Good morning. Who's ready for a summer of aestivating?! That’s like hibernating, but in the summer. And if North American tortoises, crocodiles, and salamanders can do it, why can’t humans?

Exactly – the logic is infallible. Feel free to forward this newsletter to your boss and say, word for word, “Hey boss - this DONUT thing is amazing - you’ve gotta subscribe. Also, I won’t be working till summer is over due to aestivation. Thx!”

And now, NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.36 minutes to read.

“Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.”

–Epictetus (55 A.D. – 135 A.D.)

Since the start of the Covid pandemic, teachers and other school personnel across America have reported an increase in physical violence committed against them by students.

And while official records are incomplete – since many states either don’t track student assaults or use different methodologies – the limited data that's available backs up these claims.

A few examples:

• This academic year, the number of assault-related workers’ compensation claims filed in US schools rose above 1,350 – its highest level since at least 2018, per a new WSJ report. The claims are more serious, too, with the average payout having increased 26% over the past five years to reach $6,700.
• As schools were returning to in-person instruction in Fall 2021, the Department of Homeland Security warned teachers of a recent uptick in student-perpetrated violence, which the agency mostly blamed on social isolation from the pandemic.
• A recent American Psychological Association study of 15,000 teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and other school staff found that 1 out of every 6 workers experienced at least one incident of physical violence from students over the 2020-21 school year – and that figure is likely underreported due to the prevalence of remote learning.

🏫 Big picture: The APA study also found that nearly half of all US teachers (49%) were planning or thinking about an exit from the teaching profession in the near future. The top reason they cited for wanting to do so? Feeling unsafe.

📊 Flash poll: Calling all 15,000+ classrooms reading the DONUT: What policies or changes would you enact to combat the recent increase in student violence against school staff? The most thoughtful answers will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.

Click here to leave a response.

🇮🇳 One of India’s worst rail disasters in decades occurred on Friday night. A passenger train in eastern India collided with a stationary goods train after being directed onto the wrong track, with derailed carriages then striking the rear of a second passenger train that was passing by. As of last night, the official death toll stood at 275. An additional 1,175 passengers were initially hospitalized with injuries, though ~800 have been discharged. At a press conference yesterday, local officials said the crash was due to “some kind of signaling interference."

🇸🇦🛢️ Saudi Arabia agreed to cut oil production by 1 million barrels per day (which represents ~1% of all global oil production). The cut was part of a larger deal between the OPEC+ alliance of oil-producing countries, which also agreed to extend previous production cuts of 3.6 million barrels per day for another year (now through the end of 2024). Experts say OPEC+’s new deal will likely push up US oil prices – and, by extension, prices at the gas pump – over the short term.

🌎🇸🇬 Global spy chiefs held a secret meeting in Singapore over the weekend. The meeting, which featured intelligence chiefs from the US, China, and other global superpowers, has been an annual occurrence alongside the Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore over the past few years – though none of the previous summits have been reported on, per Reuters, which cites five internal sources. And while exact details are scarce, the ongoing war in Ukraine and transnational crime were reportedly key topics of conversation at this weekend’s intelligence summit.

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This weekend, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse grossed $120.5 million at the US box office, good for the second-best domestic opening of the year. The 2023 summer movie season is officially upon us🥳.

But theaters, hit hard by the pandemic, are still struggling to recover. Box office revenues are well below 2019 levels, which, according to a recent NYT report, is causing many theaters to channel Willy Wonka and get creative in a bid to attract moviegoers.

• Less screens, more… everything else: Many theaters are trading in some of their screening rooms to make room for bowling alleys, arcades, rock-climbing walls, and bumper cars.
• Good food, good drinks: Given the higher margins a theater can make on food and alcohol, many are elevating the concession experience to include options like nachos with real cheese, beer that’s brewed on location, and yes, sushi.
• Immersive experiences: Some theaters have added seats that move in sync with the movie and blow air at viewers during a windy scene. Premium screens – which include IMAX and ScreenX – are predicted to generate almost 17% of all box office revenue this year, up from about 9% in 2019.

🍿📸 Big picture: There’s still a ways to go until theaters get back to their pre-pandemic levels. US box office revenues are sitting at $2.85 billion so far this year, according to Comscore data, 23% below the $3.74 billion generated over the same period in 2019.

💬 Quoted… “AI is not a person…”

Over the weekend, the Directors Guild of America signed a three-year agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP). Most notably, the deal includes a “groundbreaking” clause that AI ≠ person, and thus cannot replace any work currently done by DGA members. (When asked for comment, the AI responded with, “What about Wall-E?”)

• Meanwhile, the Writer’s Guild of America is still negotiating with the AMPTP as it heads into its second month on strike. The WGA’s demands are similar to those brought forth by the DGA, including questions on how AI can be used in screenwriting.

🚗⚡ Stat of the Day: Since more emissions are created during the construction of EVs compared to gas-powered vehicles, it would take nearly two years of driving an EV for its total emissions to become lower than those of a traditional vehicle, per a Tesla statement published in April.

🤯 Did You Know?... It’s not just white men – elephants can’t jump either. Because all the bones in their legs are pointed downward, the world’s largest land animal lacks the “spring” necessary to push off of the ground.

📖 Worth a Read: Inside Snopes: The Rise and Fall and Rebirth of an Internet Icon → (Fast Company)

While the ultra-rich have been banking off this under-the-radar asset for centuries, a group of everyday investors just used it to rake in a whopping 325% annualized gain.

🥜 Sounds nuts? It definitely is. But it's also 100% true.

🗿 The asset in question was a sculpture offered by the fractional art investment platform Masterworks. After just 36 days, investors were able to profit for a 15.4% net gain, a triple-digit return on an annualized basis.

While it’s not common for Masterworks to get a profitable exit that fast, every one of Masterworks’ 12 exits has returned a profit to investors, totaling more than $30 million in payouts.

Join Masterworks today. DONUT readers can use this exclusive link to skip the waitlist.

• ☝️ Red Bull held the first event of its 2023 Cliff Diving World Series in Boston over the weekend; it featured two dozen of the best cliff divers in the world, who leaped off a board ~90 feet in the sky and approached speeds of 50 MPH as they entered the water.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board on Friday (S&P: +1.5%; Dow: +2.1%; Nasdaq: +1.1%).
• 💼 The US economy gained 339,000 jobs last month, far higher than the 190,000 that economists had predicted, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May jobs report published Friday; the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, up from a five-decade low of 3.4% in April.
• 🤖 Emad Mostaque, founder of AI chatbot creator Stable Diffusion, has reportedly mischaracterized his business to investors while raising $100 million in funding, including false claims of partnerships with the OECD, WHO, World Bank, and Amazon; that’s per a new Forbes report citing interviews with over three dozen current/former employees and investors.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Mana Pro

• 🏀 The Miami Heat defeated the Denver Nuggets 111-108 in Game 2 of the NBA Finals last night to even the series at 1-1. | 🏒 The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Florida Panthers 5-2 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final; Game 2 takes place tonight at 8 pm ET.
• 🏇 Churchill Downs, the racetrack that hosts the Kentucky Derby, has suspended all racing following the deaths of 12 horses at the track in May.
• 🌐📲 Amazon is in talks with multiple cell phone carriers to offer cheap (~$10/month) or even free phone service to US Prime subscribers, per a new Bloomberg report.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with CariFree

• 🧠💊 A new experimental drug significantly delays the growth of certain cancerous brain tumors, reducing the risk of progression or death by roughly 61%, per a study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• 🦠 A group of US scientists managed to eliminate diabetes in mice using repurposed human stomach cells that were programmed to release insulin, per a new study published in Nature Cell Biology.
• 💤⚡ People with severe epilepsy performed better on memory tests when their brain was stimulated with electricity while they were sleeping, per a new study published in Nature Neuroscience; it represents the first direct evidence to support the leading scientific theory on how memories are consolidated by the brain during sleep.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🏭 Three major chemical companies – Chemours, DuPont, and Corteva – agreed to pay nearly $1.1 billion to settle claims related to the contamination of US public water systems by “forever chemicals,” also known as PFAS.
• 🪖 North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the US, was officially renamed Fort Liberty on Friday as part of a federal effort to replace Confederate namesakes. | ✈️ Fighter jets were scrambled in the Washington, DC, area yesterday to intercept a small passenger plane that had entered restricted airspace and was unresponsive.
• 🏛️✍️ President Biden signed the bipartisan debt ceiling compromise into law on Saturday, avoiding the possibility of the first-ever US default on government debt. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🍦 This 23-year-old’s ice cream empire brings in $650,000/year – here’s how he got started.

*Sponsored post

Monday: Apple expected to unveil iOS 17 and its new AR/VR headset; Prince Harry is scheduled to testify in his tabloid trial

Tuesday: Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie expected to announce 2024 presidential candidacy; the 79th anniversary of D-Day

Wednesday: Former VP Mike Pence expected to announce 2024 presidential candidacy; NBA Finals Game 3; the 16th season of It's Always Sunny premieres

Thursday: Weekly unemployment claims; Stanley Cup Finals Game 3

Friday: National Movie Night; NBA Finals Game 4

On Friday, we covered new data showing the US fertility rate (aka the average number of children per woman) has been at or below the level needed to maintain our current population in the long term for each of the past 50 years, as of 2022.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, America’s current demographic trends will be ___ for the country.

• 👍 Very/somewhat good: 31%
• 👎 Very/somewhat bad: 40%
• ↔️ Neither good nor bad: 29%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 9,355 votes and 896 longform responses.

👆 You're looking at Dev Shah, a 14-year-old with quite the vocabulary. 

The Florida resident entered the international Scripps Spelling Bee for the third time this year and claimed first prize, beating out 11 million others who competed worldwide.

His winning word? Psammophile.

🏆 All we do is win... Dev went home with a $50,000 grand prize, along with $2,000 in book money to be donated to the school of his choice, a $2,500 cash and reference book award from Merriam-Webster, and $400 worth of reference materials from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

• “It’s surreal," he shared after his big win. "My legs are still shaking!”

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Hort
2. Iter
3. Juven
4. Leni
5. Mur

(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.👇

1. Hort = Garden (e.g., horticulture)
2. Iter = Again (iteration)
3. Juven = Young (juvenile, rejuvenate)
4. Leni = Gentle (leniency)
5. Mur = Wall (mural, immured)

**Banking services provided by MVB Bank, member FDIC; see Mana Checking Account Terms and Conditions for details. MVB Bank, Inc., does not issue rewards and such services are performed exclusively by Mana Interactive Inc.