🌎 The UAW effect

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Here’s what you need to know

Stellantis is preparing buyouts for about 6,400 white-collar employees in the US. The Chrysler and Jeep owner is facing higher costs related to its shift to electric vehicles and new union agreements (more on that below).

Nepal banned TikTok. The country’s government blamed the social media platform for “disrupting social harmony, goodwill, and flow of indecent materials.”

Amazon is shutting down parts of its gaming business. Divisions that focus on streaming and supporting third-party games—comprising 180 jobs—were put on the chopping block as the company is turning more toward making its own titles.

The world is edging closer to a treaty on plastic pollution. Nations are gathering in Nairobi to draft what would be the first language for a global agreement.

Is SpaceX’s Starlink ready to launch an IPO?

Billionaire SpaceX investor Ron Baron just recently told CNBC that he expects the company’s satellite business, Starlink, to spin off and go public “in 2027 or so.”

Baron reckons that in four years, SpaceX will be worth between $250 billion to $300 billion—up to double its current valuation of $150 billion. Starlink, which has a big lead over its rivals by owning more than half of the satellites now in space, is racing toward CEO Elon Musk’s ambitious goal of launching a “megaconstellation” of 42,000 satellites by next year.

But even with products launching at market-dominating speed and investors getting giddy over SpaceX’s valuation, is it really time for Starlink to go public? We looked at what it would take for that to happen.

Quotable: The UAW effect

“UAW, that stands for ‘You Are Welcome.’”—United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain in response to Hyundai’s decision yesterday to join Honda and Toyota in raising factory workers’ wages. The increases come after the union reached new agreements with General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford.

The Space Force has a new accelerator

The US Space Force is kicking off a three-month program focused on detecting space threats.

The new technology accelerator is looking to speed up the ability to monitor the space domain—or how it can detect and understand activity. Alongside academic participants from the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, a number of new and nimble startups are in the mix.

Quartz’s Grete Suarez outlines which startups are among the first to kick it around in the sandbox.

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Surprising discoveries

More women than ever are playing fantasy sports. Participation is up 16% since 2019, but the majority of players are still men.

There’s an entire book dedicated to the history of eyeliner. Even a bust of the Ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti, which dates all the way back to 1351 to 1334 BC, showcases the makeup.

Taylor Swift now counts as a reason for airlines to waive their change fees. When bad weather in Buenos Aires postponed her show there, Latam Airlines decided to postpone its fees, too, for people wanting to change to a later flight.

The width of traffic lanes can save lives. The skinnier, the better.

A new satellite will monitor emissions from specific facilities. The carbon released from individual steel and coal plants, for example, will be able to be tracked from space.

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Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, skinnier roads, and individualized carbon reports to [email protected]. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Morgan Haefner.