One week ago, as British Prime Minister Liz Truss faced growing backlash to her leadership, a UK tabloid wondered whether she’d outlast a head of lettuce.

Now, only the lettuce romaines.

Truss resigned yesterday after just 45 days on the job, becoming the shortest-serving UK prime minister (the previous record-holder was there 119 days). In that period, she managed to incite panic in financial markets and cause members of her own party to complain that the government was an embarrassment.

“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” she said.

What didn’t she deliver on?

In her campaign, Truss pledged to cut taxes and boost growth for the UK’s flagging economy. But when her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, released that tax package, known as the “mini” budget, investors revolted. The pound plummeted and bonds were sold off in epic fashion, forcing the Bank of England to step in with emergency measures to keep financial markets from malfunctioning.

Then Truss tried to clean up the mess, walking back some of those tax cuts and throwing Kwarteng under the bus to save face. His successor, Jeremy Hunt, went even further, reversing most of the planned tax cuts. But by then, Truss’s authority had collapsed.

What happens next?

One of the most abridged job searches for a world leader ever—the Conservatives aim to find Truss’s successor within a week, and possibly as soon as Monday. The names floated for the next PM include hotshot members of Truss’s cabinet, her Conservative rival Rishi Sunak, and even former PM Boris Johnson, who stepped down this summer following numerous scandals.

Big picture: There’s a reason the internet was awash in jokes comparing No. 10 Downing Street (the prime minister’s residence) to an Airbnb. Truss was the fourth UK prime minister to resign since the Brexit vote in 2016, meaning it will be looking for its fifth leader in six years.—NF

Niemann plays the Sicilian Defense. Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann, who’s been accused of widespread cheating, sued grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, and others for $100 million in damages. Niemann claims he’s been locked out of the chess world due to the cheating allegations, and accuses Carlsen and Chess.com of operating a chess monopoly. The lawsuit will escalate what’s perhaps the biggest scandal in the sport’s history.

Snap said the digital ad market is drying up. Shares of the company plunged ~27% in late trading after it posted its slowest revenue growth since going public. It doesn’t expect things to improve going forward, which is an ominous sign for bigger companies that depend on ad revenue, like Meta and Alphabet. Even before yesterday’s nosedive, Snap shares had fallen more than 85% in the past year.

Musk thinks Twitter can run at 25%. According to the Washington Post, Elon Musk told potential investors for his Twitter purchase that he would thin the company’s 7,500-person workforce by 75%, leaving less than 2,000 employees to protect against security threats and solve the bot problem. But even if the deal didn’t go through, Twitter was probably headed for layoffs. Current management said they needed to cut payroll by nearly $800 million by the end of 2023. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is expected to close by next Friday.

For prospective college students, the cons of signing up for a degree (ballooning tuition costs, heaps of debt, declining value of degrees) continue to outweigh the pros (maybe you’ll like your roommate). US colleges and universities saw a 1.1% drop of undergrad students from fall 2021 to fall 2022, according to preliminary data from the National Student Clearinghouse.

Although less substantial, that decline is an extension of the pandemic trend of emptier dorms: Over two years beginning in 2020, more than 1 million fewer students chose to enroll in college—a 6.5% plunge.

Enrollment has been decreasing by at least 1% per year since 2012, but the pandemic supercharged disillusionment with higher ed. Colleges expected to see some of those students return with the loosening of restrictions, but it didn’t happen.

Bottom line: When it comes to going to college, a significant number of Americans just don’t feel the juice is worth the squeeze. 46% of parents hope their child pursues something other than a four-year degree after high school, according to a Gallup poll. Only 56% of adults under 30 who attended college believe the benefits outweighed the costs. Meanwhile, 80% of adults over 60 who attended college feel that way.—MK

There’s no doubt that Swifties are sleep deprived today after staying up all night to listen to Midnights, Taylor Swift’s 10th original studio album that dropped at…midnight. But in this newsletter, we’re less focused on the music and more impressed by her ornate, puzzle-oriented marketing strategies for album drops, which could be case studies for even the most seasoned CMO.

In the lead-up to Swift’s more recent album releases, she’s posted a LOT of cryptic messages for TikTok sleuths to decode. Before dropping her rerecorded album Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in 2021, Swift tweeted a video of a vault opening to reveal letters that fans could unscramble to find track names.

In promoting Midnights, Swift continued to push her superfans to look deeper and find the hidden meaning behind seemingly every emoji.

• She garnered over 74 million views on 13 individual TikToks where she pulled out a bingo ball to reveal a track name on her new album.
• And she announced that the four separate vinyl editions of the new album can be put together to form a clock, so diehard Swifties can buy all of them (which cost $30 each) and a $49 kit to turn the albums into a working wall clock.

Keep combing those posts: Swift told the Washington Post that she loves hiding updates in elaborate puzzles for her audience, saying, “As long as they still find it fun and exciting, I’ll keep doing it.”

+ For more: Learn why Swift is rerecording some of her albums.—MM

Read: Let’s return to Liz Truss for a sec, because being a prime minister of the UK, even for just six weeks, is apparently the life hack of the century. Truss will receive an allowance of £115,000 each year (~$129,000) for the rest of her life under a government program that’s intended to help former PMs recoup expenses incurred while serving the public, Insider reports. Still, she might want to find another gig at some point—that amount is fixed and UK inflation is running north of 10%.

Quote: “Italy’s No. 1 brand of pasta.”

Barilla’s slogan has it in some legal hot water (salted, of course). This week, a judge said the food brand can’t squirm out of a class-action lawsuit that claims Barilla’s Italian-heavy marketing misleads consumers into thinking that its pasta is made in Italy, when it’s actually made in Iowa and New York. The lawsuit was filed last year by two customers who said they bought Barilla’s pasta—which can cost 2x as much as generic brands—believing that it was made in the homeland.

Read: TikTok’s parent company planned to use the platform to monitor the physical location of specific American citizens. (Forbes)

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to collecting a $129,000 check each year for a job you did for six weeks.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

Animalia: 1) The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2) what an ant looks like close up and 3) the struggle that is weighing a baby penguin.

Fun website: Just type in a phrase, and you’ll see the TV and movie scenes where that phrase is spoken.

Learning how to use Excel for personal finance may take some work. Luckily, there’s an Excel shortcut to make whatever you need to get done easier. We’ve rounded up some of our favorites.

G.O.A.T. gathering: With a headlining keynote from Serena Williams, 60+ powerful presentations, and a focus on elevating your work, it’s kinda mind-blowing that the ~world’s largest virtual HR summit~ hosted by BambooHR is totally free. Register and tune in from anywhere.*

Last bite: Miso Robotics is leading the $73b US fast-food industry toward automated kitchens + higher profits. Now they’re going global—a 17x larger market opportunity. But this could be Miso’s final raise—invest here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Finance bros are out, rich girls are in. Katie Gatti knows everything about money habits, and she’s here to help you manifest your financial freedom. Join Katie and her guests as they talk smart spending, investing, and tax strategies—without putting you to sleep. Check out some recent popular podcast episodes:

• What to expect in the markets in 2023.
• Bootstrapping fail: Why the American solution to systemic problems keeps falling short.
• How to become a millionaire in 10 years or less.

This editorial content is supported by Vin Social.

Jigsaw: Completing this jigsaw puzzle will feel a lot like putting your own pieces back together on Sunday morning. Play it here.

Friday puzzle

The 22nd and 24th presidents of the US had the same parents but were not brothers. How is this possible?

Having trouble getting your employees back to the office? Try offering your staff a shuttle…and maybe bring candy. Watch now.

️ On Business Casual: Learn how to invest in a new stock market for athletes.

Did you hear? We just launched a newsletter, Incrypto, where we break down crypto news in a way that actually makes sense. Check it out.

They were the same person: Grover Cleveland.

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