Good morning. Welcome to the Wednesday edition of The DONUT, the only daily newsletter where everybody knows your name, and we’re always glad you came.

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Reference reveal – and results from the poll – tomorrow.

Now, THE NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.99 minutes to read.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

–Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was able to end his own life in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019 due to “numerous and serious failures” by the federal Bureau of Prisons employees who worked there.

That’s the conclusion of a newly-published report from the DOJ Inspector General, whose office spent the last four years examining 125,000+ records and interviewing dozens of witnesses about the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death.

🤔 A deeper dive... Investigators describe a series of “job performance failures” by prison employees that allowed Epstein, who was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, to commit suicide in his cell.

For example:

• Guards permitted Epstein to hoard extra blankets, linens, and clothing – despite the fact that he’d tried to hang himself with such items two weeks earlier.
• Prison employees lied about making regular checks on Epstein that would’ve discovered his extra bedding.
• Guards also violated a standing order from medical staff by keeping Epstein alone in his cell for a full day when his cellmate left (after which Epstein was found dead).
• Nearly all of the surveillance cameras in Epstein’s unit weren’t recording when he died due to a mechanical failure two weeks prior.

🗣️ Also worth mentioning: On the night before he died, Epstein was allowed an illicit unrecorded phone call to someone he claimed was his mother – despite her being deceased at the time. Still, a prison manager placed the call and, upon hearing a male voice, handed the phone to Epstein and left "because his shift had ended."

📝 Bottom line: While a slight majority of Americans believe Epstein was killed in prison to keep him from revealing compromising information on other powerful people, the DOJ Inspector General said his investigation “did not uncover evidence” contradicting the NYC medical examiner and FBI’s conclusions that Epstein hung himself with a homemade noose.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, which of the following events most likely happened?

Epstein committed suicide on his own

Epstein was coerced into committing suicide

Epstein was murdered

Unsure/other

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🖼️ A painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold yesterday for $108 million, setting a European auction record. The piece, called “Dame mit Fächer” (Lady with a Fan), represents Klimt’s last completed portrait before he died in 1918. It’s also one of the few remaining privately owned Klimt paintings, with the vast majority of his work currently on display at museums or galleries across the globe. According to Sotheby's London, the painting was bought by an unnamed Hong Kong collector following a ten-minute bidding war.

🇰🇷 All South Korean citizens will become a year or two younger starting today. For centuries, South Korea has used an age-counting system in which an individual is 1-year-old at birth, and everyone gains a year together on January 1 (i.e., every citizen’s “birthday” is New Year’s Day). But a new law that takes effect today requires all local governments in South Korea to adopt the international age standard moving forward, which the country uses for retirement, voting, and cigarette/alcohol sales.

🇨🇦🔥 Canada has already set a record for most carbon emitted from wildfires in a given year (dating back to at least 2003). That’s per a report published yesterday by Copernicus, the EU's Earth observation program, which found 160 megatons of carbon – equivalent to a quarter of Canada’s total 2021 emissions – have been released from wildfire smoke so far in 2023. There are nearly 500 ongoing wildfires spread across Canada, with an area roughly the size of West Virginia (17.7 million acres) already having burned this year. Smoke traveling south from Canada led several states in the American Midwest to issue air quality warnings yesterday, with hazy conditions expected to continue drifting south and east in the coming days.

Costco will be starting to clamp down on membership sharing, as first reported by The Dallas Morning News and later confirmed by CNBC.

🪪 What’s changing: As of now, just the checkout process (don’t worry, $1.50 hot dogs are still safe).

Costco says it has always asked shoppers for their membership cards at checkout. But moving forward, it’ll also be requesting to see cards with a photo at self-checkout registers – and to view a photo ID if a shopper’s membership card has no picture.

According to the company, this policy change is driven by an increase in membership card sharing since it expanded self-checkout to more locations. And non-members sneaking into stores to access features only available for members is, much like Ron Burgundy, a big deal for the company given its business model.

• Costco's approach is to keep its prices barely above cost, then make up any potential lost revenue by selling memberships. Meaning most of its profit is derived from customer membership fees.
• For example, the retailer generated ~$4.2 billion in membership-fee revenue during its last fiscal year – a figure equal to more than 72% of its net income over the same period.

🛒 Big picture: There are ~69 million households with existing Costco memberships, which cost either $60/year or $120/year depending on the tier (though prices may not stay there for much longer…).

If Wheel of Fortune announced its new host via a bonus round puzzle, the default letters of R, S, T, L, N, and E would be veeeeery helpful.

That’s because the answer is none other than Ryan Seacrest, the man seemingly born to host shows on national TV. The show announced yesterday that Seacrest would be taking over the reins from the legendary Pat Sajak, who recently announced that last season – his 41st with the show – would be his last.

• Seacrest’s resume speaks for itself (kind of like a Furby). He’s hosted American Idol, Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, and, most recently, Live with Kelly and Ryan, which he left in April.

🛞 But… what about Vanna? Many hoped that Sajak’s replacement would be Vanna White, the program’s co-host. White has been turning letters since 1982 and tapping them since 1997, when the show switched to a digital touch screen board. In fact, according to oddsmakers at BetOnline, White was the frontrunner to take over, with 3-1 odds. Seacrest (9-2) and Sajak’s daughter, Maggie Sajak (5-1), were the other top contenders.

• Possibly complicating matters, White is currently negotiating with Sony TV for her first raise in eighteen years. Currently, she makes about $3 million a year, which is about 1/5th of what Sajak made ($15 million).

👀 Looking ahead.. Seacrest will begin hosting the show – which averaged about 8.6 million viewers per night in its last season – in 2024.

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💬 Quoted… “Please let us know within the next 48 hours if you plan on re-opening.”

Several of Reddit’s largest third-party apps recently announced they would be shutting down on June 30, citing an inability to afford the platform’s increased API pricing (effective July 1). To protest the pricing changes, many of Reddit’s largest communities, or “subreddits,” went dark earlier this month.

• And a showdown could be coming soon. Yesterday, the platform sent messages to three moderators of subreddits that are still private with a deadline of 48 hours, or June 29, to re-open their communities to the public.

📰 Stat of the Day: According to the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report released yesterday, the percentage of active US news participants, or people who post and comment on the news, is 24%; that’s down 11% from 2016. Passive consumers, those who use the news but don’t participate or share, now make up a slight majority of all US news users (51%).

🤯 Did You Know?.... Only 3% of dads today report having never changed a diaper – significantly less than the 43% of fathers in 1982 who reported the same. Props go out to the 57% of ‘80’s dads who were, and we apologize in advance here, doing their duty.

📖 Worth a Read: Is the Army’s New Tactical Bra Ready for Deployment? → (The New Yorker)

• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the winners from the 2023 Drone Photo Awards, a worldwide competition about aerial photography that’s sponsored by the Siena Project.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P: +1.1%; Dow: +0.6%; Nasdaq: +1.7%).
• 🚘⚖️ Lordstown Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday; the EV startup also sued Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn alleging it breached a deal that would have provided Lordstown with up to $170 million in funding. | 🚫 Ford is reportedly planning to lay off at least 1,000 salaried employees and contract workers in North America, per the WSJ.
• 🏛️🛒 The Inform Act, a bipartisan federal law requiring online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon to share information on nearly all third-party sellers, officially came into effect yesterday; the law is aimed at preventing the sale of stolen or counterfeit goods, especially by organized retail theft groups.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Ice Barrel

• 🦸📰 David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan were cast as Superman and Lois Lane in James Gunn’s forthcoming film Superman: Legacy, which will officially launch DC’s new universe.
• 🙏 Actor Julian Sands, 65, was confirmed dead yesterday after going missing in January while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains outside of Los Angeles.
• 🏆 Oilers center Connor McDavid won the Hart Trophy, aka NHL MVP, for a third time on Monday. | 🏒 The 2023 NHL Draft starts tonight at 7 pm ET.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with CariFree

• 🦈 The ancient megalodon, a huge shark up to 65 feet long that lived between 3.6 million and 23 million years ago, was warm-blooded similar to the great white sharks of today; that’s per a peer-reviewed study published Monday in PNAS.
• 🪐 NASA locked a team of four volunteer researchers inside a 378-day virtual Mars mission on Sunday; their 1,700-square-foot habitat is designed to simulate the challenges humans will face on a real mission to the red planet.
• 💊🤖 A new experimental drug fully discovered and designed by AI has entered Phase 2 human clinical trials for the first time; the drug is intended to treat a chronic lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🦠 More than $200 billion may have been stolen from the pandemic-era Payment Protection Program and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, per a new US Inspector General report.
• 🎙️ CNN on Monday night published an audio recording of former President Trump discussing "highly confidential" papers in his possession; the document in question, a DoD memo on Iran, reportedly wasn’t part of the 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information filed this month against Trump. (The audio | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• ⚖️🗳️ In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that state legislatures drawing congressional voting maps are bound by laws found in state constitutions; the ruling deals a blow to Republicans seeking to prevent state courts from overseeing federal elections after several GOP maps were struck down for violating state constitutions. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🐳 She built a waterfront home in Alaska so remote she can hear whales breathe.

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A life-sized Barbie Dream House just appeared on Airbnb, with two one-night listings available in honor of the upcoming movie's release next month. 

🎀 Come on, Barbie... The Malibu home is listed by no other than Barbie's beachy boyfriend, Ken, who is "hosting" the stay in partnership with Airbnb. 

• "While Barbie is away, she has handed over the keys to her Malibu DreamHouse this summer and my room could be yours for the night," reads the listing.
• The home comes with a pool, an outdoor disco dance floor, a wardrobe full of Barbie and Ken-style outfits, and more.

Name the movies described by the following poorly-explained plots.

1. After parents' death, young socialite causes millions in property damage
2. Two bald guys team up to fight another bald guy
3. Older sister steals younger sister's chance to appear on television

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Frozen (2013)
2. The Fate of the Furious (2017)
3. The Hunger Games (2012)