Good morning. We here at DONUT HQ love learning about words from other cultures that have no direct translation into English. The Swedish word “smörgåsbord” is a classic, of course; as is the German “schadenfreude.”

A new one we just learned about is “umchina,” which is Korean for “mom’s friend’s son” and is used to describe a person who’s better than you at everything.

Chef’s kiss, 10/10, no notes.

Do you know any other cool untranslatable words from other languages? Send 'em over and we’ll feature our favorites in an upcoming newsletter!

And now, a word that every culture (probably) has: THE NEWS!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 5.17 minutes to read.

“I believe that one of life's greatest risks is never daring to risk.”

–Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954)

If AI was putting together a resume, the “Job Experience” section would include occupations like writer, graphic designer, programmer, negotiator, and… mind-reader.

In a study published yesterday in Nature Neuroscience, scientists from UT Austin detailed a new AI system that – you’ll wanna sit down for this – successfully and non-invasively read a person’s thoughts for the first time ever.

🗣️🧠 How it works: The study centered on three volunteers, each of whom listened to 16 total hours of narrative podcasts while under the scientists’ supervision. As the volunteers listened, a non-invasive fMRI scanner recorded blood oxygenation levels across different parts of their brains.

The researchers then used a large language model (similar to ChatGPT or Bard) to match patterns in the volunteers’ brain activity with specific words and phrases they had heard. Or to way oversimplify, the AI system was programmed to play Tetris with human thoughts.

🤖📝 The results: To test their AI decoder, the scientists had the volunteers perform certain tasks like listening to new recordings, watching brief silent movies, and silently imagining telling a story in their heads. After each task, the researchers examined how closely the AI translation of brain activity matched up with the actual transcript.

And while almost every single word was misplaced in the AI translations, the overall meaning was generally preserved. Or in other words – the brain-reading AI model is a pretty good summarizer, and can paraphrase what people were thinking with a high degree of accuracy (though it struggled with pronouns).

For example:

• The words “I don’t have my driver’s license yet,” were translated as “She has not even started to learn to drive yet.”
• The spoken passage “I didn’t know whether to scream, cry or run away. Instead, I said: ‘Leave me alone!’” was decoded as “Started to scream and cry, and then she just said: ‘I told you to leave me alone.’”

👀 Looking ahead… The UT Austin researchers are currently exploring whether this AI mind-reading technique can be applied to other brain-scanning devices besides fMRI scanners, which are bulky and expensive to operate.

🇭🇹 Armed civilians in Haiti are launching vigilante attacks against suspected gang members. Haiti was thrown into crisis following the July 2021 assassination of its president, with gangs violently assuming control of major infrastructure, including ~80% of capital city Port-au-Prince. The recent violence has resulted in an unprecedented food crisis, with nearly 50% of Haiti’s population currently experiencing hunger. Last week, mobs of local civilians took to the streets armed with machetes and handguns and killed more than two dozen suspected gang members over a span of three days.

🇬🇧👑 UK citizens watching King Charles III’s coronation at home this weekend will be asked to swear an oath of allegiance. It marks one of several first-of-its-kind changes to this Saturday’s coronation ceremony, alongside the involvement of female clergy, the participation of religious leaders outside of Christianity, and the incorporation of languages other than English. In particular, the new “homage of the people” – aka the part where Britons watching at home cry out in allegiance – replaces the traditional “homage of the peers” where important dukes, earls, and barons would swear fealty to the new King or Queen.

🇨🇳♟️ Ding Liren, 30, became the first Chinese player to ever win the World Chess Championship. His victory against runner-up Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia came in the fourth and final tiebreaker match, after the 14-game classical section of the tournament ended in a 7-7 draw. Ding’s win ended the five-year reign of previous world champion Magnus Carlsen, who opted not to defend his title in 2023. Fun fact: Ding is just the sixth chess world champion in history who didn’t come from a former Soviet Union state (out of 17 total).

🥳 Today is National Matcha Day, and there’s a rich history to celebrate. Over 1,000 years ago, tea farmers in Japan began crafting matcha – and soon became beloved for its health benefits.

National Matcha Day was established to not just get a killer deal on matcha, but also to celebrate the traditional multi-generational family farmers who dedicate their lives to producing the highest quality matcha on the face of the earth. And today, there’s no better way to celebrate Matcha Day than to head directly to the OFFICIAL matcha source, the one and only Matcha.com.

🍵 Matcha.com offers many choices of the highest quality matcha and Japanese teas, plus a wealth of resources and recipes. No wonder they're responsible for 4,000,000 happy matcha moments and counting.

🚨🏷 Awesome savings alert: To celebrate National Matcha Day, DONUT Readers can save an additional 20% sitewide at Matcha.com for a limited time. Use code MATCHADAY at checkout.

Celebrate National Matcha Day and shop great deals at Matcha.com.

Hollywood’s writers have decided to strike.

After a final day of failed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) announced that its roughly 11,500 members will stop working until a new contract can be reached.

📝 What do they want?... The WGA is seeking pay increases, especially in terms of their residuals, which are the payments writers receive when their content is re-aired on TV or streaming. The writers also want more safeguards to prevent the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate new scripts.

• The WGA claims that industry profits have risen from $5bn in 2000 to ~$30 billion in 2021, yet half of TV series writers now work at minimum salary levels. That’s up from the ~33% of writers who were paid scale – the minimum rate for any given position – in 2013-2014.

🧐 So, what happens now?... Late night shows like The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live will likely stop airing new episodes immediately. That’s because those shows require up-to-the-minute topical writing – without it, Jimmy Fallon would need to put together his own monologue, and no one wants that (including Fallon himself).

📸 Big picture: Writers aren’t the only people in Hollywood affected by a strike. Most people who work on set will be out of a paycheck, from gaffers to makeup artists to teamsters. The last WGA strike – which started in 2007 and lasted for 100 days – resulted in the loss of about 37,700 jobs (in addition to ~$2.1 billion in lost output). 

In a letter to Congress yesterday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned the US government could default on its debt as early as June 1, should Congress fail to reach an agreement on raising the federal debt ceiling before then. (Quick context: the federal debt ceiling is the total amount of money the US government is legally authorized to borrow to meet its existing obligations.)

🤔 What happens if the ceiling is reached?... If the US fails to make interest payments to bondholders, then the federal government would be in default for the first time ever. This would lower America’s credit rating, increase the cost of the national debt, and potentially set off a global economic crisis.

• In 2011, Congress held a similar standoff over government spending and the debt limit. Despite lawmakers reaching a deal two days before a potential default, the situation caused a downgrade of the US credit rating, which led to a stock market crash.

👀 Looking ahead… House Republicans passed a bill last week that would raise the federal debt ceiling in exchange for an estimated $4.8 trillion worth of federal spending cuts. The legislation isn’t expected to progress in the Senate, but will be used in negotiations between the White House and congressional leaders, which are scheduled to kick off one week from today.

💬 Quoted… “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things.”

In a NY Times interview published yesterday, artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton – who’s often referred to as the “Godfather of AI” – revealed that he recently left his part-time job at Google after more than a decade in order to freely speak out about the risks of AI.

• Hinton, who was awarded the 2018 Turing Award for his research on neural networks, now says that a part of him regrets his life’s work. “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.”

🚬 Stats of the Day: 11% = the percentage of US adults who regularly smoked cigarettes last year; that’s the lowest level in recorded history and down from 12.5% in 2021. E-cig use, on the other hand, rose from 4.5% to 6% last year.

🤯 Did You Know?... Less than half of all US murders were solved in 2020, a new historic low.

📖 Worth a Read: ​​Those scary warnings of juice jacking in airports and hotels? They’re nonsense → (ArsTechnica)

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• ☝️ Highly-preserved fossils of 170+ species were recently discovered in 460-million-year-old rocks from Wales, per a peer-reviewed study published yesterday; researchers said it was a “very rare” site where complete organisms were preserved, rather than just shells or bones.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board yesterday (S&P: -0.04%; Dow: -0.1%; Nasdaq: -0.1%).
• 📰 Vice Media is planning to file for bankruptcy, the NYT reported yesterday; the media giant, which was valued at $5.7 billion in 2017, has struggled to find a buyer over the past year.
• ✈️🪧 American Airlines pilots overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike if necessary in ongoing contract negotiations with the airline (99% in favor, with 96% of the union members voting).

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📺 Amazon announced plans to add over 100 Amazon Original series and movies to Freevee, its FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) platform; Amazon Freevee was formerly known as IMDb TV.
• ⚽💰 Former NFL star J.J. Watt announced a new investment in Burnley FC, which was recently promoted to the English Premier League; Watt is investing alongside his wife Kealia, who used to play on the US women’s national soccer team.
• 🎤 Aerosmith announced a 40-date North American farewell tour that kicks off in Philadelphia on September 2; tickets go on sale this Friday. | 👗 The 2023 Met Gala took place last night.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🏥🤖 Three major US health networks are launching pilot programs to test whether GPT-4 can handle basic questions from patients, which would normally be sent to staff and doctors.
• 🧠 Two apparently brain-dead people taken off of life-support showed sudden spikes in neural activity – specifically, the area associated with conscious thought – just before they died, per a peer-reviewed study published yesterday in PNAS.
• 🌿 A 5,000-mile-wide, 15 million-ton patch of seaweed known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is beginning to make landfall across the southern Atlantic and Caribbean coasts.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🏛️🔵 Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) won’t seek reelection in 2024, he announced yesterday. | Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said he won’t seek a fourth term in 2024.
• 🏦 The FDIC issued a report yesterday recommending Congress pass a law that raises bank deposit insurance limits for US businesses above the current $250,000 threshold; the move is aimed at avoiding bank runs, which are often fueled by customers’ lack of deposit insurance. (Background)
• 🐭⚖️ A Florida board appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to oversee the Orlando-area district that includes Disney World filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to void a last-minute agreement between the previous board and Disney. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🙅‍♀️🦟 How to have a bug-free backyard dinner.

Yesterday we covered a new Fed report that examined the factors behind the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank; we also reported on the seizure and forced sale of First Republic Bank by regulators early Monday morning.

❓ Our question to you : Which of the following best describes your current level of confidence in the US banking system?

• 👍 A great deal of confidence: 17%
• ↔️ Some confidence: 36%
• 👎 Very little/no confidence: 34%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 13%

Click here to read some of the best responses from yesterday’s poll.

+Note on sample size: We received 8,318 votes and 744 longform responses.

Travis Carpenter was only thirteen when he had to make the life-altering decision to amputate his left leg.

• The Utah teen was born with neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition causing countless tumors to grow in his leg. He broke it three times before finally deciding to have it surgically removed.

🐾 ❤️ Who rescued whom?... During the process of deciding about his leg, Travis adopted Lady, a playful pup with one unique trait: she's missing one of her legs, too. 

• "When I saw her get around it really well, I'm like, maybe I should do that so I can get around better than I am right now," Travis said. "I think it’s really cool to have a dog that’s just like me.”

❓ Trivia: Which fictional character had a heart two sizes too small?

🦒 True or False?... Giraffes have the highest blood pressure of any animal.

🤔 Riddle Me This… Take off my skin – I won't cry, but you might. What am I?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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❓ Trivia: The Grinch

🦒 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: An onion