Good morning. Quick PSA: we'll be taking Labor Day off, so you can expect to see us back in your inbox bright and early Tuesday morning.

In today’s edition:

• 🇨🇳 The UN weighs in on Xinjiang
• 💍 Inside Amazon's Lord of The Rings
• ⚡️🧠 Curing addiction through brain stimulation

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.91 minutes to read. 

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

–Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.)

We forgot to include the link for a story in yesterday's Keep Earth Weird section; sorry about that. You can find it below.

• Woman charged $8,000 after rental car company claims she drove 36,000 kilometers in three days → (CTV News)

Reading and math scores among US fourth-grade students fell to their lowest levels in at least two decades during the pandemic, per test results published yesterday by the National Center for Education Statistics.

🔢 By the numbers: Every two years since the 1980s, the federal government has tested thousands of fourth-graders across the country on their reading and math skills.

While the results have generally ticked upwards over time, average scores this year fell by 5 points in reading and 7 in math compared to 2020 (pre-pandemic), out of a possible 500 points. This represents the largest dip in reading since 1990, and the first-ever drop in math.

• Declines were seen across nearly all races and income levels, and were worse for lower-performing students. Kids in the top 90th percentile dropped an average of two and three points in reading and math, respectively, while students in the bottom 10th percentile fell by 10 and 12 points.
• 70% of all fourth graders who took the government’s standardized test in 2022 said they learned remotely at some point during last school year.

👀 Looking ahead… ​​The federal gov’t will release a more complete set of national test results in the fall, including those from grades 8 and 12.

📊 Flash poll: The DONUT is being used across more than 20,000 classrooms on a consistent basis, so we wanted to take a different approach with today’s question. Instead of presenting options multiple choice-style, we’re switching to short answer:

What do YOU think is needed to get America’s children back on track in the classroom?

To respond, just reply to this email or click here. Please include your first name, last initial, and city + state with your submission.

Last night, the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Ring of Power debuted on Amazon Prime Video. And expectations are quite high – considering it’s the most expensive show ever created and all.

🍿 A deeper dive… The season’s eight episodes cost a reported $435 million to create – or about 1.5x what it cost to make Peter Jackson’s entire first trilogy ($280 million).

But to understand the investment, we have to understand the development process.

💰 Back to the beginning: In 2016, when Game of Thrones fever was sweeping America, Amazon founder and then CEO Jeff Bezos sent execs in search of a blockbuster title for its own streaming service.

Lo and behold, TV rights for the wildly popular fantasy trilogy Lord of the Rings were becoming available, and Bezos was a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. A match made in Middle Earth heaven… but with one big problem. Heavyweights like Netflix, Apple, and HBO were also bidding.

• Per the LA Times, Bezos wrote a note to the various LOTR rights holders, including the author’s heirs, communicating his love for the material and promising that his company would handle any adaptation/expansion on the books with care.
• To sweeten the deal, crates of Amazon Echo speakers were even sent to the Tolkien estate and its law firm. Which obviously led to many jokes about eavesdropping on the negotiation (🤔).

In the end, Amazon reportedly paid ~$250 million to secure the IP – but that wasn’t even the highest offer. What ultimately swayed the Tolkien estate, per insiders, was Amazon’s ability to turn content into commerce. Think: selling Tolkien’s novels, series merch, etc.

📝 Bottom line: So if you’re counting at home, $435 million + $250 million + tens of millions in marketing, promotion, and red carpet events = a total sunk cost approaching ~$1 billion. "If it's not the highest-performing thing Amazon [Studios] has ever done, it's a failure," a source told Insider.

Nbd, or anything.

+In the know: How does Amazon measure streaming performance?

The UN accused China of serious human rights violations against its Uyghur Muslim population that may amount to “crimes against humanity,” according to a 48-page report published by the organization’s Human Rights Council late Wednesday.

📝 A deeper dive… Human rights groups have accused Beijing of detaining more than a million Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province over the past five years, where many have said they’re tortured, sexually assaulted, forcibly sterilized, and compelled to abandon their language and religion.

The UN’s report mostly confirms previous coverage of the issue.

• It found that out of 26 former Uyghur inmates the organization interviewed, two-thirds reported “having been subjected to treatment that would amount to torture and/or other forms of ill-treatment.”
• The US, UK, and other countries have officially declared that China’s actions against the Uyghurs amount to genocide. The UN report didn’t use the word “genocide,” but said previous allegations of torture – including forced medical procedures and sexual violence – were “credible.”

🇨🇳 On the flip side: China has maintained the camps in Xinjiang are actually voluntary training centers, where Uyghurs are “educated” to combat extremism. In the wake of the UN’s report, Beijing called it “disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces,” and published a 131-page “counter-report.”

Originally, Labor Day was seen as the working men’s holiday – but women had a key part in the labor movement.👷‍♀️

• One example from the 1830s: Massachusetts women working in textile mills threw a strike in response to poor wages and conditions. By 1846, they had assembled and successfully lobbied for 10-hour work days… down from 14!

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• Laptop case sleeve from WELLinsulated
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• Laptop bags from Pretty Pokets
• Sustainable Danish fashion from 1 People
• Or get comfy with a Philly cosy sweater

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Support the hardworking women of today at The WMarketplace!

Addiction can be a cruel beast. But thanks to a first-of-its-kind deep brain stimulation (DBS) study published in Nature Medicine on Monday, we have more information about the brain’s response to addiction – and the beginnings of a method to potentially stop it.

⚡️🧠 More deets… The study’s researchers implanted a brain stimulation device in two severely obese patients with loss-of-control binge eating disorder. Over the next six months, the patients were observed with the goal of honing in on a distinctive signal that could be associated with binge-eating behaviors.

• In particular, the scientists were monitoring activity in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens. It’s involved in processing pleasure and reward, and has been implicated in addiction.
• Whenever the device sensed signals that were found to predict food cravings in prior studies, it automatically stimulated that region of the brain, disrupting the cravings (and thus, the patients’ behavior).

Over the course of these six months, the two patients reported far fewer binge episodes. Each also lost more than 11 pounds – and one even improved so much that she no longer met the criteria for binge-eating disorder.

📸 Big picture: The idea of deep brain stimulation in humans isn’t entirely new, but this is the first evidence of it being able to treat addictive-type symptoms. A 2017 study published in PNAS suggests that DBS could also help boost memory, and other research is exploring its use for substance abuse and other reward-seeking behaviors.

💬 Quoted…​​ “True Polish-German reconciliation.”

Poland’s top politician said the country’s government will seek $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for the Nazis’ World War II invasion and occupation; German officials said their government’s position – that the matter is already closed – remains “unchanged.”

🏫🚌 Stat of the Day: Nearly 9 in 10 schools (88%) are currently dealing with bus driver shortages, per a new survey from school ride-service company HopSkipDrive.

🌎 Around the World: Officials from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine yesterday to assess the ongoing security risk from the war. (Background)

🤯 Did You Know?... LeBron James has spent more days alive as an NBA athlete than as a mere mortal; he was 18 years and 308 days old when he made his debut – which was 18 years and 313 days ago.

📖 Worth a Read: Real Money, Fake Musicians: Inside a Million-Dollar Instagram Verification Scheme → (ProPublica)

• ☝️ You’re looking at the first image of a planet outside our solar system from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• ☕ Starbucks announced that Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Lysol-maker Reckitt Benckiser Group, will succeed interim CEO Howard Schulz starting next month.
• 🏭 Nvidia won’t need to halt the development of its H100 artificial intelligence chip in China, the company said yesterday; though the US gov’t told it to stop selling chips to China and Russia, jeopardizing ~$400 million in annual sales.
• ⚡️🥤 Gatorade entered the energy drink category yesterday, launching a caffeinated spin-off called Fast Twitch.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈🏀 Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson, who was traded from the Seahawks this offseason, signed a 5-year, $245 million contract extension yesterday; it makes him the second-highest paid player in the NFL. | The Cleveland Cavaliers acquired Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell in a trade yesterday.
• 🐦 Twitter is testing an edit feature that lets users change tweets “a few times” within 30 minutes of posting; edited posts will be clearly marked as such.
• 🍿📈 Pete Davidson, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, and Sebastian Stan are set to star in Dumb Money, a movie about the GameStop meme stock phenomenon.

+Don’t forget: Tomorrow is National Cinema Day; movie tickets will be $3 nationwide.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌭🍟🥤 Eating lots of unprocessed foods (think: hot dogs, sausages, french fries, sodas, ice cream, frozen pizza, etc.) can lead to heart disease and early death in both men and women, per a new peer-reviewed study.
• 🚀 NASA awarded SpaceX five additional missions to launch astronauts to and from the ISS, at a combined cost of $1.4 billion.
• 🤖 AI-assisted robots are restocking drinks at some Japanese convenience stores, with one bot capable of moving up to 1,000 bottles and cans per day.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🇷🇺 Ravil Maganov, the chairman of a Russian oil company that criticized the country’s invasion of Ukraine, reportedly died on Thursday after falling from a hospital window; it’s the latest in a series of mysterious and fatal falls involving dissidents in recent years.
• 💉 A CDC advisory panel recommended omicron-specific booster shots made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna for all American adults; Pfizer/BioNTech’s shot will also be available to those aged 12-18. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• 🗳️ Democrat Mary Peltola became the first Alaskan native elected to Congress after narrowly defeating former GOP Gov. Sarah Palin this week in a special election for Alaska’s single House seat, which will be up for election again in November. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

Saul the border collie was on a hike with his owner in Nevada, when the man fell 70 feet down a cliff. After breaking his ribs and hip upon impact, the injured man called search and rescue for help – but he was off the marked trail, and rescuers weren't sure exactly where to find him. 

• They searched for hours, and daylight was fading fast. The rescue team began to worry the hiker would have to spend the night out in the wilderness.

🙏🏼 Daring dog... That's when Saul began to bark, bounding towards the team and grabbing their attention. 

• "(Saul) was jumping up and down and spinning around in circles," one rescuer said."He took them right to the victim."

The lost hiker was quickly taken to a nearby hospital. As for the hero of the day? Saul was given a "well-deserved dinner," and is being cared for by a local non-profit until he can return home.

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:

• Bacon
• Garlic
• Butter
• Onion
• Dried thyme
• Flour
• Milk
• Vegetable stock
• Clams
• Bay leaf
• Potatoes
• Half & half
• Salt & pepper
• Chopped parsley

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Potatoes
• Onions
• Flour
• Butter
• Milk
• Chicken broth
• Salt & pepper
• Garlic

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Beef
• Soy sauce
• Worcestershire sauce
• Brown sugar
• Salt & pepper
• Garlic & onion powder
• Smoked paprika
• Meat tenderizer

(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.)

Start referring.👇

☝️ Recipe 1: Clam chowder

✌️ Recipe 2: Scalloped potatoes

3️⃣ Recipe 3: Beef jerky