Good morning and welcome to Monday. Some quick housekeeping: We’ve got a jam-packed newsletter for you today, so for space’s sake, we’ll be including the results from Friday’s subscriber poll in tomorrow’s email.

Onward.

In today’s edition:

• 🚀🌕 NASA's Artemis mission faces a big test
• 🏛 Gen Z in politics
• 💰 The most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.82 minutes to read.

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

–William James (1842-1910)

Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Floridian, became the first Gen Z candidate to win a congressional primary last week, beating out nine other Democrats. Frost may also be the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress, since his primary victory comes in a solidly liberal House district in the Orlando area.

But he isn't alone. This election cycle features seven Gen Z candidates overall – though four have already been defeated.

🔢 By the numbers… "Generation Z" refers to people born between 1997 and 2012. This is the first election cycle in which Gen Z candidates are old enough to run for the House, which has a minimum age requirement of 25.

• When combined with Millennials (b. 1981-1996), the two generations make up roughly one-third of the 2020 electorate. But their overall share in Congress currently stands at 7%.

🏛️ The big picture: One thing to keep in mind while reading the following numbers: the median age in the US is 38.6. 

• America currently has its oldest Senate in history, with a median age of 64.8 at the beginning of last year – including six members over 80.
• The median age was slightly lower in the House, at 58.9, while the average age of the Supreme Court was 63.5.
• President Biden (79) is also the oldest person ever to hold the position.

👀 Looking ahead… The last two Gen Z candidates left in this election cycle, Karoline Leavitt and State Rep. Tim Baxter, are both running in a GOP primary for one of New Hampshire’s two House seats on September 13. 

• The midterm elections are on November 8th. (Register to vote here.)

📊 Flash poll: Do you agree with America’s minimum age requirements to hold office? (House: 25 | Senate: 30 | President: 35)

Yes

No

Unsure/other

Washington and Massachusetts will join California in banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035, as a result of trigger laws written to follow such guidance from CA officials.

☝️ First things first: California has a waiver from the federal government to set its own air quality rules, including ones that regulate emissions. Other states are allowed to opt-in to CA’s regulations – which are typically more stringent than national standards – but they can’t set any of their own.

🚘🔌 More deets… California’s regulation applies to all new cars, pickup trucks and SUVs, but doesn’t apply to sales of used gas-powered vehicles.

• It also establishes increasing annual thresholds for automakers’ EV sales, starting at 35% of all vehicles sold in 2026, and reaching 100% by 2035.

📸 The big picture: More than 5% of all new car sales nationwide were EVs over the first six months of this year, putting America past the tipping point for mass adoption, per a recent Bloomberg analysis. In California, that number is 16+%.

+Fun fact: Virginia has the same trigger law on the books as Washington and Massachusetts, but newly-elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said he’s working on reversing it.

If all goes well today, tomorrow’s DONUT will read like this: ”that’s one small step for Artemis, one giant leap for NASA.”

🤔 What are we talking about?... Today marks the first big test for NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to return astronauts to the moon’s surface – including the first woman and first person of color – for the first time in 50 years.

• Artemis I, the program’s uncrewed first mission, is scheduled to blast off this morning, with liftoff expected to occur between 8:33am and 10:33am ET – if everything goes according to plan.🤞

🚀🌕 The mission, should you choose to accept it… Put very simply: Artemis I’s aim is to launch the world’s most powerful rocket on a journey around the Moon, then guide it back to Earth.

Put not so simply: Today marks the first test of said powerful rocket, aka the Space Launch System, which NASA has been developing since 2011.

• The roughly 42-day Artemis I mission will see the spacecraft carry an uncrewed Orion space capsule on a 1.3 million-mile voyage, round trip.
• If successful, the mission would set the stage for a surface landing as early as 2025 – meaning astronauts would set foot on the Moon for the first time since 1972.

✋ Yes, but… Experts say a failed SLS launch would “imperil” the entire Artemis program “because a failing, over-budget program is far harder to garner political support for,” per Axios. The Artemis I launch was initially scheduled for 2016, but has been delayed 16 times due to technical issues.

• Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general, estimated the first four Artemis missions will cost $4.1 billion in total, a figure he said “strikes us as unsustainable.”

+Tune in: Watch a livestream of this morning’s launch here.

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Netflix is considering pricing its ad-supported option in the range of $7 to $9 per month, roughly half as much as its most popular ad-free tier ($15.49), per a new report from Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw.

📺 More deets… Netflix will reportedly include about four minutes of commercials per hour – less than Hulu (6 mins), Discovery+ (6) or HBO Max (5), and roughly in line with Peacock and the upcoming ad-supported tier of Disney+. For context, most broadcast TV networks average between 12 and 17 minutes per hour.

• Netflix also doesn’t plan to show any ads during kids content or original movies. Its ad-supported tier will be launched in “at least half a dozen markets” next quarter, per Bloomberg, with a more broad launch expected in early 2023.
• The new ad-supported tier could generate $8.5 billion/year globally for Netflix by 2027, per media analytics firm Ampere Analytics, which predicts some 20% of the company’s users will be on the ad tier by that time.

🤑 Zoom out: Here’s how Netflix’s reported pricing tier would rank among other streaming giants with ad-supported tiers:

• $9.99/month: HBO Max
• $7.99/month: Hulu, Disney+ (or $9.99 combined)
• $4.99/month: Discovery+, Peacock, Paramount+

💬 Quoted…​​ “Generally a person got as many as he or she could carry in a cardboard drink carrier. One man carried seven. Most tried to get four.”

Northwestern defeated Nebraska 31-28 in the first game of the college football season on Saturday. But the real drama happened off the field.

• Sometime during the game, which took place in Dublin, Ireland, the credit card machines at the stadium’s concession stands were unable to function. So vendors just started giving things away for free – like beer.

The luck o’ the Irish strikes again.🍻🍀

📑 Number of the Day: 12 = the number of fully redacted pages, out of 38 total, in the newly released FBI affidavit used to convince a judge to approve a search warrant for former President Trump’s Florida home. Six pages are more than half redacted, while another five have something redacted on the page.

Per the affidavit (that we can actually read):

• 184 classified documents were found among 15 boxes that the National Archives had obtained from Mar-a-Lago in January, including 92 labeled “SECRET,” 67 labeled “CONFIDENTIAL,” and 25 labeled “TOP SECRET” (including those gained from “clandestine sources,” aka undercover operatives).
• Some of those documents were intermixed with other files, loose and unlabeled, NPR reports, prompting the Archives to refer the case to the DOJ.

+Dive deeper: From the Left | From the Center | From the Right | Background + 360° view

🌍 Around the World: Germany is cracking down on money laundering, the UK is gearing up for an expensive winter, and the US and China have reached an agreement allowing American regulators to access audits of Chinese companies traded in the US.

• Take a trip around the world in 46 seconds.

🤯 Did You Know?... There’s a 1 in 50,000 chance of an unverified finger match being able to unlock an iPhone or a Google Pixel with a fingerprint lock on it.

📖 Worth a Read: This Teen Was Prescribed 10 Psychiatric Drugs. She’s Not Alone. → (The NY Times)

• ☝️ Princess Diana's 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo sold for £650,000 (~$762,000) at auction. The buyer's premium took the total price to £730,000 ($856,000).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• ✍️ Meta agreed in principle to settle a lawsuit accusing it of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access private user data, per a court filing on Friday; financial details of the deal were undisclosed, but per the agreement Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg will not be deposed.
• 🚗 I’ll have one alcohol, please: New Jersey adopted a new rule on Friday allowing bars, restaurants, and liquor stores to use third-party services to deliver alcohol (DoorDash, Instacart, etc.).
• 🗣📉 All three US markets had their worst day in two months on Friday, following Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s annual Jackson Hole policy speech that morning (S&P: -3.3% | Dow: -3.0% | Nasdaq: -3.9%); Powell said higher interest rates will likely continue until the inflation rate pushes closer to the central bank's 2% goal. Read the speech.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🐉 HBO’s House of the Dragon has been renewed for a second season; the GOT prequel’s premiere last Sunday has drawn 20 million viewers so far.
• ⚾️💰 A 1952 Mickey Mantle card found in somebody’s attic was sold at auction for $12.6 million this weekend, the highest-price ever paid for a piece of sports memorabilia.
• 🤔 NBC is reportedly thinking about scrapping programming from 10pm–11pm due to waning interest in cable TV, per the WSJ; those seven hours per week would be given to local TV stations to program.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦿💧 Duke University researchers developed a new "hydrogel" to treat osteoarthritis; it could be used in knee surgeries to replace damaged cartilage as early as 2023.
• 💉 Moderna is suing Pfizer and BioNTech, alleging the two companies’ shot copied mRNA tech that Moderna had already developed; Moderna isn’t seeking market removal, but is asking the court to award financial damages.
• 🍄 Psilocybin could be a promising treatment for alcohol use disorder, per a study published in JAMA Psychiatry; those given psilocybin-assisted therapy reduced heavy drinking by 83%, compared with a 51% reduction among those who received antihistamine placebo.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🇺🇸🥶 The US is appointing its first Ambassador for the Arctic.
• 🎟 The $1.34 billion Mega Millions jackpot winner has not yet claimed their prize despite winning it a month ago; though lottery officials say this isn’t unusual for such a big prize.
• 🤑 The IRS is refunding $1.2 billion in late filing fines issued to taxpayers during the pandemic.
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Monday: Start of the (tennis) US Open

Tuesday: National Beach Day

Wednesday: 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death; Ganesh Chaturthi for our Hindu readers, La Tomatina festival in Spain

Thursday: First day of September

Friday: Victory Day over Japan, aka the official end of WWII; August jobs report; The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuts on Amazon Prime, it's the most expensive TV show ever made

It's just after sunset in Rennes, France, when the Wizzy Gang takes to the streets. The boys roam the city's roads and alleyways most nights as part of their mission: Opération Luciole, aka Operation Firefly.

• The gang's goal? To help combat climate change – one light switch at a time. 

💡 Bright idea... The boys of the Wizzy Gang are parkour experts, able to climb up walls and buildings with ease. 

• They've made a game out of reaching public light switches during their stunts, spending their evenings turning off unnecessary lights around town to reduce electricity use.

🔆 Little actions, big results... "[We] see different lights in lots of shops..." said Wizzy Gang member Mathieu Brulard. “It was cool because the light pollution is a big problem here in the city and other cities. We want to show that making improvements to ecological things is pretty fun, too.”

Which country consumes the most wine per capita?🍷

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

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