Dust Settles on Election Day

www.ozy.com [OZY]() Start your day smarter with a dossier on the most important world news, rounded off with a shot of intriguing and offbeat stories. Like the president, you deserve no less. Nov 03, 2021 TODAY Tough news for Democrats as Republicans take the governorship in Virginia. This is the first opportunity to gauge public opinion in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. Amidst ongoing scandal, Facebook will end their use of a facial recognition software, deleting facial data of over a billion people. Minneapolis residents pushed back on a radical police reform measure in elections yesterday. Boston makes history with its first woman and first person of color elected mayor. All this and more in today’s Presidential Daily Brief. IMPORTANT 1 - A Sobering Night for Democrats Republican Glenn Youngkin wins the VA governor race In a dramatic reversal of the solidly Democratic state in recent years, Republican Glenn Youngkin has won as Virginia's next governor. It’s a significant blow to President Biden and the party’s establishment, who generally use odd-year elections as a barometer for the ruling party’s popularity. Democrats only hold a five-vote margin in the House and a single-vote margin in the Senate, so Democrats have no room for error. Youngkin’s narrow victory over Democratic incumbent Terry McAuliffe, may be a playbook for other Republicans. He was able to walk the line of supporting Trump to rally the Republican base while still keeping Trump at a slight distance to retain the support of more mild, centrist suburbanites. In New Jersey, Republican Jack Ciattarelli held on to a slight lead over incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in a very tight race with 87% of votes counted. (Sources: [AP](, [WaPo]() 2 - Facebook Saves Face Ends use of facial recognition software, deleting data of a billion users After weeks of scandal, Facebook makes an about face. Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta, said in a blog post that “amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate.” By ending the use of facial recognition software and deleting the facial data of more than a billion people, it’s a sudden reversal for one of the Internet’s biggest face-scanning systems that could reinvigorate scrutiny about the software’s expanding prevalence around the world. The software is generally used by Facebook to tag users in pictures that may show their face and has come under fire for being used by tech companies without being regulated. Amazon, Microsoft, and other tech firms have already limited their use of facial recognition technology as controversy over their ethics rises. (Sources: [BBC](, [WaPo]() 3 - Minneapolis Maintains Status Quo Voters reject ambitious ballot measure for city's police department The murder of George Floyd a year and a half ago, radically upended Minneapolis city politics. Police reform and even abolition became regular talking points, which led to the ballot measure voters considered yesterday. It proposed replacing the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety that “employs a comprehensive public health approach” and would only include traditional police “if necessary”. This new department would have been overseen by the mayor and the City Council, rather than simply the mayor. Voters rejected the measure 56% to 43%, a double-digit margin. Many voters seemed wary of the practicality of the department overhaul, especially at a time when the city has seen an increase in crime locally. (Source: [Axios]() 4 - Boston Elects First Woman of Color Mayor Michelle Wu beats out Democratic rival, Essaibi George Boston has a long history fraught with racial tensions over forced desegregation, so Democratic City Councilor Michelle Wu’s win is particularly groundbreaking. Wu has served as a progressive voice on the council since 2013, championing climate change, rent control and rent stabilization. George, an Arab-Polish American woman, ran as a moderate. She opposed rent reforms and promised to add more officers to the city’s police force. Wu’s win reflects a changing Boston, where more than half of the population is Black, Latino and Asian while white groups continue to shrink. (Source: [NPR]() 5 - Briefly Here are some things you should know about today: Eric Adams elected mayor of New York City. A Democrat, Adams will be the second black mayor of New York City after having beat out Republican Curtis Sliwa. (Source: [NYT]() CDC officially approves vaccines for kids 5 to 11. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will immediately begin allowing children to be vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech shots. (Source: [WaPo]() 20 killed in hospital attack in Afghan capital Kabul. Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi identifies fighters from the militant group IS-K, or Islamic State Khorasan. (Source: [BBC]() Police weep as they rescue a 4-year-old girl in Australia. Little Cleo’s disappearance from her family’s camping tent on Australia’s remote west coast more than two weeks ago both horrified and captivated the nation. Everyone celebrated her safe return. (Sources: [AP](, [NYT]() WATCH Moby on Making ‘Reprise’ and ‘Moby Doc’ His Rise to Fame, and Living Sober INTRIGUING 1 - A Controversial Comparison Colin Kaepernick faces criticism for comparing NFL draft to slavery auction Colin Kaepernick’s new Netflix series, ["Colin in Black & White,"]( has stirred controversy. One scene in particular has drawn the internet’s ire. The former NFL quarterback turned activist compares the NFL Draft to a slavery auction. “What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic,” Kaepernick says with re-enactments of football drills behind him. “Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod, and examine you, searching for any defect that might affect your performance. No boundary respected, no dignity left intact.” Kaepernick has been at odds with the NFL since his choice to kneel during the national anthem of games in protest of the killing of Black Americans at the hands of the police. The NFL, Kaepernick, and former player Eric Reid reached a settlement in 2019 ending their collusion lawsuit with the NFL that argued teams conspired to keep both players out of the league as a consequence of their protests. (Source: [NBCNews]() 2 - Zillow Loses Flipping Bet Amidst big losses, Zillow changes strategy and lays off a quarter of staff In a swift change of course, the real estate website known for estimating house values, said on Tuesday that it would exit the business of rapidly buying and selling houses given its heavy losses. Zillow also shared its intention to let go of nearly 25 percent of its employees. Last year, Richard Barton, Zillow’s chief executive, predicted Zillow Offers, which made instant offers on homes in a practice known as iBuying, could generate $20 billion a year. However, on Tuesday, Zillow, said the division had been the source of huge losses and had made the company’s overall bottom line unpredictable. This strategic retreat followed shares of Zillow falling more than 50 percent from a high of nearly $200 in February, when it was still coveted by investors as the housing market heated up. (Source: [NYT]() 3 - Representation in the Courts Senate confirms, Justice Beth Robinson, the first out lesbian on federal circuit court Vermont Supreme Court Justice Beth Robinson has been confirmed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, making her the first out lesbian to serve on any federal circuit court, [according to the White House](. After President Joe Biden’s nomination in May, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Robinson 51-45 with four lawmakers declining to vote and two Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voting in favor . The federal courts of appeals, or circuit courts, are the last stop before a case would be heard before the Supreme Court. (Source: [NPR]() 4 - Winning Math 14-year-old mathematician wins esteemed award for “antiprime” numbers research 14-year-old mathematician Akilan Sankaran, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, won the coveted $25,000 Samueli Foundation Prize, the top award in the Broadcom MASTERS, the premier science and engineering competition for middle school students. Sankaran wrote a computer program that calculates “highly divisible numbers,” or antiprime numbers, that are over 1,000 digits long. The program has the potential to optimize the performance of software and apps, [noted the release](. The [Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars)](, a program of the Society for Science, inspires middle school students to follow their STEM passions through to college and career paths. The challenges encouraged project-based learning and tested the participants' proficiency in critical thinking, communication, creativity and collaboration skills in each of the STEM areas. (Source: [NPR]() 5 - Hate Crime on Campus GWU fraternity house vandalized in apparent act of anti-semitism Police are investigating an incident of anti-semitism at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. The Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house was damaged over the weekend, including the desecration of a Torah scroll. The university’s administration has condemned the attack saying to CNN, the university believes the incident to be an “act of anti-semitism” as other religious texts remained unharmed. (Sources: [CNN](, [WaPo]() WE ❤️ OZY! We have so much love for all of our loyal readers. Thank you for standing with us over the last eight years and we are so grateful for your support. We appreciate the kindness you've shown. 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