Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. In today’s edition:

• 🇹🇼 Nancy Pelosi has landed in Taiwan
• 🗳️ Abortion is on the ballot in Kansas
• 📈 Wanna drive brand engagement? Two words: Doja Cat.

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.74 minutes to read.

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

–Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Yesterday, Kansas became the first state to vote on whether abortion should be constitutionally protected since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June.

🗳️ A deeper dive… Kansans headed to the polls to weigh-in on a proposed state constitutional amendment that, if supported by at least 50% of voters, would allow lawmakers to restrict or outright ban abortion.

• As of last night with 96.7% of the ballots counted, 58.8% voted to reject the amendment versus 41.2% who voted in support, meaning abortion is likely to remain legal and accessible in the state.

🏛️ On Capitol Hill: The Justice Department filed a lawsuit yesterday challenging Idaho's near-total abortion ban, which is set to take effect later this month and would outlaw the procedure unless it’s needed to save a pregnant person’s life.

📸 Big picture: 22 states have laws on the books that could be used to ban most or all abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a policy group that supports abortion rights and tracks national abortion statistics.

To date, nine states have enforced those laws, covering 39% of all reproductive-age US women.

• On the flip side, sixteen states plus D.C. have established protections for abortion rights, covering 38% of all reproductive-age US women.👇

👀 Looking ahead… This November, voters in as many as six states – including California, Montana, Kentucky, and Vermont – will weigh in on proposed laws to either expand or weaken abortion access.

📊 Flash poll: How do you want your state to handle abortion?

Ban most or all abortions

Establish or expand abortion rights

Something in the middle

Unsure/other

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the third-highest ranking US official, touched down in Taiwan yesterday in defiance of repeated warnings from China against her visiting the island nation, where she plans to meet with government leaders today before departing for the rest of her Asian tour.

📝 More deets… Upon her arrival, The Washington Post published an op-ed written by Pelosi calling the visit “an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom.”

• In one story divided, the next unified: her trip appears to have bipartisan support among US lawmakers, after 26 Republican senators – including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – published a joint statement to that effect yesterday.

🇨🇳 Meanwhile, in China: Beijing, which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that’ll eventually be under its control again, vowed to surround the self-governing island with live-fire military drills over the next few days, calling Pelosi’s visit “a major political provocation.”

• Taiwan also dominated online conversation on the mainland yesterday. The top 10 trending topics on Weibo, one of China’s largest social-media platforms, were entirely about Pelosi’s visit and Beijing’s response.

🇹🇼 Same same, but different: Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan since House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) did so during the Clinton administration in 1997.

+Dive deeper: From the Left | From the Center | From the Right

For kids in lower-income families, having wealthy friends is one of the strongest determinants of economic success later in life, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of 21 billion Facebook friendships across 72.2 million American users.

👥💻 A deeper dive… The researchers, led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty, published two papers in the peer-reviewed journal Nature this week sharing their findings.

1. The first paper found that Americans with lower incomes were more likely to improve their financial situations over time if they were connected to people with higher incomes.
2. The second paper showed that connections between high- and low-income Americans were often forged through structured social organizations like schools and religious groups. It also found most people tend to befriend peers of similar socioeconomic status, even with social exposure to other income levels.

🤔 Why can’t we be friends?... The researchers concluded that for lower income kids, having wealthy friends is a stronger indicator of future income than factors like their race, family structure, school quality, or the job availability in their local community. They also mentioned several options that could help increase the amount of cross-class friendships, including reforming zoning policies and boosting affordable housing production.

🌞📸 Hopefully, you have lots of pics... but what about the things you couldn’t photograph? Like the special moments or feelings that can’t be captured on film?

🤯 Did you know… Your mind can’t really tell the difference between visualization and reality? That means when you reminisce, you experience similar feelings and chemical releases that you did during that particular memory.

The best way to take advantage of this? Journaling!

If you’re wanting to preserve your happy summer memories with a new journal, why not help a student at the same time?

👍 Buy one, give one… You probably noticed that we love to partner with brands making a difference! Brands like The Scribes, who for every single journal they sell, they donate one to a student in need!👏

• Since launching their Scribes for Students program, they’ve donated 10,000+ journals to students from impoverished communities. 🙌

And this isn’t your ordinary journal. All products from The Scribes are made with the finest materials, leather, and hardware possible – all while maintaining affordability.

Ready to stock up? Purchase $150+ and get 30% off with code DONUTBULK!

As you may remember from Monday’s edition, a Chinese rocket made an uncontrolled descent back to Earth over the weekend, falling harmlessly in the Indian Ocean. But now parts are reportedly being found on the ground in Southeast Asia – some big enough to cause serious damage or injury had they landed in villages around a thousand feet away.

🚀💥 More deets… China launched the offending Long March 5B rocket on July 24, sending it on a mission to deliver a construction module to the country’s Tiangong space station.

The unique thing about Long March 5B rockets when compared to something like SpaceX’s Falcon or Falcon Heavy? Its disposal strategy – namely, cross your fingers and pray. Each time they’re launched, the rocket’s core stage falls into an uncontrolled and hard-to-predict crash from orbit.

• May 2020: China’s first-ever mission using the rocket ended with debris raining down on West Africa.
• April 2021: The rocket’s second mission culminated with remnants falling into the Indian Ocean.
• July 2022: Go-round #3 resulted in an estimated 20%–40% of the rocket’s weight surviving re-entry, falling as previously mentioned. NASA released a statement after-the-fact criticizing Beijing for not sharing trajectory data.

📝 Bottom line: A recently published peer-reviewed study found there’s a 6-10% chance that a falling piece of rocket debris will kill someone in the world over the next decade. So probably not something to individually worry about atm… but still.

• ☝️ The death toll from the fast-moving McKinney wildfire in Northern California climbed to four yesterday; since it began on Friday, the blaze has covered nearly 88 square miles (56,000+ acres) to become the state’s biggest wildfire of the year; it’s currently 0% contained.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💳 Equifax provided inaccurate credit scores on millions of US consumers during a three-week period earlier this year, enough to alter interest rates or result in loan applications being rejected altogether for some, per a new WSJ exclusive report.
• 🏦 Robinhood plans to lay off 23% of its workers after previously cutting 9% of jobs in April; the company also dropped its earnings report one day earlier than expected.
• 🏠 Airbnb reported a record-high 103.7 million bookings on its platform in Q2; it also announced its first-ever share buyback, amounting to $2 billion.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏌️ Tiger Woods declined a $700 million–$800 million offer to play on the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf circuit, CEO Greg Norman said in an interview that aired late Monday.
• ⚾ Vin Scully, the legendary Dodgers broadcaster, died last night at 94. | The Washington Nationals agreed to trade 23-year-old outfielder Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres hours before yesterday’s trade deadline.
• 🏈 The Miami Dolphins were stripped of their 1st-round pick in 2023 and fined $15 million after an NFL investigation found the team violated anti-tampering rules by talking to Bucs QB Tom Brady and then-Saints coach Sean Payton; Dolphins owner Stephen Ross was also suspended for six months. | Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton joined the ownership group of the Denver Broncos.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 👅 Here’s how the human tongue, one of the body’s most sensitive organs, is helping blind people “see.”
• 🧠🤖 MIT researchers created artificial brain synapses that are 1,000 times smaller and 10,000 times faster than their biological counterparts, though they said their tech currently has issues with scaling.
• 🧬 AlphaFold, an AI tool developed by Google-owned DeepMind, has reportedly managed to predict the shape of nearly every protein known to science (more than 200 million structures).

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🌮🍕 Taco Bell said its Mexican Pizza will return on September 15.
• 🗳 Voters cast ballots across five states yesterday – Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona, and Washington – to determine how November elections will take shape.
• 🏛️ The Senate voted 86-11 in favor of legislation to expand health care benefits for millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their military service, sending it to Biden’s desk. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “Jibble, Jibble, Jibble!”

The above is a quote taken from a TikTok clip posted by Doja Cat. In it, she’s holding a custom JBL portable speaker.

• That clip – combined with her taking the speaker on the red carpet at the Grammys – gave JBL two years’ worth of social engagement in about three days, according to a new analysis from FastCompany.

🎮📉 Stat of the Day: At the end of March 2021, video game publisher Activision had 150 million monthly active users. This week, the company revealed that number has fallen to 94 million. Driving the drop? Lackluster performance from its most popular title, Call of Duty.

🤯 Did You Know?... Corrosion (aka rust) costs the world economy an estimated $2.5 trillion every year, or about 3.4% of global GDP, according to a 2016 study.

📖 Worth a Read: College Essay Prompts Get Absurd. ‘So Where Is Waldo, Really?’ → (WSJ)

📊 Poll results: Yesterday, we asked how you felt about political ads on streaming services.

• 9% of y’all like them, 69% of y’all dislike them, 12% are ambivalent, and 10% are unsure or have a more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view here.

Quick recap: In this section, we’re aiming to crowdsource details about epic trips – then provide the whole playbook for the experience to y’all.

• Have you ever gone on an epic, once-in-a-lifetime trip? Tell us about it here.

🚶‍♂️ Who: Jullea P. from Silicon Valley, California

☀️ Length of trip: 2 weeks

💬 Quick recap: I wrote an article for The Beatles Story museum in Liverpool (you can find it under the blog section), which inspired the trip. In Europe's train system, they're very efficient for nat'l and int'l travel (leaving right on the minute) and so many people wear designer brands like Chanel, Prada, Gucci etc. There are awesome live bands playing traditional instruments and songs, and people start dancing in squares. People are also super cool – I have so many photos with random people I met. Also, London & UK drivers in general are crazy, not slowing down on turns and stuff like that. I fell out of my seat many times (but it was so fun).

🤔 Anything you wish you would’ve known?... UK barely has ACs, some bathrooms in Belgium you have to pay to use, and watch out for bikes – they WILL yell at you if you're in the way.

😍 MUST dos: All the touristy activities – especially day trips from London, because it's the centre of everything

🙅‍♀️ Must don’ts: Don't forget to exchange your money! Euro coins are essential. Also, don't bring a credit card that's not tied to a reliable company – we had one card that kept declining even if we called them multiple times.

💶 Want to learn more? Dive deeper into a basic rundown of Jullea’s expenses here.

P.S. Have your own epic trip you’d like to share? Tell us about it here for a chance to be featured in next Wednesday’s newsletter.

Keith Laughton and Martin Dowle have been best friends for more than 50 years. The now-60-year-olds met when they were only eight, forming an immediate bond. 

One day, when the two were just ten years old, they squeezed into a photo booth and snapped a photo together.⬆️

• Little did they know, the pair of friends just started a tradition that would follow them for the rest of their lives. 

😄 Say 'cheese'... Every five years since, Keith and Martin have met to recreate their classic photo booth pic. 

• “It’s weird to look back at two ten-year-olds with sweet little innocent faces and then look at the others and think about everything you go through in life together,” said Keith said of their long standing friendship.

❓ Trivia: Which person has won the most Oscars?

🦵 True or False?... The patellar tendon is the strongest tendon in the human body.

🤔 Riddle Me This: I'm rarely touched but often held. If you have wit, you'll use me well.

(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.

❓ Trivia: Walt Disney

🦵 T/F: False, it's the Achilles tendon

🤔 Riddle: A tongue