🌎 Twitter deal's deadline

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Here’s what you need to know

A judge gave Elon Musk just a few weeks to complete the $44 billion Twitter deal. Otherwise, it’s back to the Delaware Chancery Court in November.

Crypto exchange Binance suffered a massive heist. A cyber thief tried to get away with more than $500 million in crypto funds, but the platform shut down operations, limiting damages to an estimated $100 million.

Marijuana stocks spiked on the promise of a US review of the drug’s status. President Joe Biden’s announcement towards easing anti-weed laws in the country is a boon to the nascent but promising cannabis industry.

Google agreed to an $85 million settlement in an Arizona lawsuit. The search engine was accused of illegally tracking Android users.

The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize recognized human rights efforts in Eastern Europe... Imprisoned Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, Russian NGO Memorial, and Ukrainian human rights agency Center for Civil Liberties were commended for holding the powerful to account.

…while feminist writer Annie Ernaux won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature. The French author has written mostly autobiographical works on topics including gender, class, and race.

What to watch for

TwitchCon, the annual convention for Amazon’s live streaming platform Twitch, is kicking off today (Oct. 7) in San Diego, California. The sold-out event will feature an esports tournament, meet and greets with streamers, and IRL meetups for community members. While the event will, in fact, be all fun and games, the real competition is heating up in the livestreaming space.

Twitch continues to dominate the market, having racked up 5.64 billion hours of live streaming in the second quarter this year. But a gambling scandal, reports about child abuse on the platform, and a decision to cut ad revenue for the site’s biggest stars has rocked the waters in recent weeks. In an attempt to retain talent, the company has waived exclusivity rights on its partners. But for Twitch streamers, unionization may be on the horizon.

Meanwhile, YouTube has managed to poach some of Twitch’s top personalities in the past year, and Meta has its own live streaming ambitions in the works with a new platform called Super.

Will an Elon Musk Twitter have a different name?

Pop quiz: What do you think Elon Musk’s favorite letter is? Let’s review some of his naming choices in the past:

🚀 SpaceX

🚗 Tesla’s Model X

👶 X Æ A-12

Musk plans to buy Twitter for $44 billion appear to be back on, so, you guessed it, the Gen Xer is tweeting about it again. “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” he wrote on Oct. 4. Musk has been obsessed with the X.com domain since at least 1999 when it launched as an online banking services platform later renamed PayPal.

After his Twitter acquisition process stalled in August, Musk mentioned hauling X.com out of dormancy and turning it into a new social media platform. Now that the deal’s in motion again, he’s making noise, mostly in recently released text messages, about how Twitter will become this “everything app,” whatever that may be. It’ll likely be years, if ever, before the X revolution though, so don’t go trying to work it into your lexicon just yet.

Consider the Maine lobster

In September, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch—an organization that monitors the environmental impact of seafood—downgraded the American lobster to its red list, which advises consumers to avoid them, as “they’re caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.”

American lobsters—also known as Maine lobsters—have a history of being sustainably harvested to help maintain a healthy population. But sustainability is about more than just the depletion of a given species, and Maine lobster practices are, literally, tangling with whale migration. Michelle Cheng explains how the Maine lobster issue demonstrates just how tricky it is to get sustainability right.

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Surprising discoveries

Parrot heists are on the rise. Keep an eye on Polly, she could fetch a pretty penny with these pandemic prices.

Egypt has called on the British (again) to return the Rosetta Stone. The stolen slab was, after all, deciphered 200 years ago.

There’s a mint chocolate craze going on in South Korea. Everything from burgers to fried chicken is getting the “mint choco” treatment.

Christie’s and Highsnobiety made some tone-deaf merch. With a price tag of $125, the “Art Handler” crew neck didn’t seem cool to actual auction handlers, who report they’re overworked and underpaid.

Monks invented the standing desk (well, sort of). Find out more in the first episode of our newly launched podcast, Work Reconsidered!

🎧 Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google | Spotify | Stitcher 

Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, legally-obtained parrots, and vibey merch to hi@qz.com. Reader support makes Quartz available to all—become a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Sofia Lotto Persio, Susan Howson, Adario Strange, Michelle Cheng, and Julia Malleck.