• ☝️ This summer, medal-winning athletes at the Olympic Games will receive a custom-made poster alongside their bronze, silver, or gold; Parisian illustrator Ugo Gattoni says the posters took him four months and 2,000 hours to create.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Game Show Network

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.1%; Dow: -0.1%; Nasdaq: +0.1%); the small-cap Russell 2000 fell 1.1%. | 🍔 McDonald’s reported Q2 results that missed analysts’ estimates on revenue and earnings; same-store sales fell for the first time since Q4 2020; shares closed up ~4%.
• 🏡 US home insurers were hit with a $15.2 billion net underwriting loss last year, according to data from rating agency AM Best; this figure is the highest since at least 2000 and more than double the losses from 2022.
• 🏙️ Raleigh, Austin, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Charlotte are the top five most promising locations for new college grads to find work, per a new study by payroll provider ADP. (Read more)

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🥇 The Olympics: Swimming practice in the River Seine was canceled for a second straight day after testing revealed poor water quality. | The US Women’s soccer team clinched a spot in the quarterfinals. | The US men’s gymnastics team won bronze in the team all-around competition, ending a 16-year medal drought. | See the overall medal count.
• 📺🤝 Comcast and Diamond Sports reached a deal that will see Bally Sports regional networks return for Xfinity cable customers on August 1.
• ⚾ The MLB trade deadline is at 6 pm ET this afternoon; catch up on all the deals thus far.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with First To Worst from Dyce Games

• 🤖🍎 Apple said the two AI models underpinning Apple Intelligence were pretrained on Google-designed chips; Apple’s decision signals some Big Tech companies may be looking for and finding AI-training alternatives to Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
• 🩸🎗️ The FDA approved a new blood test that screens for colorectal cancer, the second-most common cause of US cancer-related deaths.
• ☄️ A trio of meteor showers will appear together in the night sky over the next two weeks, with a peak of up to 100+ meteors/hour. | 🌎 Animal life on Earth may have begun as early as 2.1 billion years ago, or ~1.5 billion years earlier than most scientists currently believe, per a new study.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 📅 The 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate former President Trump began making dozens of gun-related purchases and stocking up on bomb-making materials over a year ago, FBI officials revealed. | 🗣️ Trump agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as part of its probe into the assassination attempt against him.
• 🚨 Police traffic stops across the US, which declined significantly in 2020, remained well below prepandemic levels through the end of last year, per a NY Times analysis. | 🚘🌿 More people are driving on cannabis but “impairment” is hard to measure, leaving law enforcement scrambling to identify drivers who shouldn’t be on the road. (Read more)
• 🏛️ President Biden proposed a series of long-shot changes to the Supreme Court, including 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct; Biden also proposed a constitutional amendment to eliminate broad presidential immunity established in a July 1 Supreme Court ruling. (Read more)

CLICKBAIT

• 📖 “The ick” and “boop” among new terms added to Cambridge Dictionary.