Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. Raise your hand if you like making new friends.✋

On that note, we’d like to extend a warm welcome to the 479 subscribers who joined us yesterday. And to all our existing friends – don’t be shy, hit that reply button every once in a while.😉

Some things you’ll know after reading this email:

• ⚖️ The fallout from SCOTUS’ decision to overturn Roe v. Wade
• ♾️ Which animals may hold the key to longevity
• 🤔 How Credit Suisse and a Bulgarian crime ring are related

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s email takes 4.63 minutes to read.

“Don't spend major time on minor things.”

–Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

Some species of cold-blooded reptiles may hold the key to immortality, per the most comprehensive study of longevity and aging in history, which was published in Science last week.

• Tl;dr: Some reptiles, like turtles, crocodiles, and salamanders, have biological mechanisms that slow down – or even completely switch off – aging.

📚 A little longer, did read… More than a hundred scientists examined 107 different wild populations covering 77 distinct species of reptiles and amphibians, in an attempt to figure out which characteristics are linked to long life.

• Of the 30 known vertebrate species that can survive past 100 years of age, 26 of them are ectotherms (aka cold-blooded), so researchers focused their efforts on those types of animals.
• Long story short: Being an ectotherm doesn’t necessarily guarantee long life – rather, it leads to either much longer or much shorter lifespans than warm-blooded animals with similar characteristics.
• The study also found a link between physical traits that protect species – like armor, spines, or shells – and a slower rate of slower aging, as well as a longer lifespan.

💬 Overheard… "It sounds dramatic to say that some species don't age at all, but basically their likelihood of dying does not change with age once they're past reproduction," said first author Beth Reinke, an evolutionary biologist at Northeastern Illinois University.

🔑 Zoom out: Scientists aren’t the only ones in search of the immortality key. A number of billionaires have poured money into life-prolonging and anti-aging research over the past decade, according to interviews, books and media reports; they include Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Peter Thiel (but not Elon Musk).

Taiwanese chip supplier GlobalWafers announced plans to build a new $5 billion factory in Sherman, TX, to manufacture silicon wafers used in semiconductors, the US’ first such facility in more than two decades.

✋🤔 But there is one caveat… the company will only move forward with its plans if Congress approves financial incentives included in a hotly-debated piece of legislation regarding America’s semiconductor industry.

📝🏭 More deets: The Chips Act, originally proposed last year with the aim of attracting chip manufacturers to the US, would allocate ~$52 billion towards domestic chip production, but has been held up by differences between versions approved in the Senate and House.

• The Senate version passed with bipartisan support last year, but the House bill was approved on a party-line vote, with measures on trade, climate change and human rights opposed by Republicans.
• If no legislation is passed, GlobalWafers President Mark England said the company would instead pivot to South Korea, where costs are much lower.

🏛👀 Zoom out: GlobalWafers isn’t the only semiconductor company with its eyes on Congress. Last week, Intel indefinitely delayed the groundbreaking ceremony for its planned $20+ billion chip manufacturing plant in Ohio “due in part to uncertainty around” the Chips Act.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right | What are semiconductors and why are they important?

Yesterday, we took a just-the-facts + a 360° look at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Today we’ll be taking a look at its fallout – namely how state legislators, the legal system, and companies have reacted to the ruling so far.

✍️ Let’s dive in… Abortion is now illegal in 13 states as of Monday, either due to ‘trigger laws’ that came into effect immediately following the SCOTUS ruling, or regulations previously deemed unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade that were never repealed.

• A judge in a 14th state (Louisiana) temporarily blocked enforcement of its abortion ban yesterday, while a judge in a 15th state (Utah) issued a two-week stay on its near-total abortion ban last night; both are expected to eventually take effect.

🔄 On the flip side: California’s Democrat-led legislature passed a bill last week shielding abortion providers from civil penalties imposed by other states, while the governors of Massachusetts and Minnesota signed executive orders prohibiting state agencies from assisting other states’ abortion investigations.

• Many companies have also committed to covering travel costs for any employee living in an illegal state who seeks an abortion in another state, including Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Disney, Uber, Netflix, and JPMorgan Chase.

👀 Looking ahead… Legal experts say the next battle over abortion is expected to center around the pill mifepristone, which was responsible for more than half of all US abortions in 2020.

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Credit Suisse became the first domestic bank ever to be found guilty of a corporate crime by Swiss authorities, after a court ruled Monday that the lender failed to stop money laundering carried out by a Bulgarian crime ring responsible for bringing tons of cocaine into Europe.

🏦 More deets… The case centered around millions of euros deposited into Credit Suisse by a group of Bulgarian clients from 2004-08.

• Judges ruled that in accepting their deposits, the bank ignored obvious red flags – including huge amounts of cash and the assassinations of two clients – that signaled a possible criminal origin to the funds.
• Credit Suisse was ordered to pay ~$21 million for its role in laundering the money, while a former relationship manager at the bank (ex-tennis star Elena Pampoulova-Bergomi) was handed a 20-month suspended prison sentence.

📸 The big picture: Taping cash to your body to make it through the airport = out, anti-money laundering = in. Many Swiss lenders have been adopting tougher policies in the face of an international regulatory crackdown, Reuters reports.

• ☝️ You’re looking at a 17-year-old Chihuahua mix named Mr. Happy Face, the world’s ugliest dog. That’s not us being mean – it’s the results of an annual competition held in Petaluma, CA. (Though tbh, we did think he was a bat at first glance.🦇)

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 The price of a Fourth of July cookout has risen 17% compared with last year, according to a new study by the American Farm Bureau Federation, led by an increase in the cost of ground beef (+36%).
• ✈️ JetBlue has upped its offer for Spirit Airlines once again, ahead of a Spirit shareholder vote on a separate merger with rival Frontier scheduled for Thursday.
• 🪙 Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has defaulted on a loan worth more than $670 million. | Shares of Robinhood were up 14% after reports cryptocurrency exchange FTX is considering an acquisition; FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried disclosed a 7.6% stake in the trading app last month.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 WNBA star Brittney Griner appeared before a Russian court yesterday and was ordered to stand trial on Friday for cannabis possession charges, roughly 4.5 months after she was arrested. (Background)
• 🍿🎟️ Top Gun: Maverick officially passed $1 billion in global ticket sales, making it the first and only billion-dollar-flick of Tom Cruise’s career.
• 🏈 Jaden Rashada, a high school QB from the Class of 2022, reportedly turned down an $11 million NIL deal from Florida in favor of a $9.5 million deal with Miami; both figures would represent the largest reported agreement in NIL history dating back to last summer.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀 NASA launched a rocket from Australia on Monday in the agency’s first time ever using a commercial spaceport outside the US; it was also the first rocket launch from Australia in over 25 years.
• 🌍 Multiple ancient human-like remains from caves in South Africa may be much older than previous estimates suggested – like, a full million years older, according to new peer-reviewed research.
• 🌕 A new double-crater can be seen on the Moon after a rocket with disputed origin collided with its dark side a few months ago.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 💔 Forty-six migrants were found dead in an abandoned trailer in San Antonio, Texas; 16 more have been transported to hospitals; officials say group was likely being smuggled across the US-Mexico border.
• 🙏 The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who lost his job after refusing to stop holding post-game prayer conferences at midfield. (From the Right | From the Left)
• 📱 Digital World Acquisition Corp., the SPAC that’s planning to merge with former President Trump’s social media app Truth Social, disclosed that all of its board members have received subpoenas from a New York federal grand jury. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… ​​ “In the next five years, Beijing will unremittingly grasp the normalization of epidemic prevention and control.”

• Authorities in Beijing published a notice yesterday that implied China’s stringent zero-Covid policy would remain in place for the next five years, though the reference to “five years” was later removed and a related social media hashtag was deleted.

🚘 Stats of the Day: Electric vehicle registrations in the US doubled over the past year to 5% of new cars, per a new analysis from Axios. Overall, 61% of America’s registered EVs are Teslas.

🤯 Did You Know?... The deep scattering layer (pictured above) is a densely-packed zone of living organisms – usually fish – that gather deep below the surface in many ocean areas.

• It was first discovered by ships using sonar, but they would often mistake it for the ocean floor – until scientists realized the “seabed” would rise and fall dozens of meters each day.

📖 Worth a Read: Bidding Wars Overheated the Home-Buyer Market, Now They’re Coming for Renters → (WSJ)

When students at UT Austin attended their commencement ceremony last month, there was one honorary graduate in attendance: a one-year-old cat named Suki.

Suki belongs to Francesca Bourdier, who spent most of her time at UT Austin completing classes over Zoom. Suki took a liking to the video lectures, often sitting directly next to her mom and watching the professors. 

• As graduation got closer, Francesca even found Suki a tiny cap and gown to match her own. 

🗯 What she's saying: "I kind of wanted to celebrate her and kind of have her along with me," shared Francesca. "My cat attended every Zoom lecture I had so we will BOTH be graduating from THE University of Texas at Austin together!" 

1. 🕷️🐸 True or False?... Tarantulas sometimes keep little frogs as pets.
2. 🤔 Riddle Me This… I have branches but no leaves, trunk, or fruit. What am I?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

1. T/F: True! The frog hunts insects that feed on the tarantula's eggs, and the tarantula serves as a highly effective bodyguard.🐸🕷️
2. Riddle: A bank🏦 (or other applicable large company... we're open to suggestions).