November 05, 2026

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Welcome to our gallery of words. This Sunday, we’re doing a special edition that explores the refined world of fine art—and we’ve got a question that’s a perfect chance to flaunt your niche culturedness:

What’s an underrated art museum that you enjoyed visiting (think: the Museum of Bad Art in Boston, not the Louvre)? Bonus points if you can remember a treasure that you saw there.

Submit your response here and we’ll feature some of the most interesting ones in the newsletter.

—Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Molly Liebergall, Abby Rubenstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

What the political shift means for data centers
CVS breaking itself up
Nintendo’s big reboot bet

Markets

Nasdaq

25,736.51

+1.44%

S&P

7,688.62

+1.58%

Dow

53,356.12

+3.03%

10-Year

4.894%

-6.0 bps

Bitcoin

$80,671.24

+3.72%

Apple

$349.51

+5.31%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: The midterm elections had market winners and losers, too. Following Tuesday’s big Congressional win for Democrats, chipmakers, including Nvidia, and data center suppliers fell yesterday, but Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple all rose, as investors took the bad news for data centers (more on that below) as good for the already-ahead hyperscalers. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s companies dipped. But overall, stocks rallied, handing the Dow its best day since President Trump introduced his tariffs last April.

PRESS PAUSE

A very bad election for data centers

Black and white data centers with red sky

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Jon Cherry/Getty Images

The midterms’ biggest loser wasn’t any particular candidate, but instead, the hulking, grey data center. Democratic lawmakers took the House, Senate, and a number of important gubernatorial races with promises to pump the brakes on AI development and data center build-outs, while local communities also voted to restrict future construction projects.

Three key states just became less cozy for AI. Analysts warned in the lead-up to the election that governor races could have a huge impact on pending compute projects. And it looks like they were right:

In Texas—where over a fourth of the tech industry is planning to build new data centers—Democratic underdog Gina Hinojosa beat Republican incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott. Hinojosa promised a data center moratorium.
Ohio elected Amy Acton, a Democrat who called for an immediate conditional moratorium. Meta and Amazon Web Services have plans to spend a combined $3 billion on data centers there.
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, who campaigned on a new construction moratorium, won in Georgia.

Since Pennsylvania also kept its governor’s mansion blue, roughly half of proposed data center projects in the US are now in areas with leaders who have promised to halt them.

Elon Musk’s very costly loss

The world’s richest man set a record for an individual donor in a US election by spending at least $474 million trying to get Republicans elected, especially in states crucial to AI infrastructure build-out.

And the party’s losses could set him back even more…His companies Tesla, SpaceX, and X relocated to Texas with promises of tax breaks and unencumbered build-outs. Musk posted on X yesterday, “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”

It’s clear voters from both parties hate data centers: At least 38 localities across nine states voted to either ban or restrict data center construction. Some communities like Edgewater, FL, included a data center ban in its city’s charter. There was only one local vote on Tuesday that went against restrictions on data centers, in the town of Harwood, ND, per an analysis by Ballotpedia.—MM

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World

Tour de headlines

Tom Brenner/Getty Images

👉 JD Vance blames Iran war for GOP midterm losses. With the election over, it’s time for the hot takes, and the vice president provided his yesterday, placing the blame for his party’s poor showing squarely on the war in Iran. “The reason we lost is the war,” Vance said in a lengthy post on X that reflected on an election in which Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress. Vance, who likely has an eye on the 2028 presidential race, cited a pollster as saying the GOP needs to do the following to win back voters: “1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel.”

🚘 Waymo and Uber are consciously uncoupling. Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told Bloomberg that the company plans to end its exclusive robotaxi partnership with Uber, currently in Austin and Atlanta, in January 2028. Mawakana said the Alphabet-owned autonomous car company was pulling out of the partnership and making rides available in those cities on its own app instead. She said the move was in response to feedback that even though Uber riders can state a preference for a driverless car in the app, they aren’t guaranteed one, making the customer experience “a little bit of a crapshoot.” Uber has other AV partners, and Mawakana stressed that the cooperation had been important for Waymo. But the breakup may not be totally amicable, as an Uber spokesperson said it was Waymo’s decision not to have a specific robotaxi option in the two cities.

🍟 McDonald’s wants you back. Mickey D’s is planning new value bundles—and some franchises have already launched them—after same-location sales in the US fell last quarter for the first time since early 2025. “Customers should see a clear and compelling value proposition every time they consider McDonald’s,” the burger chain’s CEO Chris Kempczinski told analysts. The company’s stock rose more than 6% yesterday, because the dip in same-store sales wasn’t as bad as Wall Street expected, and Kempczinski noted that domestic performance was already improving.—AR

TAKE TWO OF THESE

CVS is breaking up its pharmacy businesses

Interior of CVS drugstore with pharmacy sign and aisles of products

Adobe Stock

CVS Health believes it has the prescription for success: The company announced plans yesterday to spin off its 9,000 retail pharmacies into a separate entity called CVS Pharmacy during the first half of 2028. Meanwhile, insurance provider Aetna and pharmacy-benefit manager (PBM) Caremark will remain under the purview of CVS Health.

CEO David Joyner said the motivation for the split is to have more agility and the ability to grow the drugstore business. But state and federal pressure was mounting to split up the $117 billion healthcare empire that’s also your one-stop shop for nail polish and cheap sunglasses:

In May, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley reintroduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit PBMs from owning pharmacies.
Two states have passed laws to prevent co-ownership of pharmacies and PBMs, although CVS has sued to block the measures.

Critics say that setup has let conglomerates like CVS, UnitedHealth, and Cigna drive up medical costs and stomp out competition. CVS generated more than $400 billion in revenue last year, the seventh-most among US public companies, according to financial data provider FactSet.

Poison pill? The two new companies will be traded publicly, but the immediate response from investors was negative—CVS shares fell 12.5% yesterday, wiping out almost all of the year’s gains.—DL

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HEY! LISTEN!

Nintendo’s holiday plot: Beautify a 28-year-old horse

Illustration of a Nintendo Switch device at a flat, exaggerated angle, with Link standing next to his fairy guide Navi looking at a sword stuck in the device screen.

Nick Iluzada

An entertainment company has finally waited a proper amount of time before doing a reboot. Nearly thirty years after The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out, Nintendo released its highly anticipated remake of the popular classic today at 12am ET…

…and it’s already the best-reviewed game of the year so far, garnering a score of 96 on review aggregation site Metacritic. As the team behind the live-action Moana probably knows, hitting copy-paste on a fiercely beloved piece of media can prove treacherous, but the Zelda remake won over critics with subtly refined controls, dialogue, and graphics that retained the original charm.

If all goes according to plan, the new old game, released only on the $500 Switch 2, could carry Nintendo’s holiday sales:

Amid a dropoff in Switch 2 purchases since its release last year, Nintendo is banking on an exclusive release from one of its most famous franchises to give gamers a reason to buy another console.
Most Switch 2 owners are expected to buy the remake, according to Circana’s executive director of games coverage. A special edition, Zelda-themed Switch 2 also keeps selling out.

Looking ahead…the game might lose its best-of-the-year crown once GTA VI—which is also expected to break sales records—releases on PlayStation and XBox later this month. But in today’s tricky gaming environment, Nintendo has things in its inventory that Microsoft and Sony don’t: Cheaper games and consoles, and lower compute requirements that may provide some protection against the global memory shortage.—ML

Reader Poll

Will you be playing the new ‘Ocarina of Time’?

Yes, and I’m psyched.
No, I don’t have a Switch 2.
Maybe, but I am more excited about ‘GTA VI’.
Will I? What do you think I was doing all night?

MOLLY EXPLAINS THE INTERNET

~$800k raised for Red Baroner pranked by streamer

Man in Red Baron uniform standing in front of freezer aisle in grocery store

@thea.ctiveworld via Instagram

The online world can be a beautiful yet confusing series of tubes. On Thursdays, the Brew’s Molly Liebergall untangles them for you.

Strangers far and wide have rushed to protect the livelihood of their new hero: A guy who ripped into a streamer who was trying to ragebait him at work.

ICYMI: In a now-deleted video that went viral last week, the cameraman walked up to a Red Baron worker restocking frozen pizzas in a grocery store at night and pretended to steal $10 from his phone via Apple Pay.

The worker, since identified as Walt Z of Michigan, told off the streamer, saying “I don’t have time for this crap in my life.”
He explained that he has four kids whose bedtimes he missed, and that he had to be up again at 5am to restock 10 more stores. “You’re probably making money off this! I can’t even pay my goddamn mortgage!” he said.

With 63% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, per a recent CNBC and SurveyMonkey poll, Walt’s tear-down resonated. A GoFundMe—started by a stranger who feared that Walt would be fired—raised $785,000 for him in roughly one week. Red Baron also clarified that the company is on Walt’s side, posting on X, “He’s still here. He’s got a fan club,” and “Employee of the month nominations are closed.”

Meanwhile…a separate GoFundMe was launched for the man who started Walt’s fundraiser after donors discovered that he was an unhoused veteran.—ML

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than a TikTok hack to get that ink stain out of your jeans. Can you spot the odd one out?

Judge orders man to take care of dairy farm for 60 days
Can restaurants and bars become the new funeral homes?
Those Jeff Bezos hair transplant photos are very fake
‘Completely unexpected’: A bull and a donkey have formed a rare same-sex relationship—and experts are puzzled

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Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: niche, meaning “specialized.” Thanks to Maria from Memphis for the fitting suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

✢ A Note From Doroni

Images were created in part using AI or computer rendering. This is a paid advertisement for Doroni’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.doroni.io.

Forward-looking statements were included here that the Company believes to be accurate given the current information.

Written by Abigail Rubenstein, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, and Molly Liebergall

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