The United Auto Workers union said it reached a tentative labor contract with Ford that, if ratified, would mark the biggest gains for unionized auto workers in decades. The deal includes a 25% pay bump over the four years of the contract, cost-of-living adjustments that had been previously suspended, and a quicker timeline for new workers to reach the highest wage ($40 an hour for assembly workers by the end of the contract).

How we got here: The UAW, led by fiery president Shawn Fain, began picketing against the Big Three Detroit automakers—Ford, GM, and Stellantis—in September. Fain channeled Joker with his unconventional “targeted strike” approach: The walkouts started small, but over time expanded to other auto plants in unpredictable fashion with the goal of sparking maximum chaos for carmakers.

Over nearly six weeks, the strike got nasty between Fain and carmaker CEOs, who he compared to a billionaire class detached from the real lives of working-class people. Automakers shot back that the UAW’s demands were unreasonable and surging labor costs would hinder the competitiveness of the US auto industry on the global stage.

But it seems like the UAW’s strategy worked. Fain boasted that the union “won things nobody thought was possible” in the new contract.

What happens next: Fain will have to convince local UAW leaders that the deal is indeed as generous he describes, and then it’ll have to win a simple majority vote by Ford’s union-represented workers to be ratified.

The fight now heads to GM and Stellantis

With the Ford contract sewn up, the UAW will now intensify negotiations with GM and Stellantis in the hopes they’ll agree to similar terms.

The union ramped up the pressure on the two automakers this week when it called for strikes at Stellantis’s most profitable US factory—a Ram plant in Michigan—and at a GM plant in Texas that makes large SUVs including the Cadillac Escalade.

Zoom out: While its strikes are ongoing, the UAW’s record deal with Ford continues the momentum of organized labor—whether it’s UPS workers or Hollywood writers—posting huge Ws this year.—NF

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New speaker in the House. The fourth time turned out to be the charm, as Republicans finally banded together and unanimously elected Rep. Mike Johnson as speaker of the House. After 22 speaker-less days when nothing could get done, the House has its work cut out for it: Johnson will have to lead the body through negotiations to pass a budget that keeps the government from shutting down on November 17. The Trump-aligned Louisiana lawmaker, who has opposed funding for Ukraine, will also have to navigate President Biden’s request for a $106 billion funding package that includes money for Ukraine and Israel, and another one for $56 billion to cover domestic priorities.

Biden calls for an end to attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. As Israel continues to prepare for a ground war in Gaza, President Biden yesterday spoke out publicly against attacks by “extremist settlers” in the West Bank, the other Palestinian territory, which is not governed by Hamas, saying the violence is merely “pouring gasoline on the fire.” Meanwhile, at the UN, a US-backed resolution condemning Hamas and calling for the group to release Israeli hostages, while also asking for “humanitarian pauses” to allow more aid to reach Gaza, failed. Separately, Israel demanded that the UN secretary general resign over his remarks that Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel “did not happen in a vacuum,” prompting him to say his statements were being mischaracterized.

Zuck’s “year of efficiency” is working. Yesterday, Meta reported its most profitable quarter in years, beating expectations with a 23% year over year jump in revenue. That’s thanks in part to cutting costs and expenses by 7%, and achieving an operating margin that’s double what it was a year ago. But despite a belt-tightening that has included mass layoffs, Zuck hasn’t cut out everything unprofitable: His pet Reality Labs unit, which works on metaverse technologies, still lost $3.7 billion last quarter.

Boeing’s defense unit is struggling so bad it’s making even the Denver Broncos blush.

The aviation manufacturer reported a $924 million loss for the unit in Q3, $482 million of which was lost entirely on the two 747 jets that will make up the next Air Force One fleet. That brought the total loss on the presidential planes to an estimated $2.4 billion in the last five years. Boeing blamed higher manufacturing expenses caused by engineering changes, labor shortages, and supplier negotiations.

The jets are becoming a financial sinkhole. Boeing signed a $3.9 billion fixed contract with the US government in 2018 to assuage then-President Trump after he criticized the company and threatened to cancel the order. CEO David Calhoun later admitted that agreeing to produce the new Air Force One planes was a “very unique negotiation” that the company “probably shouldn’t have taken.”

Plus…making a plane fit for a president isn’t easy. Both jets need missile-defense systems, nuclear-protected communications, and (presumably) custom bald eagle wallpaper. Boeing’s task is further complicated because in order to meet Trump’s desire to cut costs, the company had to use two planes that were originally made for a Russian airline.—CC

Microsoft is finally tweaking an Excel feature that has caused nearly two decades of grief for scientists. The feature, known as Automatic Data Conversion, which in the past constantly converted certain human gene names into dates and created massive errors in scientific research, can now be disabled.

If your science background is more Intro to Geology…every one of the nearly 44,000 human genes has a shortened version of its name and a symbol. So when a scientist typed SEPT1 to represent the Septin-1 gene in an Excel sheet, the program would assume they meant September 1 and change it. And if you’ve ever been the dogsbody who has to comb through an Excel file, you know it’s easy to miss a tiny error like this.

But those tiny errors amounted to big problems: A study of 10,000 scientific papers on genes published from 2014–2020 found that more than 30% contained a gene name error that was Excel's fault. It got so bad that by 2020 the governing body behind gene naming had updated 27 gene names so they couldn’t be mistaken in the Microsoft program (i.e. SEPT1 became SEPTIN1).

How to turn it off: You can now personalize Excel’s auto correcting functions under File>Options>Data.—MM

Stat: Gen Z knows what it wants from its onscreen entertainment, and it’s less sex. A recent UCLA survey found 47.5% of people age 13–24 think sex isn’t needed to move the plot along in most movies and TV shows, and 51.5% reported that they wanted more content focused on friendships rather than romantic relationships. Meanwhile, 39% said they’d like to see more asexual or aromantic characters represented. They may be over romance in real life too: In a separate survey from January, 44% of Gen Z agreed “I would rather clean the toilet than go on another online date.”

Quote: “This small change will help reduce single-use plastic waste in restaurants.”

Much like it did to Mayor McCheese, McDonald’s is retiring the hollow McFlurry spoon that was maybe also supposed to be a straw. McFlurryheads who know the pain of a broken ice cream machine also know that the hollow spoon served as a spindle for staff to measure the toppings going into the soft serve to make the blended treat. But in a move toward sustainability, the McFlurry will now be made with a reusable spindle and will be served with a smaller spoon that requires less plastic to make as the restaurant chain tries to cut back on unnecessary packaging.

Read: The subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed the way we use language. (BBC)

Learn: The history of how the donut became America’s favorite treat.

Explore: A map of bird migration.

Silver lining: Student loans are back, but Domino’s is marking the occasion with a free pizza giveaway.

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