Good morning. A little over three years ago, we set out to build a company from the ground up that does news right. And instead of throwing money at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok ads, we decided to invest in our audience for growth.

To date, it’s been a pretty good call. We’ve grown an audience of 60,000+ curious, intelligent, and amazing individuals – all because of you.🙏❤️

But we’ve heard you loud and clear; our referral program prizes could be cooler. So using your feedback, we’ve overhauled it completely. And today, those prizes – like an iPhone 13, free Hulu & FabFitFun subscriptions, AirPods, Amazon & Target gift cards, and more – go live.

Details further down the newsletter.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.84 minutes to read.

“Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.”

–W. Clement Stone (1902-2002)

Midterm primary elections were held in Wyoming and Alaska this week, two of the last half-dozen or so states to hold such contests ahead of congressional elections on November 8.

⛰️ Wyoming: GOP Rep. Liz Cheney – an outspoken critic of former President Trump and ranking member of the House Jan. 6 committee – was thoroughly defeated by Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman in a party primary for the state’s only House seat; data showed a 66-29 margin with 99% of the vote counted.

❄️ Alaska: Incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski advanced to the general election along with her chief rival and fellow GOP member Kelly Tshibaka and Democratic challenger Patricia Chesbro as part of the state’s new open primary system, where the top-4 vote getters advance regardless of political affiliation. It’s currently unclear who the last candidate will be, as ballots are still being counted.

🇺🇸 Big picture: Take a peek at the Democratic and Republican primary results and midterm election previews for all 50 states here.

☝️ Zoom out: Democrats currently hold a slim lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot for the first time all year, per data from RealClearPolitics. Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight projects there’s a 36% chance Republicans take back control of the evenly-divided Senate, and a 77% chance the GOP wrests back the House from Democrats (who currently have a nine-seat lead).

• Historically, a first-term president’s party usually suffers some losses in the midterms – especially when that president is as unpopular nationally as Biden, who currently hovers around ~40% job approval.

📊 Flash poll: If the midterms were held today, which Congressional candidate would you vote for?

The Republican one

The Democratic one

One from a third party (Libertarian, Green, etc.)

Who votes anyways?

I haven’t made up my mind yet

The Big Ten must’ve been getting negotiating lessons from Cuba Gooding Jr., cuz it just got shown the money. Yesterday, the conference announced a new media rights deal with ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, and Fox worth upwards of $1 billion/year over the next seven years, the richest contract for a college athletic conference ever.

It’s also a big step-up for the Big Ten and its member schools. The conference’s current rights deal pays out ~$430 million/year, but under this new deal sources told Axios and The NY Post that each of the three networks are shelling out ~$350 million/year.

• Of that total, each school is expected to net $80-$100 million annually – up from $54.3 million in the most recent fiscal year not impacted by the pandemic.

📺 Big picture: The new agreement ends the conference’s 40-year relationship with ESPN, which will stop broadcasting all Big Ten games starting July 1, 2023 and take over exclusive SEC football and men’s basketball rights starting in 2024. 

• The move is as part of an expanded deal that nets the SEC ~$800 million/year, according to the WSJ.

+Wait, this sounds familiar… Beginning next year (2023), Sundays are about to feel like Groundhog Day. Big Ten football will be shown Saturday at noon ET on Fox, 3:30 pm ET on CBS, and 7:00 pm ET on NBC – the exact same setup as the NFL, just an hour earlier.

If you’re looking for party rock, it won’t be in the Airbnb tonight. Per a new report from Fast Company, the vacation rental company is testing new anti-party tech in the US and Canada aimed at fending off large, unapproved gatherings.

🙅‍♀️🎉 More deets… To identify “potentially high-risk reservations,” Airbnb will be looking at factors like a user’s history of positive reviews and history with the service, length of the requested booking, distance from their home to the booking, and whether it’s booked for a weekend or weekday.

If you’re flagged by the system, you won’t be allowed to book a whole listing – but you’ll still be able to book a single room in a whole residence, for example, since the host is more likely to be on the premises.

• This expands upon a similar anti-party program the company has already implemented, called the “under-25” system, which blocks users under the age of 25 from booking entire properties close to where they live until they have at least three positive reviews.
• Airbnb has been testing the tech in Australia since October 2021, and has seen a 35% drop in unauthorized parties in areas where the pilot was in effect.

📸 Big picture: More than 6,600 guests were suspended from Airbnb last year for attempting to violate the party ban.

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When the going gets hot, the hot get going… or something like that. It’s common knowledge that city streets are hotter than the countryside during the summer, aka the ‘urban heat island’ effect. And in one LA neighborhood (Pacoima), residents have turned to solar-reflective paint to keep things cool – and fun.☝️

☀️ How it works… The paint, which has already been applied across ~1 million square feet of roads, playgrounds, and parking lots, comes with special additives that reflect infrared light. This ends up with the painted pavement absorbing less heat, in theory.

• The data is preliminary so far, but when local residents measured temps in the middle of the day, they found a 30°F difference between pavement that had solar-reflective paint and areas that didn’t.
• Weekly data on surface temps will be collected throughout Pacoima over the next two years. If the initiative proves successful, they’re hoping to replicate the model across LA.

🌇 Zoom out: This isn’t the first time cities have turned to paint to reduce heat, though typically that paint is white – like in NYC, where nearly 10 million square feet of rooftops have been painted over the past decade.

+Across the pond: A giant new park in Madrid, Spain, has a “wind garden” that helps reduce the city’s local daytime temps by up to 7°F.

💬 Quoted…​​ "Saka Viva!"

The name of a nationwide competition funded by Japan’s central tax agency to increase youth drinking due to a drop in revenue. The country’s tax haul from alcoholic drinks dropped $800 million last year, its largest decrease since 1989 per The Japan Times.

• Citizens between the ages of 20 to 39 now have until the end of September to come up with “business plans” to kickstart demand among the younger generation. Final proposals will take place in November.

+Fun fact: Nearly a third (29%) of Japan's population is aged 65 and older, according to World Bank estimates – the highest proportion in the world.

🪙📉 Stat of the Day: Major crypto firms spent $36,000 on US TV ads in July – down from $84.5 million in February. Over that same period, the price of bitcoin has fallen ~45%.

🌎 Around the World: The US and Taiwan have agreed to begin formal trade and investment talks, aimed at deepening economic engagement in agriculture, digital trade, climate, and other areas.

🤯 Did You Know?... July was a landmark month for streaming. For the first time ever, it officially topped cable as the most popular method by which Americans consume TV content (34.8% vs. 34.4%), per new data from Nielsen.

📖 Worth a Read: Why Does Everything On Netflix Look Like That? → (VICE)

• ☝️ YouTuber and engineer Allen Pan built a prosthetic using a robotic tube to “give snakes their legs back.”

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏘📉 Existing US home sales fell 6% in July compared with June, per a report from the National Association of Realtors published yesterday; this marks the sixth month of decline in home sales, the longest streak since November 2015; last month’s sales were down ~20% from last year.
• 🚫 Pixy, Snap’s recently released selfie drone, is getting the axe four months after its launch; the tech company will reportedly halt further development as part of broader reprioritization of company resources, per the minutes of an internal meeting shared with the WSJ.
• 📉 Bed Bath & Beyond shares fell 20% yesterday after billionaire investor Ryan Cohen disclosed he'll sell his entire stake in the company; shares fell another 40%+ in after-hours trading when traders discovered he had already exited his position; Cohen took a 10% stake in March.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚽️ Man U fans, wya?? Jim Ratcliffe, founder of Ineos, a global chemical company, has expressed interest in buying Manchester United; the move comes after Elon Musk joked about buying the English football club earlier this week on Twitter.
• 🏈 Browns QB Deshaun Watson has been suspended for 11 games without pay and fined $5 million following an agreement between the NFL and the NFLPA; Watson was accused of sexual misconduct during massages by more than two dozen women; he was previously suspended for six games.
• 💍🧙 Middle-earth Enterprises, owner of the global IP rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, was acquired as part of six acquisitions by Embracer Group, a Swedish entertainment company; the deal reportedly totaled ~$572.8M.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦈 New research published in the journal Science Advances suggests that the extinct Otodus megalodon shark could eat up giant sharks like orca (or killer whales) in just five bites.
• 🧬 New Jersey police used DNA taken from a newborn infant's blood sample to arrest the child's father for a sexual assault committed in 1996.
• 🩸 Researchers from the University of Cambridge successfully altered the blood type of three donor kidneys, which could significantly increase the number of kidneys available for patients who need them; one of the biggest restrictions to kidney transplantations is blood-type compatibility.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🍪 The Girl Scouts announced a new cookie in their 2023 cookie lineup: "Raspberry Rally."
• ⚖️ Allen Weisselberg, ex-CFO of the Trump Organization, pleaded guilty yesterday to 15 felony charges including grand larceny, tax fraud, and conspiracy for accepting ~$1.7 million in off-the-books compensation; part of his deal with prosecutors includes an agreement to testify against the org in a case set to begin in November.
• ⚖️ A federal judge​​ yesterday ordered the government to propose redactions to the affidavit used to justify a search warrant executed by the FBI last week at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and committed to making at least some of the document public. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right | Background/See the 360° view)

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Cliff Brush loves to cycle. The biker has been hitting the roads for over ten years around his Florida home – and Brodie Brush, his 75-pound Goldendoodle, loves to cycle too. 

🐶🚲 Hitting the road... Around two years ago, Cliff noticed Brodie getting excited whenever he would pull out his bike. He took him on one quick joy ride around the block, and the pup was hooked. 

• Now, the duo enjoys bike rides every week. Brodie fits in a special dog backpack and sports his goggles the entire time.⬆️ 

🚴‍♂️ Stiff competition: While Cliff doesn't consider himself a serious or competitive cyclist, he jokes, “I’ll beat anybody in the 80-pound-dog-on-your-back division.”

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make. Easy peasy! (The rules, at least.)

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Flour
• Eggs
• Milk
• Water
• Salt
• Butter

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Eggs
• Flour
• Sugar
• Salt
• Baking soda
• Vanilla extract
• Bananas
• Butter

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Chicken
• Salt & pepper
• Garlic powder
• Flour
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Green onions
• Sesame seeds
• Honey
• Soy sauce
• Hoisin sauce

(keep scrolling for the answers)

☝️ First things first: If you've already referred someone to the DONUT, all of your existing referrals will automatically transfer over. Just hit reply with any questions, comments, or concerns and we'll take care of you.

📝 Now, here’s what’s changing: Previously, whenever you reached a referral milestone, the prize was predetermined on your behalf. But now, each reward tier has a theme attached to it. And every time you reach a new milestone, we’ll provide a few different prize options for you to choose from – all fitting the chosen theme.

• Our prize tiers start at just 5 referrals, and go up to 1,000. Which may seem high… but theoretically, that could come from just one TikTok.🤔

Say hello to an iPhone 13, Target/Amazon gift cards, AirPods, Hulu & FabFitFun subscriptions, DONUT swag, and more – all for making the world a better place by spreading nonpartisan, fun, and trustworthy news.

👇 Copy your unique referral link below and send it to a friend or two to get started.

☝️ Recipe #1: Crepes

✌️ Recipe #2: Banana bread

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Honey garlic chicken