Good morning. The results of the “how often do you change your sheets” poll are in and the verdict is – the Dunkers of DONUT Nation are…

Pretty clean! At least by sheet-changing standards. 73% of respondents changed their sheets at least once a week (39%) or once every two weeks (34%). There were no major differences based on gender (way to go, dudes) or relationship status.

These polls are fun! More soon.

But now, NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 5.13 minutes to read.

"An approximate answer to the right question is worth a great deal more than a precise answer to the wrong question."

–John Tukey (1915-2000)

Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor routinely uses taxpayer-funded employees to perform tasks for her private book ventures, which have collectively earned her at least $3.7 million since she joined the Court in 2009, per an AP investigation published yesterday.

However, Sotomayor technically hasn’t broken any laws. While Congress, the executive branch, and lower-ranking federal judges are all banned from using their public office for personal gain, the Supreme Court has no formal code of conduct preventing them from doing so.

⚖️ A deeper dive… The AP found Sotomayor’s staff has been “deeply involved” in the organization of speaking events intended to sell books Sotomayor has written over the years, often persuading colleges and libraries that hosted her to buy hundreds or thousands of copies.

• Sotomayor’s publisher, Penguin Random House, also played a large role in organizing her speaking events, and in some cases pressured hosts to require a book purchase for attendance, per emails obtained by the AP.
• Over the same period, Penguin had several matters before the Supreme Court in which Sotomayor didn’t recuse herself.

Sotomayor, whose annual salary is $285,400, isn’t the only SCOTUS justice to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in book sales in recent years. But no other justices leveraged their public office to boost sales to the same extent as Sotomayor, per the AP.

📝 Big picture: The AP’s report is one of several recent investigations focused on the Supreme Court’s lack of ethics regulations. These include a pair of ProPublica pieces alleging that Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito both failed to report luxury gifts from billionaires who later had cases before the Court.

👀 Looking ahead… On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to consider a bill that would force the Supreme Court to establish a code of conduct and adhere to the same disclosure standards as members of Congress.

📊 Flash poll: Do you think Supreme Court justices should adopt a code of conduct?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

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🇮🇱 Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered yesterday to protest against the government’s new judicial reform. The mass demonstrations, which occurred in 20 different cities across the country, came after one portion of a larger bill aimed at curbing the power of Israel’s Supreme Court was approved by lawmakers late Monday evening. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu previously halted the judicial reform process in March amidst widespread public protests, but resumed his campaign to pass the bill after negotiations with opposition lawmakers broke down last month.

🌍 A group of scientists say that, due to human activity, Earth has entered a new geological time period called the “Anthropocene Epoch.” The late Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen first proposed the idea of the Anthropocene Epoch at a scientific conference more than 20 years ago. Scientists afterward set up a team to examine whether a new time period was needed to capture how nuclear fallout, pollution-induced extinctions, climate change, and other human activities have changed the Earth. And yesterday, following decades of study, the Anthropocene Working Group announced the new Anthropocene Epoch began sometime between 1950 and 1954, with the effects being most visible at Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada. But this designation is also facing scientific pushback – learn more about the ongoing debate here.

🇭🇰🇯🇵 Hong Kong is threatening to ban Japanese seafood if Tokyo follows through on its plan to dump nuclear wastewater in the ocean. Japan's plan to dump wastewater from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean has faced opposition both at home and abroad over concerns for food safety, despite confirmation from the UN’s nuclear watchdog that the environmental impact would be negligible. Hong Kong is Japan's second-largest market for seafood exports, behind China.

By now you’ve probably heard of Ozempic or Wegovy, which are part of a new class of liraglutide/semaglutide-based weight loss drugs that everyone and their mother seem to be taking. But not much has been written about their downsides – or potential side effects.

For example:

• Cost: These weight loss drugs are expensive (~$1k/month), and since they mimic a hormone we produce to signal to our body that we’re full, stopping the weekly injections means potentially reversing any weight loss. A Reuters investigation found two-thirds of those prescribed popular weight-loss drugs like Wegovy or Ozempic were no longer taking it a year later – and their healthcare costs had gone up 59% on average, largely due to the drug.
• Side effects: The FDA lists a whole slew of potential side effects, from vomiting to constipation to fatigue. Some celebrities, like Amy Schumer, have been outspoken about stopping their use of weight loss drugs because of these types of issues.
• Additional side effects: On Monday, the EU’s drug regulator opened an investigation into whether medications containing liraglutide (ex: Saxena) and semaglutide (ex: Wegovy, Ozempic) cause suicidal thoughts and ideation – which isn’t currently listed as a side effect in the EU but is in the US – after flagging three potentially-linked cases in Iceland. The investigation was expanded yesterday to include more weight loss and diabetes drugs.

📝 Bottom line: While this new class of weight loss drugs have proven to be effective – semaglutide has been shown to help cut excess weight by ~15% – the downsides and potential side effects are turning many off to taking them.

+IMPORTANT: If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please text or call the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.

In an age of streaming and TikTok, the idea of seeing any double-header at the theater feels absurd, let alone two movies as diametrically opposed as Barbie and Oppenheimer.

And yet, by the power of memes, “Barbieheimer” is here (or “Oppenbarbie,” depending on which you see first).

🎀💣 How it started… The two films both open across America on June 21. That fact, combined with how different they are from one another – Barbie, a fun, under-two-hours bubblegum power anthem, and Oppenheimer is a three-hour saga about the man who invented the nuclear bomb – and you’ve got a match made in Twitter meme heaven.

But then from the seemingly endless eruption of, frankly, surprisingly high-quality memes, an overarching narrative emerged – seeing both films, back-to-back. And in what can only be described as an unwavering commitment to the bit, people started actually buying tickets to both films.

• According to AMC, the largest theater chain in the country, over 20,000 moviegoers have purchased tickets to see the two films on the same day. That’s about $220k in revenue per film, though, the real value for the studios is the free marketing they’re getting from the “Barbienheimer” saga.
• Barbie is projected to gross about $80-100 million in opening weekend sales, while Oppenheimer is projected to bring in about $40-$50 million.

🍿 Zoom out: With other summer tentpoles like Indiana Jones 5 underperforming at the box office, the unlikely duo of Barbie and Oppenheimer will have their work cut out for them to pick up the slack. This year’s summer box office so far is ~$1.88 billion, which is 1.7% lower than 2022 levels across the same period.

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💬 Quoted… “We just want the gorillas to be able to be gorillas.”

On Monday, the Toronto Zoo asked its patrons to stop showing the gorillas photos and videos on their phones. The gorillas, according to the zookeepers, become enamored by the phones and stop wanting to do much else.

• And this isn’t an isolated incident; zookeepers in Chicago and Louisville have reported similar issues in recent years. At the Louisville Zoo, a female gorilla named Jelani would make a finger swiping motion when ready to see a new photo.

📈🎮 Stat of the Day: Activision Blizzard’s stock rose ~10% yesterday after a US district judge rejected the FTC’s attempt to block Microsoft's $69 billion purchase of the gaming giant. All eyes now move to UK regulators.

🤯 Did You Know?.... It would take just 0.3% of solar energy generated by the sun shining in the Sahara Desert to power the whole of Europe – which, as Larry David once said, is pretty, pretty, pretty good. Several projects are currently underway to capture some of the desert’s energy and transport it to Europe via high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines and submarine cables.

📖 Worth a Read: The economics of making it rain → (The Hustle)

• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the structures on the shortlist for World Building of the Year in this year’s World Architecture Festival Awards.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Visit Lodi

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P: +0.7%; Dow: +0.9%; Nasdaq: +0.6%).
• 🏦 Bank of America was fined $250 million by US regulators for consumer abuses including fake accounts and bogus fees.
• 🚗🏠 Tesla launched an internal probe into whether a secret so-called “Project 42” was created to build a glass house for Elon Musk near the automaker’s Austin HQ.

*From our partners: 🖼️🛍️ First-rate museums, natural lakes & trails, one-of-a-kind boutiques… a weekend in Lodi offers a lot more than a weekend in wine country. It won’t break the bank either – tasting fees start at $15. Get the official Lodi visitor’s guide here!

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏌️ The PGA Tour defended its decision to merge with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league in a Senate subcommittee hearing yesterday. | 🏎️ Daniel Ricciardo will make his return to F1 as part of the AlphaTauri team on July 23; the Australian, who has won eight grand prix, hasn’t raced in F1 since late last year.
• ⚾ The National League won last night's MLB All-Star Game by a 3-2 score over the American League, thanks to a go-ahead homer by Rockies catcher Elías Díaz; it's the NL's first win since 2012.
• 📑 A document written by Aretha Franklin that was found in her couch following the Queen of Soul’s death in 2018 is a valid will, a Michigan jury ruled yesterday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Ice Barrel

• 🪐☁️ A planet with metal clouds was recently discovered by astronomers at the European Space Agency; the discovery, dubbed “the planet that shouldn’t exist,” is the brightest planet found outside the Solar System to date.
• 👂 Humans can technically “hear” silence, even though it’s defined as the absence of sound, per a new peer-reviewed study.
• 🚀 Blue Origin, the private space company founded by Jeff Bezos, suffered a rocket engine explosion while testing its next-gen BE-4 engine on June 30, per CNBC.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🎰 The Powerball jackpot reached an estimated $725 million after no winners were drawn on Monday night; it’s the seventh-largest prize in Powerball history.
• 🥵 More than 86 million Americans in the southern US – from Florida to California – were under a heat advisory yesterday, with conditions expected to worsen in the coming days before they improve.
• 💰 The Chicago suburb of Evanston is on track to distribute $25,000 in reparations by the end of this year to 140 Black residents who lived there between 1919 and 1969, local officials told the WSJ.

CLICKBAIT

• 🦆🚗 What the duck? Rubber birds left on Jeeps baffle the nation.

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Officials of the Calgary Stampede Festival in Alberta, Canada, just broke the world record for most pancakes served in eight hours, cooking up an impressive 17,182 flapjacks.

• The team started at 4 am and didn't stop flipping batter until noon. While 15 failed pancakes were disqualified from the grand total, they still broke the previous record by over 2,800.

🥞 Un-flipping-believable... Guinness World Record judge Brittany Dunn was in attendance to verify the record. According to their official Twitter account, "it was a flippin’ great day!"

Here's how to play: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the stated value.

1. 🎂 30%: The likelihood of two people in a group of 23 having the same birthday.
2. ✈️ 2.5 million: The number of Americans estimated to be traveling via airplane on any given day.
3. 💀 1: The average number of skeletons inside the human body.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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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. Over, it’s 50%
2. Under, it’s roughly 2.1 million
3. Over – because of pregnant women