☕ The former prince headed for Congress

Good morning!

A trillion has twelve zeroes. If you had $100 bills, a stack worth $1 trillion would be nearly 68,000 miles tall. I’ll leave you with that.

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Some headlines from this morning:

• Sean Dunn (aka ‘Sandwich Guy’) has been found not guilty of assaulting an officer on Thursday after the government charged him with hurling his sandwich at a U.S. border patrol agent earlier this year. Dunn, who has become a symbol of resistance against the deployment of National Guard troops in U.S. cities, admitted to throwing the sandwich but argued before a jury that this act was not criminal. The jury rejected Customs and Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore’s testimony that the act was an assault when the "exploded all over him". Dunn told reporters he was "relieved and looking forward to moving on with my life."

• Leaders from around the world have gathered at the edge of Brazil’s Amazon to attend the COP climate conference. Over 60 leaders were scheduled to speak on the first day, with Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opening as the host. The summit comes ahead of the official beginning of COP30 on Monday and featured a speech from UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who warned, “The hard truth is that we have failed to ensure we remain below 1.5 degrees.” The summit comes as political will to tackle climate change around the country diminishes, and many have questioned the utility of the conference.

• Nancy Pelosi has announced she will retire from Congress at the end of her current term, which expires in January 2027. The 85-year-old Californian became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House and was the leader of her party in Congress from 2003 to 2023. She was elected to Congress in 1987 and will mark her 40th year in office when she departs Washington. Former President Joe Biden awarded Pelosi the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2024.

• Tesla shareholders have approved Elon Musk’s $1 trillion corporate pay package, marking the largest remuneration deal in corporate history. 75% of shareholders voted for the deal, which was signed off at the company’s annual meeting in Austin. Musk announced a number of new initiatives for the electric vehicle giant, which has seen dropping sales over the past two years. Musk has twelve targets and will be awarded 1% of stock for each target. To receive the full payout, Tesla must be worth about $7.5 trillion by 2035 and have delivered 1 million commercial, operational robotaxis and 1 million AI bots. Tesla is currently worth about $1 trillion.

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The Supreme Court lifted a lower court injunction on a Trump administration policy that forcibly designates gender on passports and removes the designation of ‘X’, which was introduced for non-binary passport holders.

The lifted injunction marks the latest success for the Trump administration in the Supreme Court and allows it to implement part of a policy platform designed to impose a binary understanding of gender across all government departments.

The ruling

The majority of the Supreme Court ruled that “displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth.”

“In both cases, the government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment”, they continued.

The case stems from a challenge earlier this year to a Trump administration policy that directed U.S. passports to no longer display gender designations chosen by the passport holder, including removing an option for ‘X’ designated for non-binary citizens.

A lower court imposed a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation of the policy while the court case continued.

Gender designations on passports

The now greenlit policy reverses decades of established precedent which allowed for passports to reflect gender identity.

A 2021 directive from former President Joe Biden. Biden was the first president to allow applicants to display a gender chosen by them. He also added the ‘X’.

Prior to this, transgender and non-binary applicants had to prove they had taken steps towards gender affirming care via a note from their doctor. In the 1990s, applicants had to prove they had undertaken gender reassignment surgery.

Dissenting opinions

The court’s three liberal justices, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justices Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, wrote a dissenting opinion.

Justice Jackson explained her dissent stemmed from the understanding that “the documented real-world harms to these plaintiffs obviously outweigh the government’s unexplained (and inexplicable) interest in immediate implementation of the passport policy.”

What’s next?

The government can now immediately begin issuing passports that remove the ‘X’ option and designate gender based on how it appears on an applicant’s birth certificate or other documents.

I’ve got 2 minutes

Former Duke of York Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has been asked to appear before a U.S. Congress committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes. Democratic committee members have requested Mountbatten Windsor provide information “based on the men’s longstanding and well-documented friendship.”

Meanwhile, official paperwork has been filed to strip him of his royal titles. Here’s the latest.

Some context on Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein was a well-known hedge fund manager and a convicted sex offender.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in a controversial deal to charges related to sex-trafficking minors. He served 13 months in jail. In 2019, police arrested him again on new federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein was denied bail and died in his jail cell while awaiting trial. He was known to be friends with an array of high-profile politicians, celebrities, and the wealthy.

In 2024, a federal court unsealed documents revealing Epstein’s associates, including Mountbatten Windsor. He has repeatedly rejected allegations of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

In 2022, Mountbatten Windsor settled a lawsuit with the late Virginia Giuffre over claims Epstein trafficked and forced her to engage in sexual activity while she was underage. He did not admit wrongdoing.

Last month, the London Metropolitan Police said it is “actively looking into the claims” that Mountbatten Windsor tried to find incriminating information about Giuffre in 2011.

The investigation

Democratic members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee issued a letter to Mountbatten Windsor requesting “he submit to questioning” for an “investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking operations.”

The letter notes flight logs showing Mountbatten Windsor’s travels to Epstein’s private island and on his plane while “[Epstein’s] criminal activities were ongoing”.

It also details the pair’s “friendship” and claims made in Giuffre’s memoir, released last month after her death earlier this year.

The letter, signed by 16 members of Congress, said a 2011 email exchange where Andrew told Epstein “we are in this together”, “further confirms our suspicion that [Mountbatten Windsor] may have valuable information” about Epstein’s crimes and “co-conspirators”.

It requests Mountbatten Windsor “make [him]self available” for an interview on the record. The Committee has asked for a response by 20 November.

Royal titles

Mountbatten Windsor announced on 17 October that he would stop using the title of Duke of York.

Two weeks later, King Charles III announced that all his titles would be removed and that he had been asked to leave his royal residence.

Earlier this week, a notice was published in The Gazette – the UK’s official public record – confirming Mountbatten Windsor “shall no longer be entitled to hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of ‘Royal Highness’ and the titular dignity of ‘Prince’.”

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