Good morning and welcome to Monday. Some things you’ll know after reading this email:

• 📖🐶 Which famous book was originally eaten by a dog
• 😬🔌 The biggest barrier to EV adoption, according to consumers
• ⚖️🌈 Why Mars Inc. is being sued over Skittles

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.69 minutes to read.

🚨 CORRECTION: On Friday, we incorrectly spelled disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh’s name without a ‘u.’ Apologies for any confusion!

“Never be bored, and you will never be boring.”

–Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

President Biden is the third most-likely candidate to win the 2024 presidential election, per new Vegas odds posted this weekend, with the incumbent placing behind former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

• According to DraftKings, Trump leads the field at +250 – aka if you win a $100 bet, you'll pocket $350 – while DeSantis is at +300, and Biden sits at +550.

🔵 On the Democratic side: Nearly two-thirds of Democrats (64%) say they don’t want Biden to run again in 2024, per a recent NY Times/Siena College poll. It also found Biden’s approval rating at an all-time low of 33%, though he still led by three points in a hypothetical 2024 matchup against Trump.

• Other potential candidates include VP Kamala Harris (+1200 odds to win on DraftKings), Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (+2500), and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (+3000), who launched his first anti-DeSantis campaign ads in Florida this month.

🔴 On the GOP side: More than half of Republicans (51%) say they’d vote for a primary candidate other than Trump, per recent polling, though the former president’s overall vote share is still twice that of second-place DeSantis.

• Other potential candidates include former VP Mike Pence (+1400), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (+2500), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (+5000), and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (+5000).

👀 Looking ahead… In an interview last Thursday, Trump said his decision to run in 2024 is “already made,” and implied that it's not a question of if he'll run but rather when he'll announce his candidacy.

+Way too early flash poll (we won’t hold you to it, promise): If the 2024 presidential election were held today, which candidate would you vote for?

Joe Biden 

Donald Trump 

Kamala Harris 

Mike Pence 

Ron DeSantis 

Gavin Newsom 

Other 

It’s too early to tell 

The new 24-hour National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline went live on Saturday, with the goal of making it easier for Americans to call for – and receive – the help they need during mental health emergencies.

📝 What’s changing?… Just pick up the phone and text or call “988” – no need to remember a ten-digit number. Though the old 1-800 hotline will still work (cue Logic's sigh of relief), the change aims to give people a more memorable number to turn to for help.

• On the logistical side: The new hotline aims to reduce the number of mental health calls routed to 911, which often results in people being sent to busy waiting rooms or dealing with law enforcement officers who aren’t properly trained to handle mental health crises.

👀 One thing to keep an eye on: While the hotline is a national number, the program itself is administered by states – not the federal government. In effect, this means states are responsible for maintaining local call centers and staffing them with counselors, which some state officials say they’re unsure they have the long-term funding to do.

• Legislation related to the hotline has been passed in 21 states, including four that've established a telecom tax to support the rollout.

📸 The big picture: Over the past four months, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has experienced a massive influx of calls (up 20%), chats (up 165%), and texts (up 93%), according to Health and Human Services official Miriam Delphin-Rittmon.

+In the know: Between 2016 and 2021, roughly one in six calls to the national lifeline went unanswered.

General Motors announced a partnership late last week with Pilot and EVGo to construct a coast-to-coast network of fast-charging stations for electric vehicles.

🚘🔌 A deeper dive… The national charging network will be available and accessible to all EV brands (it’s unknown whether for free or not), with GM owners receiving certain added perks like price discounts and exclusive reservations.

• All in all, it’ll feature a total of 2,000 DC charging stalls. These will be located at 500 Pilot stations every ~50 miles along highways across the country.
• DC chargers are significantly faster than their AC counterparts, and usually take 15-45 minutes to charge most EVs up to 80%.
• GM’s new stations are set to offer a maximum charge rate of ​​350kW, more than a large majority of EVs on the market can handle – so the station automatically adjusts the current to the proper level for each specific vehicle.

📈 Zoom out: More than 5% of all new car sales nationwide have been EVs over the past six months, putting America past the tipping point for mass EV adoption, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis. If the US follows the trend of other countries that have embraced EVs, a quarter of all new cars will be fully electric by 2025.

+One interesting thing: “Charging logistics” was cited by US adults as the largest barrier to purchasing an EV, per a recent survey by Consumer Reports.

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A California plaintiff is suing Mars Inc., alleging that its Skittles candy is “unfit for human consumption” based on the amount of titanium dioxide found in its artificial coloring.

⚖️🌈 A deeper dive… The drama dates back to 2016, when Mars first pledged to phase out the use of titanium dioxide, or TiO2, in all of its products.

• TiO2 is found in a variety of industrial products, like paints and adhesives, but it’s also used in food coloring to give it a brighter appearance.
• According to people paid to know these sorts of things, humans can’t actually digest TiO2 – and having too much of it can lead to a host of ailments, including alterations to DNA, chromosomal damage, and inflammation.

🌍 Across the pond: France instituted a full ban on TiO2 in food products in 2020, and the EU has its own ban set to take effect next month.

🤔🐟 Zoom out: Mars isn’t the only food company facing legal challenges as of late. A federal judge in California recently ruled a plaintiff can move forward with a lawsuit alleging that Subway’s tuna isn’t actually tuna.

• ☝️ NASA released new images from the James Webb Space Telescope late last week depicting Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. (Bonus: How the JSWT’s images are made.)

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 ESPN+ will cost $9.99/month beginning this August, up from $6.99/month currently; the 43% price increase is the service’s third rate hike over the past 12 months.
• ✂️💰 Stripe cut its private valuation by 28% to $74 billion, according to an email sent to employees; the fintech giant was valued at $95 billion last year.
• 🏘 The ten states with the most stable housing markets in America, per CNBC’s Top States for Business study.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 Thor: Love and Thunder nearly passed $500 million at the international box office in its second weekend.
• 💍💒 JLo and Ben Affleck got married in Vegas over the weekend. (I wonder if their relationship started on an app…🤔)
• 🏌️🃏🎽 Scoreboard: American Cameron Smith won the British Open yesterday after matching the lowest score to par in major championship history (-20). | Norway's Espen Jorstad won the World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas on Saturday, taking home the $10 million first prize. | American Fred Kerley is the new fastest man in the world after running the 100 meter dash in 9.86 seconds at the track and field world championships in Eugene, OR.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🐁 Japanese scientists have successfully cloned mice from freeze-dried skin cells, a world first that could eventually help revive populations of endangered species.
• 🔋 US researchers have developed a sodium-ion battery that can go through over 300 charging cycles while retaining over 90% of its capacity, a key step towards powering EVs in the future.
• 🧂 Utah’s Great Salt Lake is at its lowest level since record keeping began in 1847.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🎓 13-year-old Alena Analeigh became the youngest Black person ever accepted to medical school.
• 🥵 Europe is so hot rn: The UK government declared a national emergency after its weather service issued its first “red extreme heat warning"; more than 1,000 people across Portugal and Spain have died of heat-related causes over the past week.
• 🇲🇽 Mexican marines captured fugitive drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, founder of the infamous Guadalajara cartel, on Friday; it ends a nine-year search for one of the FBI's most wanted traffickers.

💬 Quoted… ​​"Systemic failures and egregious poor decision making."

• The Texas House committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting published an 80-page report yesterday blaming multiple failures by those in positions of power – including the 376 law enforcement officers who converged on the scene – for not halting the massacre sooner.

💀 Discovery of the Day: A team of paleoanthropologists unearthed a 1.4-million-year-old fossilized jawbone in Spain that’s believed to be from the oldest known human relative in Europe.

🌎 Around the World: President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the head of Ukraine’s domestic security agency and its prosecutor general yesterday, saying that more than 60 of their employees were collaborating with Russia.

🤯 Did You Know?... John Steinbeck spent two months rewriting his 1937 classic novella Of Mice and Men after his dog ate the only copy of his original manuscript.

📖 Worth a Read: Elon Musk’s Inner Circle Rocked by Fight Over His $230 Billion Fortune → (WSJ)

📊 Poll results: On Friday, we asked what you all thought of different company policies regarding discussions about contentious social or political issues in the workplace.

• 51% of y’all think employees should be allowed to talk about those topics in the workplace, 32% think those discussions should be banned at work, and 17% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view here.

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Monday: Nelson Mandela Day; MLB Home-Run Derby

Tuesday: MLB All-Star Game

Wednesday: National Moon Day, aka the 53rd anniversary of the first humans to walk on the Moon

Thursday: Comic-Con International kicks off in San Diego

Friday: National Hammock Day

Chelsea Bell Lantrip is a single mom working as a bartender in Texas. The dedicated mother is saving up to send her son to college in the fall, but money has been tight recently. 

💝 A random act of kindness... Chelsea was left speechless when a complete stranger left a $4,000 tip on a $180 bill last week. 

The woman who left the tip had recently received a significant inheritance, and wanted to give away a large amount to a deserving stranger. A grateful Chelsea just can't believe that lucky stranger was her.

• "She is a gift from God. I believe in guardian angels, I believe in people coming into your life at the right time that you need them. And she was definitely one of them."

Guess the definitions of the following Latin and Greek root words.

1. Anthro
2. Avi
3. Basi
4. Botan
5. Klept

(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. Human
2. Bird
3. At the bottom
4. Plant
5. Steal