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More details at the bottom of this email.

In today’s edition:

• 💰 How much it costs to raise a kid in America
• ⚖️ Why Mexico is arresting former gov’t officials
• 🍄 Fungal zombie slaves

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.99 minutes to read.

“The first principle of success is desire - knowing what you want."

–Robert Collier (1885-1950)

People who have contracted Covid face increased risk of neurological and psychiatric issues like brain fog, psychosis, seizures, and dementia for up to two years after infection, per a new large-scale study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

⏳🦠 By the numbers… The analysis, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, drew from the health records of some 2.6 million people, mostly Americans. Half were diagnosed with Covid between January 2020 and April 2022, and the other half had a different respiratory disease during that time.

Per the study:

• The risks of neuropsychiatric effects due to Covid differed according to age, with people 65 and older at greatest risk of lasting damage, especially from dementia.
• For those between the ages of 18 and 64, a particularly increased risk was persistent brain fog. This affected 6.4% of people who had had Covid, compared with 5.5% of the control group (a 16% increase).
• Children under 18 were 2x as likely to develop epilepsy or seizures within two years of a Covid infection (2.6%), compared to those who had other respiratory infections (1.3%).

📸 Big picture: ​​Per CDC data, roughly 1 in 13 adults (7.5% of the US population) currently have “long Covid” – a catch-all term for a wide range of symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, loss of taste or smell, depression, and anxiety that persist for weeks, months, or years after patients’ Covid infections have subsided.

📊 Flash poll: Are you, or is anyone in your life, currently dealing with the effects of long Covid?

Yes

No

🇷🇺 The daughter of “Putin’s brain” was killed in a Moscow car bombing. On Saturday night, 29-year-old Russian TV commentator Darya Dugina was killed by an explosive planted in the SUV she was driving. No one has claimed responsibility (Ukraine explicitly denied it but expects an escalation in fighting anyways), leading many to speculate the target of the attack was her father, Alexander Dugin, a philosopher and writer who some refer to as “Putin’s brain.”

🇸🇬 Singapore is decriminalizing gay sex. The country will decriminalize sex between men, but has no plans to change the legal definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday. Under the current law, which hasn’t been actively enforced in decades and holds no mention of women or other genders, offenders could be jailed for up to two years.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s previous gov’t was complicit in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. Per the final report from a gov’t truth commission released on Thursday, local law enforcement officials worked in conjunction with a large group of cartel gunmen and lookouts to disappear the students. On Friday, the previous administration’s attorney general was arrested for helping to orchestrate a cover-up. Arrest warrants have also been issued for 20 army soldiers and officers, five local officials, 33 local police officers, 11 state police, and 14 gang members. The motive for the abduction remains a subject of debate, and there’s been no evidence any of the students are still alive.

…but raising them sure isn’t. According to a newly published report that’ll make you rethink getting annoyed at mom or dad over the thermostat or lights, it now costs $310,605 to raise a child to age 17.

💰👶 More deets… The estimate, based on a Brookings Institute analysis of government data first shared with the WSJ, covers a range of expenses, including housing, food, clothing, healthcare and child care. It also accounts for childhood milestones and activities – like sports, music lessons, haircuts, etc. – but doesn’t account for private or college education.

🇺🇸 The big picture: Love ‘em or hate ‘em, kids cost money. And this appears to be having a real impact on population growth.

Though the US’ fertility rate rose in 2021, it’s still below replacement level – meaning not enough babies are being born to replace the previous generation. Half of America’s states actually saw more deaths than births last year, a phenomenon called "natural decrease."

• The driving factor? Cost. A New York Times/Morning Consult poll from 2018 found the No. 1 reason why Americans had fewer children was because “child care is too expensive" (64% of respondents).

🌍 Zoom out: The world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century for the first time in modern history, per a Pew Research analysis of UN data.

+For us visual learners… 👇

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In June 2021, a federal law went into effect requiring all telephone carriers to combat robocalls with anti-spam technology. And it seems to have worked. Robocalls over the next year fell from 2.1 billion to 1.1 billion, per a new report from the US Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit consumer watchdog.

Great news, right? Well.. kind of. The number of robotexts sent increased 1,100% over the same period, per the report, to reach a whopping 12 billion/month. That’s 36 texts/month for every American – including babies, who obviously don’t have cell phones (unless you’re Boss Baby, that is💁‍♀️).

🤖💬 A deeper dive… Text scams are particularly dangerous, experts say, because we’ve grown accustomed to receiving robotexts for legitimate purposes – like a login verification code or package delivery status. And in the wild, scam robotexts often manifest as unexpected messages about a gift, a bank account freeze, or a reimbursement for something you supposedly purchased recently.

• The FCC issued an alert last month saying instances of these scams are on the rise, and a spokesperson told the WSJ the agency is discussing action to treat robotext similar to robocalls – but nothing official is on the way yet.

📸 The big picture: Per FTC data, roughly 2.2 million Americans reported total losses of $3.3 billion to digital fraud in 2020, more than ¼ of which resulted from a text message.

+In the know: Like robocalls, the number you see as the sender of these texts isn’t necessarily where it comes from. Sometimes, scammers will even send out texts appearing to have come from your own phone.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Technology has infiltrated the NFL.”

The Seeker, a robotic machine that perfectly simulates a quarterback’s style (speed, spin, arc, timing, etc.), made its NFL debut on the Green Bay Packers’ practice field last week.☝️

• The machine can also serve as a punter or kicker – aka “a JUGS machine on steroids.” Which may be why it's currently used in the college ranks at LSU, Iowa, Oklahoma, and elsewhere.

🏎️ Stats of the Day: Bugatti unveiled what it hopes will be the world’s fastest convertible: the ​​1,600-horsepower, $5 million W16 Mistral, which is also the company’s last gas-powered vehicle ever. Only 99 will be made, and they’ve already sold out.

🤯 Did You Know?... President Ronald Reagan had a standing order for more than 300,000 jelly beans every single month; he first picked up the habit in an attempt to quit smoking.

📖 Worth a Read: Thinking Inside the Box: Why Virtual Meetings Generate Fewer Ideas → (Stanford Business Magazine)

📊 Poll results: On Friday, we asked which party y’all would support if the midterm congressional elections were held today.

• 36% of y’all would support Republicans, 40% would support Democrats, 11% would support a third-party candidate (Libertarian, Green, etc.), 5% don’t plan on voting anyways, and 8% haven’t made up their minds just yet.

See the full 360° view here.

• ☝️ This award-winning pic shows a fungus that’s turned a fly into its ‘zombie’ slave; there are more than 400 different species of parasitic ‘zombie’ fungi worldwide, each targeting a particular species of insect – ants, cockroaches, dragonflies, beetles, aphids, and more.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• ⚖️ Ford is facing a potential $1.7 billion in punitive damages after a Georgia jury reached a verdict Friday in a 2014 case involving the rollover of a Ford F-250 pickup truck that left two people dead; the automaker allegedly sold 5.2 million truck models with a safety flaw in the roof design from 1999 to 2016; attorneys submitted evidence of nearly 80 similar fatal wrecks.
• 📉 Over $550 million worth of crypto was liquidated over a 24-hour period ending Friday, per analytics firm Coinglass, an eight-month high.
• 🪙 Speaking of crypto... FTX, a crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, brought in over $1 billion in revenue last year, per docs reviewed by CNBC; that's a more than 1,000% increase over the previous year; the company was also profitable.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚖️ Actor Gary Busey was charged with sex offenses at the Monster Mania horror film convention in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
• 🌐 The web browser used within the TikTok app can track every keystroke made by its users, according to new research.
• 🍿 Episode one of House of the Dragon, HBO’s Game of Thrones spinoff, premiered last night.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🔎🦠 The CDC is investigating an E. coli outbreak in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania; 22 of the 37 people who’ve fallen ill consumed lettuce from Wendy’s, which the fast-food giant has stopped serving on sandwiches in those areas.
• 🧪 Chemists at UCLA and Northwestern University have discovered a new way to destroy "forever chemicals," according to a new peer-reviewed study published in Science.
• 💰 The Saudi royal family has started a nonprofit called the Hevolution Foundation that plans to "indefinitely" spend up to $1 billion/year to discover treatments that slow aging.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🍔 McDonald’s is bringing a British hit to the US: the Chicken Big Mac.
• 🇨🇳 Chinese-Canadian billionaire Xiao Jianhua was sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Shanghai court after pleading guilty to graft charges; his company was also fined $8.1 billion.
• ⚖️ A Michigan judge on Friday blocked county prosecutors from enforcing the state’s 1931 abortion ban until the Michigan Supreme Court or voters can decide the topic this fall. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
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Monday: First day of classes at Chicago Public Schools

Tuesday: National Cuban Sandwich Day; Macy's, Nordstroms, and Urban Outfitters report earnings

Wednesday: Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day; six-month anniversary of Russia first invading Ukraine

Thursday: The NFL preseason kicks off its fourth (and final) week

Friday: Beach Road Weekend Music Festival begins in Martha’s Vineyard

+This weekend: The college football season kicks off on Saturday; Burning Man returns IRL following a two-year hiatus

These high school football players are being hailed heroes after rescuing a woman trapped in her wrecked car.

• Cesar Parker, Treyvon Adams, Antwion Carey, Messiah Daniels, Tyson Brown, and Alto Moore were on their way to school when they noticed the car wreck. As they got closer, they could hear a woman calling for help. 

💪 Modern-day Hercules... Though the door was extremely dented and bent, the boys were able to pry it open and safely remove the woman from her car.

“We are very proud of them,” said one of their teachers. “This is the kind of news that we need, that is more positive.”

• “We’ve been recognized in a lot of different ways,” said Trevor. “We appreciate it, but I feel we just did the right thing.”

Can you guess the definitions of these Greek and Latin root words?

1. Olig-
2. -oma
3. Pessim-
4. Ranc-
5. Ultra-

(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. Olig: Few (e.g., oligarchy, oligopoly)
2. -oma: Growth or tumor (melanoma, carcinoma)
3. Pessim: Worst (pessimism, pessimistic)
4. Ranc: Bitter (rancid, rancor)
5. Ultra: Beyond (ultrasonic, ultrasound, ultraviolet)