Good morning. In yesterday’s newsletter, we announced a grand and treacherous voyage to claim Antarctica as DONUT Nation.

Welp, we’re here. It’s cold and the penguins aren’t exactly the friendliest neighbors, but this stuff takes time. They also show zero interest in the news.

More soon from the totally-real-and-not-at-all-fake DONUT Nation: Antarctica.

Now, NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 5.12 minutes to read.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.”

–Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners like aspartame, stevia, saccharin, or sucralose does not help people lose weight in the long term, according to a World Health Organization advisory published yesterday that was based on a systematic review of a combined 283 scientific studies.

Or to put it in terms that Mary Poppins would understand: a spoonful of artificial sugar is not medicine to make the weight go down (in fact, it could actually raise the risk of health problems such as type 2 diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and heart disease).

📝 More details… The new WHO findings show artificial sweeteners found in products like diet sodas, chewing gum, yogurt, and other products that are advertised as “sugar-free” don't actually help achieve weight loss when compared to the regular versions containing sugar.

Instead, the agency recommends that people looking to lose weight should restrict their sugar intake to unsweetened food and beverages or natural sources, like fruits.

• The WHO’s new guidelines follow a 2019 scientific review by nonprofit research group Cochrane, which concluded there was no evidence for any health benefits of artificial sweeteners, while potential harms couldn’t be excluded.

✋ Yes, but: Some health experts have raised concerns with both the Cochrane and WHO reviews, saying the evidence analyzed by scientists isn’t robust enough to draw any conclusions.

• For example: a possible confounding factor is that people who eat and drink products containing artificial sweeteners have an increased risk for obesity or diabetes in the first place, and are using them to control their weight gain.

🤔 Zoom out: This isn’t the first time sugar/artificial sweeteners and weight loss have been linked together – much like childhood friends, they go wayyyyyyy back. In the 1970s, sugar was widely marketed to US consumers as a weight-loss aid.

🇫🇷 The 76th Cannes International Film Festival begins today. This year’s edition of the annual event held in Cannes, France, will feature the debuts of several high-profile movies, including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro), and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (starring, well, everyone). The 12-day festival kicks off today with French-language film Jeanne du Barry, which represents Johnny Depp’s first role since a highly publicized trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

🇪🇺🎮 EU regulators approved Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard. With the decision, Microsoft has now cleared one of three hurdles preventing its Activision purchase from being finalized. However, the other two hurdles – aka regulators in the UK and US – are proving more difficult to overcome. UK officials last month rejected the acquisition pending a last-chance appeal from Microsoft, while US regulators are currently suing to block the deal as well. And without approval from all three regulatory bodies, Microsoft’s acquisition can’t go through, per BBC News.

🇨🇳 China sentenced a 78-year-old American citizen to life in prison on spying charges. Chinese officials gave no public details surrounding the case of John Shing-wan Leung, a Hong Kong resident and US citizen, other than revealing that he’s been detained since April 2021. In China, trials involving espionage are typically conducted behind closed doors, with little or no information publicly released (even after convictions).

🍫 You probably know chocolate is bad for our canine friends, but did you know the same goes for cats? And here are some lesser-known foods that are toxic to pets:

• ☕ Caffeine contains the same chemical in chocolate that’s toxic to dogs
• 🧅 Onion/garlic contains compounds that can lead to anemia
• 🥑 Avocados can cause vomiting/diarrhea in cats and dogs
• 🍾 Alcohol can be dangerous for pets
• 🍇 Grapes and raisins can cause kidney failure
• 🍬 Xylitol, a sugar substitute found in gum, candy, and baked goods can lead to major health complications

💖 Find more pet care tips at Doobert, the platform helping people help animals through volunteering. And when you use The Doobert Shop, 5% of every purchase is donated to an animal rescue that you choose. Browse everything you need for your furry friend today – beds, accessories, toys, and more.

Learn other pet care tips and help pets in need by visiting Doobert today.

Yesterday, the TSA unveiled a new pilot program that incorporates facial recognition technology into 16 of America’s largest airports, as part of an effort to enhance security and reduce overall passenger wait times.

👤 Here’s how it works: Passengers at each of the major airports – including those in Atlanta, D.C., Denver, Detroit, LA, Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix – will walk up to an airport security checkpoint, slip an ID card into a slot, and look into a camera on top of a small screen.

• Once the passenger’s face-scan is successfully compared to their ID and a government database of past images (e.g., previous driver’s licenses or passport photos), the screen flashes “Photo Complete,” and the passenger is good to walk through to the body-scan section.
• The service is voluntary, with passengers able to opt-out and have their ID checked by a human. It’s also not active at every TSA checkpoint.

The TSA says the goal of its facial recognition program is to improve the accuracy of identity verification and keep America’s ~2.4 million daily airline passengers moving through checkpoints smoothly; the new program reportedly cuts the average time to verify each passengers’ identity from around half-a-minute to just two or three seconds.

✋ Yes, but: Some lawmakers and privacy advocates have raised concerns about how the TSA’s biometric data is collected, who has access to it, and what happens if it gets hacked. In February, a group of five senators sent a letter to the TSA demanding the agency halt its facial recognition program.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. So what’s going on with the supposedly free 55-inch 4K HDR TV announced yesterday by Telly?

Well, it’s not technically free – you have to also take a second, smaller TV. That’s also free…

So, really, what’s the catch?

Ads. Lots and lots of ads.

👀 More details… Telly, which was founded by the ad-supported TV platform Pluto TV’s co-founder, Ilya Pozin, is offering 500,000 free TV packages that include the 55-inch screen, soundbar, and a second, smaller screen called the “Smart Display.” Pozin likened it to a car’s dashboard.

The Smart Display will serve targeted advertisements – alongside the weather, news, stock prices, and sports scores – custom-tailored for each viewer based on their demographic and psychographic data. And when you’re not watching, ads can run across both screens at once.

• The TV also comes with a camera that can be used for Zoom video calls and “free advanced motion-tracking fitness programs.”

🔎 Zoom out: Telly’s launch coincides with the entertainment industry’s broader move toward free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST). The top two FAST platforms, Pluto TV and Tubi, accounted for about 1.7% of total TV/streaming use in February of this year, after not even making the rankings as recently as August 2022. (For context, HBO Max accounted for 1.3% of total use.)

💬 Quoted… “We conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

In a 308-page report published yesterday, special counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

• The report, compiled by Durham who was appointed by the Trump administration, doesn’t recommend any changes beyond those enacted by FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2019, which came after the bureau’s inspector general pointed out flaws in the FBI’s efforts to monitor a former Trump campaign adviser.

+Dive deeper: From the Left | From the Center | From the Right

⛪💰 Number of the Day: ~$150 billion = the alleged size of investments currently held by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the form of a “clandestine hedge fund” – at least that’s according to whistleblower David Nielsen, a former investment manager for the Mormon Church, who revealed the estimated figure in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night.

🤯 Did You Know?... In 1938, a man who was shot in the head during the Spanish Civil War woke up seeing the world backwards. Dubbed “Patient M,” he was then studied for nearly 50 years by Spanish neuroscientist Justo Gonzalo, representing the only known case of such a phenomenon in recorded history.

📖 Worth a Read: On the trail of the Dark Avenger: the most dangerous virus writer in the world → (The Guardian)

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• ☝️ Joseph Dituri, a University of South Florida professor nicknamed “Dr. Deep Sea,” just broke the world record for the longest time spent underwater, living for 74+ days at the bottom of a 30-ft-deep lagoon (the previous record was 73 days); Dituri, who’s teaching a class online while submerged, plans to stay underwater for at least 100 days.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P: +0.3%; Dow: +0.1%; Nasdaq: +0.7%).
• 🚗💥 General Motors recalled almost 1 million SUVs last Friday due to defective airbag inflators that could explode during a crash.
• 💰🖥️ The IRS has created a prototype software that will allow Americans to file their taxes online free-of-charge, WaPo reported yesterday; it will initially be available through a pilot program for a small group of taxpayers by January 2024.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 The NFL and NBCUniversal’s Peacock agreed yesterday to air one wild card playoff game exclusively on Peacock; the one-year deal is valued around $110 million, per the WSJ.
• ⚖️ Vice Media, which was valued at $5.7 billion in 2017, filed for bankruptcy yesterday; a group of the former media-giant’s lenders have submitted a bid to acquire the company out of bankruptcy for about $225 million.
• 🏀🎰 The 2023 NBA Draft Lottery is tonight at 8pm ET.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💧☄️ NASA’s James Webb Telescope has detected the first known instance of water vapor around a comet located in the main asteroid belt of our Solar System.
• 🐅 There’s a small possibility that the long-extinct Tasmanian tiger may actually be alive in the wilderness today, per a new peer-reviewed study (though other scientists are skeptical).
• 🚁 Startup Eve Air Mobility has completed wind tunnel testing of its new electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) taxi, which the company says will enter commercial service in 2026.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🥵 More than 12 million Americans living in the Pacific Northwest will be impacted by a heat advisory over the next few days, the National Weather Service said yesterday.
• 🏛️ President Biden will meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other top congressional leaders this afternoon to discuss raising the federal debt ceiling. | 🏛 Two staffers were attacked at the office of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D–VA) by a man wielding a baseball bat.
• 🏙️ Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who’s replacing Lori Lightfoot, was officially sworn into office yesterday.

CLICKBAIT

• 🤖🖼️ Can you spot the AI-generated images?

*Sponsored post

Yesterday we covered the state of abortion in America today, including the 44 US states that currently have laws on the books prohibiting most or all abortions past a certain point of pregnancy.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, what rules should be in place regarding abortion?

• 👍 Legal anytime during pregnancy: 30%
• 📅 Legal up until 21-24 weeks: 16%
• 📅 Legal up until 15-20 weeks: 11%
• 📅 Legal up until 10-14 weeks: 10%
• 📅 Legal up until 6-9 weeks: 6%
• 📉 Legal only in exceptional circumstances: 17%
• 👎 Illegal/never allowed: 10%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 13,037 votes and 1,266 longform responses.

High school graduate Adrian Rodriquez was walking through a supermarket parking lot in California, when he noticed an abandoned purse in a shopping cart. Rather than bring it inside, he decided to take matters into his own hands and deliver it to the address found on the license inside. 

• While owner Melina Marquez wasn't home at the time, she was able to see Adrian's act of kindness on her doorbell cam. Blown away by his thoughtfulness, she wanted to somehow pay him back. 

💸 Good karma... After finding Adrian through the town's Facebook group, Melina set up a GoFundMe for the graduate, raising a casual $18,000 in just over a month. 

• “It feels good. I appreciate it. I really do, everything everybody’s doing,” shared a grateful Adrian. “My mom always told me since I was little to always do the right thing when nobody’s around.”

Note: an earlier version of this story ran on July 27, 2022. Our Positive DONUT writer Kailyn is currently deep in 50-hour/week rehearsals for another slate of upcoming live shows (which is taking a lot of her focus).

❓ Trivia: What's the lowest layer of the atmosphere called?

🤔 Riddle Me This: It has keys but can't open locks. It has space but no room. You can enter, but you can't go outside. What is it?

(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 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.👇

❓ Trivia: The troposphere

🤔 Riddle: A keyboar