchbox the Movie debuts on Apple TV; Sheryl Crow debuts 13th studio LP Pick You Up

On Friday, we covered how the midterms are now entering their final, increasingly expensive stretch, with Republican- and Democratic-aligned groups alike pouring millions of dollars into competitive races ahead of the November 3 election.

❓ Our question to you: If the midterm election was held today, which political party’s candidate would you vote for?

• Republican: 28%
• Democrat: 59%
• Third party: 6%
• Unsure/other: 7%

Read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 647 votes and 76 longform responses.

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Agri
2. Deb
3. Grav
4. Lav
5. Nunci

(keep scrolling for the answer)

🎾 A group of California teens set a Guinness World Record last month by collecting ~22,000 used tennis and pickleballs for recycling in a single day, diverting over a ton of waste from landfills.

1. Agri = Field (e.g., agriculture)
2. Deb = Owe (debit)
3. Grav = Heavy (gravity)
4. Lav = Wash (lavatory)
5. Nunci = Announce (pronunciation, enunciate)

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