| | | | | | | Presented By Meta | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen · Oct 24, 2022 | | 🪔 Hello, Monday, and happy Diwali. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,491 words ... 5½ minutes. Edited by Noah Bressner. 💰 Join our inaugural dealmaker summit, Axios BFD, virtually this Wednesday. Register here to livestream interviews with Mark Cuban, NYSE president Lynn Martin, ESPN chair James Pitaro and more. 🇬🇧 Situational awareness: Rishi Sunak, the 42-year-old former finance minister, is set to become Britain's first prime minister of Indian origin. Boris Johnson quit the race, admitting that he could no longer unite his party. —Reuters | | | | | | 🎒 1 big thing: Test scores' record plunge |  | | | Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios | | | | Test scores known as the Nation's Report Card, out this morning, show the largest math declines ever recorded for fourth- and eighth-graders. - Math scores declined for those grades in nearly every state and district between 2019 and 2022, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results.
- During those COVID years, reading scores also fell in most states, according to the Education Department, which released the scores.
Why it matters: COVID and the resulting school closures spared no state or region. The pandemic resulted in historic learning setbacks for America's children, erasing decades of academic progress and widening racial disparities, AP reports. Between the lines: Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth-graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. - Not a single state saw a notable improvement in average test scores.
Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the Education Department, told AP: "In NAEP, when we experience a 1- or 2-point decline, we're talking about it as a significant impact on a student's achievement. In math, we experienced an 8-point decline." - Researchers think of a 10-point gain or drop as equivalent to roughly a year of learning.
🧮 By the numbers: The average math score for fourth-graders fell five points since 2019 — from 241 to 236, the Education Department said. - Eighth-graders dropped eight points in math, from 282 to 274.
- In reading, average scores for both grades fell three points — from 220 to 217 for fourth grade, and from 263 to 260 for eighth grade.
🔮 What's next: The "devastating" findings "raise significant questions about where the country goes from here," The New York Times reports (subscription). |     | | | | | | 2. 🦠 Biden's new COVID trap |  | | | Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios | | | | Stealthy new COVID variants, low vaccination rates and mixed messaging over the state of the pandemic threaten to thwart the Biden administration's efforts to contain a wintertime surge, Axios' Adriel Bettelheim and Tina Reed report. - Why it matters: The pandemic has largely become background noise to a crisis-fatigued public — even as new strains show the ability to topple our best defenses. And there's still confusion over such basics as what it means to be "fully vaccinated."
Biden administration officials are warning there's trouble ahead, while touting progress in knocking down new cases and hospitalizations. - They're also trying not to trigger voter frustration over the persistent health crisis just weeks before the midterm elections.
Bottom line: "Right now it's looking good," said Peter Hotez, dean at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. "But we have to be cognizant the train is coming down the tracks." | | | | | | | | 3. 🐦 Inside Twitter: "People are exhausted" |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | Twitter is the only social-media stock that hasn't cratered this year. But all signs point to ugly finances ahead, Axios' Sara Fischer writes. - Why it matters: Twitter's dramatic deal with Elon Musk has overshadowed its business weakness. But when you pull back the curtain, Musk couldn't have picked a worse time to overpay.
Employees told Axios that inside Twitter, despite best efforts to operate business as usual, the takeover saga has made it hard to discuss long-term deals with clients and vendors. - "People are just exhausted," a Twitter employee told Axios. "It can be conflicting because as a shareholder you're happy but as an employee, there's a lot of uncertainty."
- The drama is sapping morale, especially after a Washington Post report suggesting Musk plans to cut up to 75% of Twitter's workforce.
"I just think it's become a place where there is a lack of investment in consistent leadership," Leslie Miley, a former engineering manager, says on the latest episode of our podcast, "How it Happened: Elon Musk vs Twitter." | | | | | | | | A message from Meta | | Students will be able to explore outer space in the metaverse | | |  | | | | With the metaverse, students in a classroom will be able to travel to the depths of our galaxy, helping them get up close to the planets and gain a deeper understanding of how our solar system works. The metaverse may be virtual, but the impact will be real. See how Meta is helping build the metaverse. | | | | | | 4. 🗳️ Pollsters' new bag of tricks |  | | | Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios | | | | Pollsters are making changes to try to improve their accuracy, after significantly understating GOP support in the past two presidential elections, The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Zitner reports (subscription): - The Marist Poll is using text messages to invite hard-to-reach voters to take its surveys online.
- Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster, is experimenting with ways to build trust with voters: In a political poll in Montana, she asked respondents if they had seen "the Bobcats-Grizzlies game" between the Montana State and University of Montana football teams.
🔎 Between the lines: Pollsters aren't sure how to fix the problem, since they haven't settled on the root cause of errors that left many Americans surprised by Donald Trump's victory in 2016, The Journal notes. | | | | | | | | 5. 🐊 The prosecutor taking on Trump |  | | | Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Justice Department | | | | Jay Bratt — the Justice Department prosecutor building the classified-documents case against former President Trump — has spent his career going after spies, Blackwater guards, Chinese companies and some of Trump's close associates, Axios' Sophia Cai writes. - Why he matters: Jay Bratt, who leads DOJ's counterintelligence division, keeps a low profile but is at the center of an unprecedented investigation into a former — and potentially future — president.
"You're talking about sitting on top of a volcano," said David Laufman, a partner at Wiggin and Dana who used to be chief of DOJ's counterintelligence division — and Bratt's boss. | | | | | | | | 6. 🍦 Scoop: Tucker Carlson's irate call to GOP leader | | Screenshot: Fox News Jonathan Swan reports that Tucker Carlson phoned Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, with an ultimatum on Friday: - Either reveal which staff member took a swipe at Carlson's son, a Capitol Hill aide, in an article about internal House GOP politicking — or the Fox host would assume Emmer himself was to blame for the quote.
Why it matters: Just two weeks before the midterms, the chair of the NRCC — who is headed into a high-stakes leadership race if House Republicans win the majority — finds himself on the wrong side of the nation's most powerful right-wing TV host. - The inside drama illuminates the high stakes, divisions and power jockeying already underway as the GOP seeks to retake power.
The backstory: The source of the Fox News host's anger was a Daily Beast article, published early Friday, detailing the already vicious backroom jousting over leadership slots in a potential House Republican majority. - Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) — who employs Carlson's son, Buckley Carlson, 25, as communications director — is expected to face off against Emmer for House Republican whip, which would be the majority party's No. 3 leadership position.
- The Daily Beast quoted an anonymous "GOP strategist" as saying of Banks: "Deep down, he dies to be liked by the Establishment. He hires Tucker Carlson's son, a 24-year-old kid, to be his communications director."
Emmer repeatedly asserted to Carlson that his office had nothing to do with the background quote. Carlson was unpersuaded. | | | | | | | | 7. ⚾ World Series: Phillies vs. Astros | | Houston Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel (left) and third baseman Alex Bregman celebrate early this morning after the Astros defeated the Yankees. Photo: Julia Nikhinson/AP The Houston Astros are making their fourth trip to the World Series in six years — and will meet an unlikely opponent: - Powered by Bryce Harper's big bat and a packed Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies clinched their first trip to the Fall Classic since 2009, when they lost in six games to the New York Yankees, Isaac Avilucea writes for Axios Philadelphia.
The intrigue: In what has been an exhilarating and improbable postseason run, the Phillies find themselves trying to join the few MLB teams to win a World Series after failing to win at least 90 games in the regular season. The Astros swept the Yankees and made it to their second consecutive World Series, three years after an illegal sign-stealing scandal made them baseball's most controversial team. - "The Astros have thrilled and inspired us before. But they've never been this good — this unbeatable," Brian T. Smith writes for the Houston Chronicle.
🔮 What's next: The Phillies will square off against the Astros for Game 1 in Houston on Friday. - The Astros are the favorite to win the title.
Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP Above: First Lady Jill Biden celebrates the Phillies win as she and President Biden land on the South Lawn after a weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. | | | | | | | | 8. 🎞️ 1 film thing: Biggest opening since summer | | Dwayne Johnson in "Black Adam." Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures via AP Warner Bros.' "Black Adam" got poor Rotten Tomato reviews (40% fresh), but moviegoers were kinder: - The film opened at $67 million, handing Dwayne Johnson his biggest box-office weekend as a leading man and launching the D.C. Comics character he spent a decade bringing to the big screen, AP reports.
It was the biggest opening weekend since "Thor: Love and Thunder" debuted with $143 million in July. | | | | | | | | A message from Meta | | Students will be able to explore outer space in the metaverse | | | | | | | | With the metaverse, students in a classroom will be able to travel to the depths of our galaxy, helping them get up close to the planets and gain a deeper understanding of how our solar system works. The metaverse may be virtual, but the impact will be real. See how Meta is helping build the metaverse. | | | | 📬 Please invite your friends to sign up to get their daily essentials — Axios AM, PM and Finish Line. |  | | Are you a fan of this email format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 300 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications. | | | |
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