the weekly rundown

readers, as we mark the end of 2021, we’re announcing that TWR is closing up shop. our last two quarters haven’t seen the reader growth or engagement that we aimed for, so it seems like an appropriate time to wrap things up. we’ve enjoyed our ride together immensely, and are incredibly proud of the issues we put out and you all read. 

so, for all three of us, thank you for your support, and we’re sure your inboxes won’t miss our 7am wakeup calls on sundays. as we end 2021 and our run, enjoy our top three story picks of the year:

• down with the monarchy, our soapbox rant against the british royalty
• Facebook really is evil, our soapbox rant against Facebook
• and before you think we just ranted this year, auf wiedersehen Angela, our ode to Angela Merkel

readers, as we wrap up the third quarter of TWR, we’re reevaluating how we produce this newsletter and how we can make all of you happier. if you have any suggestions, please reach out - sooner than later! if you’d be interested in joining our team as a writer, editor, or narrator, please also shoot us an email.

1. Joe finally admitted late this week that his big $2 trillion social policy and climate change bill would not pass by the end of the year, possibly dooming his signature “Build Back Better” campaign promise. for the past several months, Joe and senate leadership have insisted that the bill would be passed before christmas, but alas, the Grinch has stolen it. and when we say Grinch, we mean Joe Manchin of course, the most conservative dem in the senate.
2. Manchin is taking issue with the overall price tag of the bill, and specifically seems to be targeting the child tax credit. that $600 per month per child check to most families costs a lot, and was originally passed as a temporary COVID stimulus measure, which progressive democrats wanted to make permanent. this impasse comes even after days of private negotiations between the two Joes, though to be honest we’re surprised either of them have the intact mental capacity for such prolonged thought…
3. dems need unanimous support within their party in the senate to pass anything, so expect to see continued drama over this, immigration, and election rights well into the new year

1. the Fed announced this week that it plans on hiking interest rates three times next year, beginning in march. they are also more rapidly than previously anticipated ending stimulus measures they began at the start of the pandemic. this all comes amid better than expected jobs growth and higher than expected spikes in the cost of consumer goods and inflation. generally speaking, raising interest rates tends to slow down the economy and inflation.
2. of note, the Fed chair only announced his reversal on interest rates after he was reappointed to another term by Joe, which gave him some capital to spend on this politically unpopular move. more likely though, the Fed is realizing that the pandemic permanently shrunk the american labor force, which will force it to maintain higher interest rates than in the past, even if there’s the same level of economic growth.
3. just after the Fed made its announcement, the European Central Bank (the Fed’s equivalent in the eurozone) came out and said they would not be raising interest rates at all next year, and would be continuing its stimulus measures. this would probably be an appropriate time to mention what the Bank of England has going on, but ever since Brexit, we just can’t seem to care at all what the british are up to…
4. anyways, while europe and the US are in different phases of their recoveries, it’s clear that the world’s top economists can’t agree on the next appropriate steps. some parts of the eurozone are facing inflation rates not seen since in generations, yet interest rates will still remain low. 

• (The Guardian) the interior of a theater in kentucky was spared destruction by deadly tornadoes, while its outside was…not so lucky

1. just kidding, of course we didn’t actually read this unfit-for-a-compost-pile excuse of a book, written by now disgraced new york governor Andrew Cuomo. he supposedly wrote it in the midst of the pandemic last year, though it’s come out that he made staffers put it together. that last bit is important - an ethics board has demanded that he forfeit the over $5 million he made off sales to new york state for misusing governmental resources.
2. it doesn’t really seem like the ethics board has the ability to seize that money, but Cuomo is still facing criminal charges for sexual misconduct while in office. so please, don’t go out and buy this book, but do feel free to revel in its author’s current misery.

• Chris Wallace, the last somewhat-sane anchor at Fox News, is leaving that hellhole for another wasteland, CNN’s streaming platform
• a Danish minister responsible for separating immigrant families at their border has been sentenced to prison. will some US prosecutor please take note? 
• the senate unanimously passed a bill banning imports from Xinjiang, the chinese province where the genocide of ughurs has been taking place
• san francisco’s mayor, a progressive darling, has apparently given up on the pipe dream of defunding the police, as she rolls out an aggressive new crackdown on crime
• a homeowner in austin has festooned his house with thirty christmas trees and a scale-replica of the Hogwarts castle

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

part of our team is traveling this week, so if you’re listening to the audio version of the newsletter, you’re probably noticing a different, more suave, more...distinguished voice. don’t worry, our usual nasally midwestern half-asleep narrator will be back next week, but in the meantime...enjoy. we’re looking for narrators, authors, and editors to join our team, so reach out if you’d like to join in the fun.

1. we get it dude, inflation is on the rise. do we really need to spend like four issues on this? prices of consumer goods rose by almost 7% year-over-year last month, the largest rise in inflation in almost forty years. new car prices continue to have a huge effect on that number, with the chip shortage crippling the industry. restaurant prices have also increased by about 8% since last november, reflecting rising wages across the hospitality sector.
2. what’s confusing the heck out of businesses and economists is the asymmetry in demand for goods versus services. it makes sense to some degree - COVID is making it more difficult for people to travel and play, so inflation in service industries remain low. instead of spending money on services, people are spending money on buying more goods (aka trying to fill the heart-shaped hole in their chests with junk), resulting in crazy high inflation in things like the consumer price index.
3. this goods-services dynamic is the opposite of the typical economic recovery, which is why everyone is a little confused. the big question is how long this role reversal will last, and if full employment can be reached before inflation gets out of control. in the meantime though, continue enjoying those low airline ticket prices, but really - you’ll still be overpaying for 28” of legroom.

1. a Starbucks in buffalo voted to unionize thursday, the first corporate-owned location in the US to do so. this occurred despite a well-publicized and funded anti-union push by the company over the past few months. one other buffalo location voted against unionizing, and a third location voted in favor, but is facing a recount. union organizers are hoping this will inspire viral collective action not only at other Starbucks locations, but across the unskilled sector.
2. the number of americans in unions has halved since just the 1980’s, and the failure to unionize an Amazon warehouse earlier this year was a big loss as well. however, this small Starbucks win will definitely put some wind behind unions’ sails, especially when considering americans are quitting their jobs in droves and unions have the best public image since the 1960’s. we always knew being a Starbucks barista must suck, but apparently misspelling everyone’s names just isn’t a big enough perk to keep them around…

• (The Guardian) finally, a good use of dogs - comforting children as they get COVID shots

1. an analysis this week found that people living in counties which voted heavily for You-Know-Who in 2020 had about three times the COVID mortality rate than people living in counties which voted heavily for Joe. that rate doubled to 6x for the reddest tenth of counties compared to the bluest tenth of counties. in short - You-Know-Who supporters are less likely to get vaccinated, and more likely to die from COVID.
2. this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise - 60% of republicans remain unvaccinated (compared to less than 20% of independents and democrats), and most deaths since the vaccine rollout have been among the dummy unvaccinated population. 

1. we know, we know, we typically stick to satisfying our sweet tooths at home, but we finally got around to making (now-cancelled) Alison Roman’s tomato poached fish recipe. what can we say, she may be racist, but her recipes aren’t.
2. we used halibut as the fish, and amped up the spice quite a bit, but the chile oil and crispy fried garlic and shallots were a revelation. some fresh parsley sprinkled on top made for the perfect winter dish - warm, satisfying, and made with mostly pantry ingredients.

• the UAE is adopting a monday to friday workweek, giving up on the facade that they secretly want to be white people
• GM is investing $3 billion into its michigan plants in its shift to EVs, weeks after Ford announced EV investments which entirely bypassed the state
• Joe announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 beijing Olympics, along with australia, canada, and the UK
• people in delaware drove past a huge highway sign misspelling their state’s name for days before realizing something was up, proving once and for all that no one cares about delaware

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, Ahmed, and Ghanem. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

listen, we know supermarkets are crazy these days because of all your last-minute christmas shopping, but seriously - there should be a minimum age required to use self-checkout lanes. we love the idea of not having to interact with another human being to purchase items, especially when those items happen to be six pints of ice cream and a single spoon, we just can’t stand waiting for the otherwise nice 60-year-old grandma in front of us figure out how to use a barcode scanner. 

1. a school shooting just a few miles away from where we live took place earlier this week, ending with four dead children and a teenage suspect being charged with murder and terrorism as an adult. it’s surreal driving around town with christmas parades cancelled and flags lowered, but also, unfortunately, a normal occurrence here in ‘murica. if it seems a bit more traumatic than usual, it’s because it’s the deadliest school shooting since 2018, and the deadliest ever in michigan.
2. while some of the injured are still in the hospital, families are already beginning to question who’s at fault here, other than the terrorist himself. the school itself had safety concerns about the boy, and repeatedly assured parents that oxford high was safe for their children to attend. the suspect’s parents were arrested and are being charged with involuntary manslaughter for purchasing the gun used in the massacre for their son, and apparently resisting the school’s attempts to get psychiatric help for him. the suspect’s parents fled oxford for detroit, where they were arrested while hiding in a warehouse. oh, the irony of reverse white flight...
3. in any case, the true responsible parties here are politicians who stand in the way of common sense gun control, most of whom these days are republican. the last time any new gun control laws were passed nationally were in the 1990’s, when the brady bill mandated background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases. now, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t point out that while an even-then-somehow-ancient Joe Biden shepherded the bill through his committee, a young whippersnapper named Bernie Sanders voted against that common sense gun control measure...

• (AFP) some old guy just casually saunters past a sinking ship off the coast of istanbul. ahh, what it would be like to be this jaded by life...

1. the november jobs report was released this week, and man are we (and economists) a little weirded out. on the one hand, half the number of new jobs were created compared to what was expected - 210,000 versus the projected 550,000. on the other hand, the unemployment rate still dropped to 4.2%, and the percentage of americans actively working or looking for work also increased.
2. it’s that last finding which economists are especially excited about. as we talked about in issue 36, many are concerned that the country’s workforce participation rate will never reach pre-pandemic highs due to deaths, early retirements, and more self-employed people. if fewer americans work, that means slower economic growth. while we may never see pre-pandemic workforce participation rates again, at least we’re making some progress.

1. “Foundation”, a dramatic and world-bending scifi TV series by Apple+, wrapped up its first season a couple weeks ago - and we’re here to tell you it’s well worth the watch time. the series was greenlit for a second season after just two episodes, which tells you how much money it’s making for Apple, but audiences must be happy too. while the show does get off to an extremely slow start, and exposition does tend to drag on throughout the series, the plot twists and cinematography will have us keep coming back.
2. based on the book series by Isaac Asimov the show is set tens of thousands of years into the future, when the galaxy is ruled by a dynasty of cloned emperors and mathematicians can predict the future. featuring a remarkably diverse cast alongside the wonderful Jared Harris, we cannot wait for season two to drop sometime in the future.

• the incidence of israeli colonists settlers committing violent hate crimes against palestinians in the west bank has skyrocketed by 150% over the past two years
• Amazon will overtake UPS, USPS, and FedEx to become the largest american shipper by the end of the year
• Disney+ censored a Simpsons episode referencing the tiananmen square massacre in hong kong
• Apple has decided it is a better parent than you, and will not notify parents if their children view or receive nude photos by text
• after a foot of snow fell in denmark, 25 Ikea shoppers and employees spent the night in-store, really seeing if those mattresses would be comfortable to sleep on 

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

readers, we’re honestly surprised we managed to hoist ourselves out of bed to write this issue following turkey day. we mean seriously, with black friday sales sucking this year, there was even less of a reason not to just succumb to the usual post-prandial thanksgiving day food coma. alas, we realized we had to stick it out, if only for our canadian readers who, for some reason, celebrate thanksgiving in october.

1. a new COVID variant is making the rounds in people, the stock markets, and the media, so we’re here to tell you we’re confused over the hubbub too. the W.H.O. categorized this omicron variant, first discovered in south africa, a “variant of concern”, an award also given to the delta variant which has wreaked havoc for the past year. fewer than a hundred cases in south africa have been identified and a handful of cases have also been found in the UK and hong kong.
2. within about 48 hours of the new cases being announced, the EU, US, canada, and other nations already banned travelers from south africa and other southern african nations. stock indexes fell sharply on friday as investors worried that omicron could dampen an already unsteady economic recovery.
3. scientists and the W.H.O. honestly know very little about the variant, other than it is quite different from your normal COVID strain - which could potentially make it more virulent, more contagious, more fatal, and/or more resistant to existing vaccines. at this point in the pandemic, health experts are more likely to overreact than underreact to threats. 
4. it will likely take weeks, if not months, to figure out how bad this variant really is. in the meantime though, go get vaccinated dummies, and wear a mask like it’s the 1300’s in europe again.

• (The Atlantic) a turkish squirrel steals a sip of turkish tea (in turkey, in case you were wondering).

1. the number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell to a 52-year low of 199,000 people last week. that’s incredibly astonishing, especially when considering the population has skyrocketed from 200 million then to almost 330 million today, and it follows eight straight weeks of declining unemployment claims.
2. so what’s the bottom line? the economy is strong, despite rising inflation due to supply chain issues. it’s clear that the Fed is much more concerned about reaching full employment than inflation, a constant tension they face when setting monetary policy. on our end, we think it’s high time - the Fed’s maniacal obsession with inflation over the past two decades (along with a crippled governmental response to the recession) has led to rising inequality, slow growth, and valuing wealth over earned income.

1. a quick read by our favorite consultant who also shares a name with a bollywood actor (making Google searches super confusing), this book boils down the basics of business finance with insights on how to deliver and perform for your company. the book popularized the idea of business acumen - an intuition leaders gain from understanding the fundamentals of their organization.
2. even if you have little interest in business, this will still help you get inside the head of your typical corporate executive. what do they focus on, how do they view money and talent, and why do they seemingly always want to boil complex ideas down to their basic components? dumbledore says that understanding is the first step towards acceptance, but in this case it might just make you hate the 1% a little bit more.

• Sweden’s parliament elected its first female prime minister, then immediately sacked her a few hours later
• a classic gas-powered muscle car, the Dodge Challenger is going the way of the dodo, with an EV planned to replace it
• a governing coalition has been finalized in germany, spelling the end of our celebrity crush’s (Angela Merkel) reign of power
• an organized gang of dozens of thieves robbed a Nordstrom’s in broad daylight in california. time to defund the police?
• a flamingo in canada escaped a zoo this week, and instead of making a run for it - decided to visit Tim Horton’s

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

well readers, we’re back after a whirlwind of travel last week spanning washington, new york, north carolina, and michigan. we’re also sick as dogs, from something other than COVID, so please excuse the raspier voice than normal, and we hope the fog in our brains didn’t result in an overly muddled issue. in any case, it’s great to be back, and an early happy thanksgiving to all our non-canadian readers.

1. Joe had his first good week in a while, kicking things off on monday by signing the trillion dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill, then holding a relatively successful virtual summit with china’s president later in the week, and capping things off watching his signature climate and social policy bill get passed through the House last night. not everything is happy go lucky, of course - inflation is still breaking records, and his approval ratings are in the dumps - but Joe is probably hoping to have turned a corner this week.
2. we talked thru the infrastructure bill in issue 39, so we’ll focus on the other two news items. first, Joe and china’s president Xi managed to significantly de-escalate tensions between the two countries during a virtual meeting - the first time a Zoom call has ever been productive. we’ve extensively covered the issues dividing china and the US in previous issues, and no huge breakthroughs occurred this week. but, the consensus is that it’s fantastic news that the world’s two superpowers can talk without hurling insults at each other like schoolyard children.
3. however, most americans probably care much more about the $2 trillion climate and social policy bill which the house passed friday. now that Joe’s got some momentum, he’ll probably push conservative dems in the senate to negotiate quickly and approve an amended version of the bill sooner rather than later. the current draft includes half a trillion to address climate change, paid parental leave, universal preK, and Medicare drug reforms. we’ll have to cross our fingers and hope the Grinch doesn’t steal christmas...

1. corporate conglomerates have taken a beating in the past week, with GE, Toshiba, and Johnson & Johnson announcing plans to split their companies up. is this finally the end of the 1990’s wall street darling - the corporate conglomerate? 
2. for years, manufacturing, retail, and tech companies have pursued scale by competing in multiple industries at once. GE famously used to have business units covering everything from broadcast TV to mortgages to jet engines to MRI machines. it seems like shareholders finally understand that bigger isn’t inherently better.
3. while it may make sense for a company like Amazon to be vertically integrated and own everything in their supply chain, it makes little sense for a company like Toshiba to build everything from trains to hard drives. in short, companies perform better when their leadership can focus on delivering a few core competencies.
4. while three companies announcing their breakups in such quick succession is unusual, it’s part of a much longer trend. over the past few years, companies like AT&T, GSK, DuPont, and Siemens have spun off various units, and companies like CVS have significantly downsized some operations. the few conglomerates still left in today’s market - from Alphabet to Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet’s company) - typically allow their different divisions to operate independently from each other, perhaps the only way a conglomerate can still survive.

• (The Atlantic) the horse library (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like) makes a stop at a school in indonesia. who knew all of a sudden we could get over our fear of horses...

• the big UN climate change conference wrapped up last week, and the commitments collected by our little blue marble’s nations will result in that marble heating up by 2.5 degrees celsius, well above the 1.5 degree target agreed to in paris in 2015. if substantially more progress is made between now and 2030, we could warm the planet by as little as 1.5 degrees, but that is now an unrealistic goal. 
• the talks in glasgow also failed to establish a fund to help developing nations cope with climate change but at least finally set the baseline expectation that all countries need to move away from fossil fuel consumption 

• Steve Bannon, the human equivalent of romaine lettuce which needs to be recalled due to a listeria outbreak, was arraigned for contempt of congress
• india’s prime minister finally gave into year-long protests (which we covered back in issue 4) and promised to repeal hugely unpopular agriculture reform laws
• for years, israel has been building a vast facial recognition database of palestinians
• if we needed more proof that university of michigan students are dirty hipsters, the flu has spread so quickly and virulently across campus, the CDC has flown into ann arbor to investigate

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

part of our team is travelling this week, so if you’re listening to the audio version of the newsletter, you’re probably noticing a different, more suave, more...distinguished voice this week. don’t worry, our usual nasally midwestern half-asleep narrator will be back next week, but in the meantime...enjoy ;)

okay, so we’re not going to lie - we’re not 100% sure this will land in your inbox at 7am instead of at 8am (or possibly 6am). we’ve been on this earth for more than 80 years (collectively, though we do write like a grumpy 80 year old man at times), and we still have no idea how daylight saving time works. so, we guess the point of this is to say: we hope you enjoy, regardless of what time it is or should be.

1. dems failed miserably in off-year elections tuesday, losing the virginia governor’s race, barely holding onto the new jersey governorship, and losing dozens of local races across solidly blue areas. let’s be clear - the dems running in these races were highly qualified, good candidates, and were often incumbents. voter turnout was also record-high in some places. yet, dems still lost across the board. progressives can’t even say that it’s all the moderates’ fault, as a socialist lost to a write-in candidate for mayor in buffalo. 
2. what caused the losses? well, Joe’s approval ratings are in the dumps, dems have spent literally months arguing about an infrastructure bill and a climate policy bill, and the economy is good, but not great, with rising inflation. the pandemic stubbornly continues to impact people’s daily lives, which definitely hurts the democrat’s base enthusiasm. so, we guess people are just...tired and frustrated, and that translates electorally to voting out the ruling party. 
3. the good news is that Joe seems to be paying attention, and pushed house progressives to pass the $1 trillion infrastructure bill which has been waiting for their approval for weeks now. Joe will make a big deal out of signing it, and that’ll buy some time for him to figure out how to pass the climate bill through the senate sometime soon. who knows, maybe america will remember why they elected a slightly-senile, aviator-wearing grandpa in time for midterms next year.

• (The Atlantic) a home is covered in ash on the canary islands, where a volcano has been apparently erupting since september 

1. an analysis by the Fed found that 1.5 million more americans retired than expected since the pandemic started last year. as we have previously talked about, this is contributing to a falling percentage of americans actually working and contributing value to the economy. the big question economists are asking is if these retirements are temporary - will older workers reenter the workforce to ease shortages when the pandemic flames out and working conditions improve? we guess we can do our part and stop making fun of our older coworkers’ lack of tech literacy...
2. of particular concern are poorer old people who retired at faster rates than rich old people. many retired early because they worked in high-risk service industries, fearing for their health. however, they also typically don’t have enough saved for retirement - which will lead to more people on welfare in the future.

1. listen, we know these look more like blobs of dough than perfectly symmetrical triangles, but trust us when we say these are chocolate chip scones, and they are delicious. we modified a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen, mostly because we love chocolate and don’t know what currants are or why they belong in baked goods.
2. anyways, they’re the opposite of the so-called scones you’ll find in most coffeeshops - light, airy, and flaky and beautifully golden browned. we made a double batch of sixteen, and they all still managed to disappear within a day. must we say more?

1. readers A.M. and G.H. reached out and vociferously disagreed with our characterization of the movie “Dune” in last week’s issue. they argued, and we suppose they’re not alone in this critique, that the acting was way overblown and the cinematography is what brought things home for them.
2. listen, we’re not going to argue that the sets were absolutely stunning, and like we said, help transport the viewer to another world. however, let’s be real here - few actors could pull off such a memorable performance with such few lines like Stellan Skarsgård.

• the Fed is scaling back stimulus measures it enacted during COVID, a step towards raising interest rates next year
• detroit suburbs made electoral history, with hamtramck being the first city in the US with an all-muslim city council, and muslims being elected mayors in dearborn, dearborn heights, and hamtramck
• the supreme court ruled in favor of maine’s wide-reaching vaccine mandate, as Joe announced all employees at companies with more than 100 workers must be vaccinated or tested weekly by january
• a moose crashed through a window into a preschool classroom in saskatchewan this week, which apparently happens so frequently classes continued as normal

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

readers, we’re just going to say this once: it’s halloween tonight, so gird yourselves accordingly. go buy up all the eggs and toilet paper you can get your hands onto - not because there’s a COVID shortage, but so those neighborhood youths can’t attack you again. don’t say we didn’t try to save you...

1. for the second time this month, dems failed to pass massive infrastructure or climate bills. again, bickering between the progressive and moderate ends of the party prevented any work from getting done. 
2. Joe unveiled a $1.75 trillion climate bill earlier this week, which conservative dems in the senate (namely Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) refused to back publicly, despite them negotiating on the package for months. because of that, house progressives refused to vote on another $1 trillion infrastructure bill, fearing that if they vote for the infrastructure bill, the climate policy bill will never actually pass.
3. Joe could’ve forced everyone’s hand by publicly backing both bills and telling house dems to fall in line, but he didn’t...and left the US for the G-20 summit after everything fell apart. there’s still time before the end of the year for dems to pull it together, and the odds for success are much higher now that the outline of a climate policy bill has been announced. however, the devil (and Sinema) are in the details, so there’s a very real possibility dems will be running in the midterms next year with no accomplishments to point to.

1. for the second year running, college enrollment declined substantially. since 2019 undergraduate enrollment has dropped by 6.5%, with this year’s drop being nearly identical in scale to last year’s. colleges are surprised, to say the least - they figured the recovery from COVID would boost enrollment, not dent it further. 
2. the drop is almost exclusively felt by community colleges and smaller four year universities at the lower end of the market. of note, enrollment among black students fell the most dramatically, at 5.1% this year alone.
3. so, what’s happening? basically the job market is so hot right now that high school students and older professionals who are switching careers don’t think they need a degree to get a job - and they’re right, at least in the short-term. the problem will come in the long-term, after the next recession, or when automation or outsourcing takes out a few more million jobs. these poorly trained workers won’t have many career options at that point, and will either have to settle for a lifetime of low paying jobs, or go back to college later in life.

Image caption

• (The Atlantic) shepherds drive thousands of lambs through the streets of madrid, part of an agreement for free passage through the city dating back to 1418. baa-utiful.

1. UCLA released an annual report on the state of diversity in hollywood, and found that 32% of TV casts were majority-minority, an all-time high. perhaps more importantly, it also found that these diverse shows had the highest engagement on social media compared to more white or male centric shows.
2. of course, there are major areas of improvement for hollywood - latinos and indigenous peoples are drastically underrepresented, and the report shed little light on the anti-arab and islamophobic storylines often featured on TV. however, hopefully it does put to bed the notion that shows can’t be financially successful if they’re not about white girls living it up in new york city.

1. after reading the novel last week, we watched the movie “Dune” this week, and came away...pleasantly surprised. science fiction novels are tricky to adapt, and “Dune” is the heaviest lift of them all. we still think this would’ve been better off being a season or two of TV instead of a two part movie, but the movie does a great job of transporting the audience to a different world.
2. Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, and Stellan Skarsgård steal the film with vivid and memorable performances, and director Denis Villeneuve (who also created “Arrival”) knew just what bits of the book to gloss over. its sequel has already been announced for 2023, so here’s to hoping the world survives till then.

• James Michael Tyler, the actor who played Gunther in F.R.I.E.N.D.S., passed away from prostate cancer
• Merck has agreed to cheaply sell its antiviral COVID pill to poor countries, unlike Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines
• in british columbia, police found a car splattered with blood and with a sign asking for help. the mounties realized it was just an all-too-realistic halloween decoration, and the canadian owner of course immediately apologized repeatedly.

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!

look, after we wrote this issue we realized like half of it has to do with the climate crisis, but don’t blame us - it’s called a crisis for a reason, okay? we promise, we won’t be as doom and gloom next week, apart from the usual warning to be on the lookout for halloween shenanigans. we’re like 94% sure it’s not a coincidence that our house gets egged every october 31st...

1. nearly two years into the nightmare that is COVID, supply chain issues continue to...plague us. there are shortages of everything from computer chips to glass bottles, delays in everything from christmas toys to school bus pickups, and not enough employees in industries from trucking to...well, unloading trucks. thank god none of our writing team say...works in logistics...and spends most of his time in a warehouse shipping goods…
2. anyways, we’re pointing out things you’ve probably already noticed because the problem is getting worse, not better. despite Joe announcing last week that a couple of the busiest ports in the US would begin running 24/7, the backlog of ships waiting to unload in california just set a historic record. more than 100 huge container ships are anchored off the coast of LA. LA’s port sees 40% of all our imports and 30% of all exports, and has seen shipping volumes increase by a quarter since last year.
3. so, just remember that when Costco is out of your favorite toilet paper, it’s probably stuck on some ship in the pacific, and you should probably start using a bidet anyways.

1. a climate summit starts next week in glasgow, scotland, where the goal is to come up with a plan to make the world carbon neutral by 2050. this is the follow-up to the paris climate agreement, where countries agreed to limit warming to two degrees celsius. glasgow is viewed as where nations need to come up with solid plans to back up their promises made in paris.
2. the main showdown will be between developing and developed economies, with poorer nations asking for $100 billion to subsidize their shift away from fossil fuels. expect some of us rich people to don tophats and monocles and pretend that the third world should come up with the money on their own.
3. plenty of companies and NGOs are putting together press releases in preparation for the talks. australia has been ranked the worst rich country for the climate, Exxon is considering giving up on some oil projects, Amazon and Ikea are promising their shipping will be carbon neutral by 2040, and even the british Royal Mint is planning on recycling gold from cell phones into new coins. we knew we should’ve kept that old cracked Nokia 3310...

• (The Guardian) protestors storm the chamber of commerce in DC to argue that big business is responsible for climate change denial and inaction. prominent dems are arguing they weren’t protesting, just...touring the building.

1. we all know Uber sucks, but turns out both Uber and Lyft suck when it comes to fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. it turns out that ridesharing services - despite their public promises otherwise - increase emissions by about 20% compared to trips made in personally owned cars. 
2. so, to sum up all the things these companies lie about: they’re bad for the environment, actually increase car ownership, increase traffic jams, don’t result in good-paying jobs, don’t provide affordable fares, and can’t even turn a profit.

1. we’re not lazy okay, we read the book “Dune” before watching its latest movie adaption. reader Z.A. went in-depth with his review in this week’s hottakes, but suffice it to say that this nearly 900 page book by our favorite college drop-out is the best-selling science fiction novel in history for a good reason.
2. an incredibly intricate story of a young man said to be a messiah in a galaxy controlled by complex familial dynasties, we were enthralled by the depth of even minor characters in this epic drama full of betrayal and power struggles. join us in our anti-lazy crusade, and read the book before watching the movie, you bum.

• during the torch lighting ceremony of beijing’s 2022 winter olympics, protestors were arrested for waving a tibetan flag and signs referencing hong kong and the uyghur genocide
• barbados is saying cheerio to the Queen, as it elects its first president #goodriddance
• and if we need any more proof that MSU is just a drunker, colder, less smart version of UMich, MSU is now asking professors to volunteer to staff its dining halls due to a student worker shortage

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!