Good morning. Small talk. The glue that keeps our fragile society together and also the bane of most people’s existences. DONUT writers have literally turned around and walked the other way to avoid small talk with a neighbor.

Why?!

According to research, it's because we are asking the wrong questions. Questions like ‘what do you do?’ are no good, but more open-ended questions that explore topics beyond the norm like “what’s your favorite body of water?” are great.

Here are a few other DONUT-approved questions to ask when small talk strikes:

• What’s your favorite type of donut?
• If you worked at a morgue, would you work upstairs with the bereaved or downstairs with the bodies?
• Do you believeeeee in life after love (after love, after love, after love, after love)?

What about y’all? Reply with your go-to question recs and we’ll share our favorites in tomorrow’s newsletter.

And now, NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.91 minutes to read.

“Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”

–Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937)

A professor known as “Dr. Deep Sea” just resurfaced after spending a world-record 100 consecutive days underwater to try and help humans live longer, capping off a novel experiment that almost sounds more like the beginning of a Marvel movie than scientific research.

🤿🌊 Here’s what happened: In early March, Joseph Dituri, aka Dr. Deep Sea, began living inside a 100-square-foot facility located 30 feet below the surface of a lagoon in South Florida.

His goal? To test whether exposure to extreme pressure over a long period of time can lengthen the human lifespan (unlike a submarine, which uses technology to keep its inside pressure about the same as at the surface, the facility’s interior was set to match the higher pressure found underwater).

While living below the surface, Dituri – who continued to teach classes remotely at the University of South Florida during the experiment – conducted daily tests to monitor his body under the increased pressure.

And once Dituri returned above-ground last Friday, scientists discovered his body had gone through several notable changes:

• He shrunk by half-an-inch
• His telomeres, which typically shorten with age and increase the risk of death, were 20% longer than before the experiment
• Between 60% and 66% of his sleep underwater was REM, compared to 40% prior
• His overall inflammation (which causes disease) decreased by 30%
• His body contained 10x more stem cells than at the beginning of the study
• He lost 72 points of cholesterol while keeping his diet consistent (for reference: 100-130 is considered near-optimal, while 190+ is very high)

👀 Looking ahead… Dituri is scheduled to present his findings at the (perfectly-named) World Extreme Medicine Conference in Scotland this November.

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🤖⛪ Hundreds of Germans attended a ChatGPT-led church service. More than 300 people filed into the pews at St. Paul’s church in Fürth, Germany, on Friday for a 40-minute sermon that featured different AI avatars delivering text generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The Protestant service, which also included prayers and music, was the brainchild of University of Vienna theologian and philosopher Jonas Simmerlein.

✈️ NATO began its largest-ever air defense exercise yesterday. More than 250 aircraft from 24 NATO countries and Japan are scheduled to participate in the two-week exercise, making it the largest joint air mission since the military alliance was founded in 1949. NATO officials said the drills – which will all take place in Germany – were defensive in nature, and meant to showcase the alliance’s “impressive” ability to quickly respond to an attack on any of its 31 member-countries.

🇮🇷 Iran held more executions last month than in any month since 2015. At least 142 Iranian citizens were executed last month, bringing the total to more than 300 so far this year – nearly double the number recorded at the same time last year, and on track for the highest annual figure in nearly a decade. Most executions in Iran are carried out in secret, with defendants often not being granted access to legal recourse, according to the UN and various human rights groups.

Talk to a hotel owner in NYC or LA these days, and they may just burst out singing “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Occupancy rates in the two cities are nearing pre-pandemic levels, and revenue per available room is exceeding what it was before the pandemic.

Not so in San Francisco, where the hotel market is suffering its worst period in at least 15 years and hoteliers are singing “I’m blue, da ba dee da ba di“ instead.

Revenue per available room in SF was nearly 23% lower in April compared with the same month in 2019. And, much like a fresh cup of orange juice, the city’s hotels are getting financially squeezed.

• The Huntington Hotel and Yotel San Francisco were recently sold after facing foreclosure.
• Last week, the Park Hotels & Resorts stopped making payments on loans tied to two properties (the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 San Francisco). It would be the city’s biggest hotel default to-date.

Other lodging properties could soon follow suit. An additional 20+ hotels in San Francisco are facing loans due in the next two years and could also be in danger of foreclosure, according to data company CoStar.

📸📉 Big picture: Tourism and convention travel, two key drivers of San Francisco’s hotel industry, are still lagging pre-pandemic levels, the WSJ reports. Overnight visits to the city were down 31% last year compared with 2019. And concerns over public safety are prompting many groups and associations to move their conventions to other markets like Las Vegas.

Imagine walking into your favorite neighborhood and nearly all the shops, restaurants, and parks are closed.

This is what Reddit felt like yesterday morning. And for anyone who relies on Googling “[thing you need to know] + reddit” as the primary way to find actual, non-SEO optimized information online, that’s a big problem.

🤔 What’s going on?... Almost 8,000 different Reddit communities – or “subreddits” – with a collective subscriber count of nearly 3 billion users went private this morning, as part of a coordinated blackout for at least two days to protest Reddit's forthcoming plan to charge for access to its vast reserves of data starting July 1.

The new fee structure, according to the protest, threatens third-party developers who have relied on accessing Reddit’s data for free via the platform’s back-end, or “API.” One such third-party app, Apollo, says it would need to pay over $20 million/year to service its customers moving forward.

• Per Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, allowing free access to its data runs counter to the company’s goal of becoming a self-sustaining business.
• The company, which was founded in 2005 and makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform, is also preparing for a possible IPO later this year.

🧑‍💻 Elsewhere in Silicon Valley: Reddit isn’t the only platform that’s recently shut off access to its API. In April, Twitter increased the cost of accessing its data, causing many third-party developers to shut down the apps they’d built on top of the Twitter API.

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💬 Quoted… "...let’s dig our heels in (4 inches or flat!) and build Twitter 2.0 together.”

Yesterday, Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, sent her first email to the roughly 2k employees at the company. The mission? To create “the world’s most accurate real-time information source.”

• Yaccarino, who worked as NBC’s ad chief prior to taking the role at Twitter, will have her work cut out for her. Twitter’s US ad revenue in April and the first week of May was down 59% from the same period last year, with that performance unlikely to improve anytime soon.

💰 Stat of the Day: The average US employee currently makes $33.44/hour, up more than 17.5% since pre-pandemic, per the latest federal data.

🤯 Did You Know?... The number of US adults caring for an aging friend or family member has increased 6x since 1989, per the AARP via Harper’s Index.

📖 Worth a Read: A developer’s view of Vision Pro → (David Smith)

• ☝️ The Denver Nuggets won their first-ever NBA title last night after beating the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5; Nuggets forward Nikola Jokić, who averaged 30.2 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 7.2 assists over the course of the series, was named Finals MVP.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Flume

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P: +0.9%; Dow: +0.6%; Nasdaq: +1.5%); the S&P 500 closed at its highest price in over a year. | 📈 The inflation expectations of US consumers are at their lowest levels in two years, per new federal data.
• ⚖️ JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
• 🤝 Nasdaq agreed to buy fintech software firm Adenza for $10.5 billion, marking the financial exchange operator's biggest-ever acquisition.

*From our partners: 💧👍 Better for the environment – and your wallet. Flume water monitoring saves users an average of 6,280 gallons of water per year. And 70% were alerted to a leak before it drained their wallet. Save $50 on Flume with code DONUT.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏌️🏛️ A Senate subcommittee opened an investigation into the PGA Tour’s planned merger with Saudi-owned LIV Golf, citing concerns about “the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.”
• 🏆 The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, organizer of the Golden Globes, will shut down after 80 years after selling away the rights to the award show.
• 📝 Fox News sent ex-host Tucker Carlson a cease-and-desist letter alleging that Carlson breached his contract by launching a new show on Twitter, per multiple reports.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with CariFree

• 🧠 People with obesity showed an impaired brain response to nutrients that wasn’t reverted after they lost weight and were no longer obese, per a peer-reviewed study published yesterday in Nature Metabolism.
• ☀️🪐☀️ An international team of astronomers made the second-ever discovery of a Tatooine-like system with planets that orbit around two suns, instead of one.
• 🛰️ University of Colorado Boulder scientists are building a new toaster-sized satellite that will serve as an “ultraviolet sidekick” to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

*From our partners: 🦷✨ Protect your teeth and keep your mouth fresh with CariFree. Improving balance in your mouth is scientifically proven to prevent cavities and improve bad breath/dry mouth. Save 10% on CariFree’s affordable dental solutions.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌳 A first-of-its-kind lawsuit challenging whether a constitutional right to a healthy, livable climate is protected by state law officially went to trial in Montana yesterday.
• 🏥 The Biden administration yesterday finalized a deal that preserves the Affordable Care Act’s mandate requiring US health insurers to cover preventive care – like cancer screenings or HIV-preventing meds – while an ongoing legal challenge continues.
• ⚖️ Former President Trump arrived in Miami last night ahead of his first appearance in federal court. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🧾 What your barista really thinks as you leave a tip.

*Sponsored post

Yesterday we covered the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump, who’s facing a total of 37 criminal counts for allegedly keeping and refusing to turn over classified materials after he left office.

❓ Our question to you: Do you agree with the DOJ’s decision to bring federal charges against former President Trump?

• 👍 Yes: 72%
• 👎 No: 23%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 5%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 15,203 votes and 1,467 longform responses.

Dillon Helbig has quickly become one of Idaho's most-popular authors following the success of his debut novel, The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis.

The catch? Dillon is only nine years old – and he never actually had the novel published. 

• Back in 2021, Dillon snuck his 81-page book into the local library and placed it on a shelf while the librarians weren't looking. They didn't find his novel until a few days later. 

📕 Part of the collection... Rather than throwing away his homemade book, the librarians gained Dillon's permission to sticker and catalog his novel as an official part of the library. 

His story became an overnight hit, with the single copy currently featuring a waiting list of over 87 people.

Note: an earlier version of this story ran on February 8, 2022. Our Positive DONUT writer Kailyn is currently deep in 50-hour/week rehearsals for another slate of upcoming live shows in Europe (which is taking a lot of her focus).

❓ Trivia: Which president on Mount Rushmore has a mustache?

🧱 True or False?... The Taj Mahal is made out of marble.

🤔 Riddle Me This: Who can shave 25 times a day and still have a beard?

(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: Teddy Roosevelt

🧱 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: A barber