Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s runoff and secured a fourth nonconsecutive term. Flávio Bolsonaro did not say he accepted the result as world leaders congratulated Lula.
Saturday weekly
The week, read
Week of Oct 24 to Oct 30, 2026. Built from 7 daily briefs.
Top of the week
Meta faces $42 billion in recent penalties and settlements after years of platform litigation. Axios says that bill previews the legal risk facing AI companies.
Authentic Brands Group sued Anthropic over Claude training data on October 23. The suit says Anthropic used 274 Elvis Presley songs without permission and seeks $41 million.
Also discussed on Decoder with Nilay Patel
Israelis are voting in their first election since Oct. 7, with turnout reportedly at its highest since 1981. Polls put Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot nearly level, and neither bloc is projected to reach 61 seats.
Since then: Israelis are awaiting final election results, and Benjamin Netanyahu remains far from defeated. Arab-led parties appear to have made a historic showing, but no bloc has secured the 61 seats needed to govern.
Also discussed on The Daily
Massachusetts is pushing energy storage with policies that make projects easier to build and finance. One planned site near Boston would deliver 700 megawatts, the largest battery project noted in New England.
Also discussed on Decoder with Nilay Patel
Thread of the week
"gets" came up in 7 editions.
- 2026-10-24: NFL Week 7 gets crowded
- 2026-10-25: England gets housing cash
- 2026-10-26: Switzerland gets a Minecraft twin
- 2026-10-27: Jay-Z gets halftime stage
- 2026-10-28: Search data gets messy
- 2026-10-29: Smell gets a closer look
- 2026-10-30: Ad tech PR gets a reset
Between the lines
Marketecture: Episode 197: Chris Harihar on What Aristotle Can Teach Us About AdTech PR
The surface conversation is a PR guest giving advice on messaging, followed by a rapid ad-tech news roundtable. The stronger signal is Harihar’s repeated point that ad-tech companies cannot assume a trade-only audience, because consumers, regulators and platform companies may interpret the same story differently. The charitable read is that the episode is urging better strategic discipline around innovation stories. The boring read is that PR people want companies to package risk more carefully before announcing new ad products. The skeptical read is that many of the market forecasts are directionally interesting but lightly evidenced inside the recording, especially where speakers move from anecdotes to predictions about Google, Freewheel, retail media and agent commerce.
The Daily: The Art of the Pardon: How Trump Turned Clemency Into a Business
The strongest read is not that the recording proves a paid pardon, because Vogel repeatedly says it does not. The charitable read is that Trump is using a broad constitutional power through a different review process. The boring read is that a market formed wherever wealthy defendants believe access matters. The skeptical read, supported by the episode’s emphasis on payments, timing, and unexplained services, is that the pardon process now creates an appearance problem even when no quid pro quo is shown.
Pardon My Take: NFL Week 8 Picks And Preview, The Brewers Win The WS, Bears Are All In + Robert Lewandowski In Studio
The useful read is that the episode is not trying to hide its fan logic. The hosts often give enough football or baseball detail to make a take legible, then openly switch into allegiance, jokes, or sponsor copy. The most candid moment is Big Cat's Bears trade defense, where he accepts the price and says the emotional part plainly rather than presenting it as detached analysis.
Our track record
0 calls made, 0 settled: 0 right, 0 wrong, 0 partly. Too few settled to give a rate yet (we wait for 30).
Corrections this week
No corrections this week.
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