Good morning. Do you know what Barbie’s full name is?

Barbara Millicent Roberts.

Now if that doesn’t impress your friends, perhaps they aren’t really your friends.

NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.68 minutes to read.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

–T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

This month, a new Virginia law requiring hospitals to make costs for their procedures publicly available or face a minimum six-figure fine officially took effect.

Or as Jerry Maguire said: “Show me the money-related costs!”

State legislators introduced the first-of-its-kind bipartisan bill after receiving complaints from citizens and rights groups that many Virginia hospitals weren’t properly complying with a Trump administration law requiring all US hospitals to publish their prices online in two formats:

1. A “shoppable” list of at least 300 services in a consumer-friendly format
2. One that can be easily read by other computer systems (allowing web developers and consumer groups to create tools for patients)

And when it comes to how well Virginia hospitals and America as a whole are really complying with the price rule, it all depends on how you define “comply.”

A February 2023 analysis by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – the federal agency tasked with enforcing the Trump-era price transparency rule – found 70% of the ~6,000 hospitals in the US had met their obligation to publish both lists as of five months ago. That’s up from 27% in a similar study conducted in 2021.

• As of this April, CMS had issued 730 warning notices, submitted 269 requests for a corrective action plan, and fined four hospitals a collective $1.3 million for noncompliance with its new federal price transparency law.

✋ On the other hand… A separate February 2023 analysis published by Patients Rights Advocate found less than 25% of US hospitals were fully compliant with the requirements in the Trump-era transparency law.

• This study, based on data from 2,000 US hospitals, found that while many hospitals had published both required lists of information online, their data was often incomplete, illegible, or not clearly associated with specific health plans and insurers.

📸 Big picture: On average, the top 100 largest hospitals in the US charge 7x the actual cost of the care they provide, per a June 2021 study from Johns Hopkins University.

📊 Flash poll: Would you support a harsher punishment for hospitals that fail to comply with federal laws requiring full price transparency?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

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🇮🇳🌕 India launched a historic unmanned mission to the Moon’s south pole. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft blasted off early Friday morning to begin its 240,000-mile journey to the moon, with an ETA of August 23. The mission represents India’s second attempt at a soft landing on the Moon’s surface, after its Chandrayaan-2 craft’s landing attempt failed in 2019. If successful, India would become the first country ever to reach the lunar south pole, and the fourth country overall to successfully land on the Moon (after the US, former Soviet Union, and China).

🇨🇦 Canada is offering open work permits to any immigrants in America on an H-1B work visa. The move, which was first announced last month and officially entered law on Sunday, is aimed at luring away foreign tech workers in the US whose immigration status has been jeopardized by the recent layoffs within the industry. Meanwhile, the process to obtain work visas in the US has become dramatically more competitive – last year, roughly 1 in 5 applications to the annual H-1B lottery were granted a visa; this year, that number was nearly 1 in 10.

🇺🇦🌾 A UN-backed deal allowing Ukraine to export agricultural products during Russia’s ongoing invasion is set to expire today. Under the deal, which was brokered last July, more than 1,000 ships carrying nearly 33 million metric tons of food products have departed from Ukraine, which accounts for 10-15% of the world’s wheat, corn, and barley markets, as well as 50% of the sunflower oil market. But Russia has consistently maintained its opposition to the deal in recent months, due to the country's issues with exporting food and fertilizer (contrary to obligations in the deal that were supposed to lift such barriers).

“We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.”

That’s a quote from Netflix’s 2019 earnings report and, in retrospect, feels like a mission statement for the company’s next big leap – gaming.

Since September 2021, Netflix has acquired four gaming studios and established two of its own. Last Wednesday, one of those studios, Night School, released its latest game, Oxenfree II, as a Netflix original.

Notably, the game isn’t just available on Netflix’s mobile app, but also on Playstation 4/5, PC, Mac, and Nintendo Switch.

• The first-person, narrative-driven game is one of about 70 games you can currently play on Netflix’s mobile app; another 85 or so are in development.
• There isn’t any way to play games through the TV app… yet. According to reports, you may soon be able to use your smartphone as a controller for non-mobile games.

Unlike most mobile games today, which are “free-to-play” and monetize through in-game purchases and ads, Netflix offers the opposite: up-front payment and no ads. And that’s got developers pretty excited.

🎮 Big picture: Netflix’s gaming division currently has 450 employees, making it a baby-sized David compared to Goliaths of the industry. Gaming giant Activision Blizzard, for example – which was recently cleared to sell to Microsoft for $69 billion after the FTC failed to stop the deal – boasts 17,000 employees.

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💬 Quoted… “We have no affiliation with Meta. But you’re welcome to stick around!”

• One unlikely winner of last week’s Instagram's Threads release, is a Slack alternative also named… Threads. Established in 2019, the latter Threads saw an influx of more than 880,000 iOS downloads between July 6th and July 12th, moving up to become the 52nd most downloaded app globally, according to Data.ai.

✍️🤖 Stat of the Day: A recent study by two MIT economics graduate students, published in Science, found users of ChatGPT took 40% less time to complete their assignments. And not only were they faster than Ricky Bobby – their quality of work was rated 18% higher as well.

🤯 Did You Know?.... NBC offered James Gandolfini $4 million to play the new boss on The Office after Steve Carell, who played Michael Scott, left the show in its seventh season. HBO, which was filming a new show with Gandolfini at the time, paid the actor $3 million to not take the role.

📖 Worth a Read: Why the Bud Light boycott worked → (New York Magazine)

• ☝️ An aggressive, surfboard-stealing sea otter is currently on the run in California after eluding wildlife officials who have tried to catch it this past week.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Slumber

• 💰 US markets closed mixed across the board on Friday (S&P: -0.1%; Dow: +0.3%; Nasdaq: -0.2%).
• 👍🛻 Tesla completed production of its first Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas; it’s been ~3.5 years since the infamous window-smashing incident at its unveiling.
• 👟📉 How Allbirds lost its way. | 🔢💼 Data on employee behavior is beginning to show a “triple-peak” phenomenon, the WSJ reports; aka more and more workers are continuing Covid-era trends of clocking out early and making up work later that night.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚽ Lionel Messi officially signed with Inter Miami of the MLS on Saturday; his 2.5-season deal is worth between $50 million and $60 million annually; Messi could debut as early as Friday.
• 🍿 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One earned a franchise-best $80 million over its initial five-day weekend at the domestic box office, slightly under analysts’ expectations; the film earned a total of $235 million over the same period when including international sales (where it performed strongly). | 👜 Jane Birkin, the British-French actress, singer, and fashion icon who was the inspiration for the Birkin bag, died at 76 years old.
• 🎾 Markéta Vondroušová of the Czech Republic became the first unseeded player to win the Wimbledon women’s singles title on Saturday; 20-year-old Carlos Alcaraz of Spain defeated Novak Djokovic yesterday to win his first Wimbledon men’s singles title and regain the world No. 1 ranking from Djokovic.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Pendulum

• 🤖📰 ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and The Associated Press announced a licensing deal that gives the artificial intelligence company access to AP’s archive of news stories.
• 🧠 Regularly engaging in mind-challenging tasks – like computer use, crossword puzzles, and games like chess – decreases the risk of dementia in older adults more than social activities or creative hobbies, per a new peer-reviewed study.
• 🦴 A large "bone bed" of dinosaur fossils dating back more than 100 million years was recently uncovered in a Maryland park; experts say it could be the widest-ranging discovery of fossils of different species on the US East Coast.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🎰 The Powerball jackpot is now $900 million, its third-largest total ever; the next drawing is tonight at 10:59pm ET.
• 🏛️ Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was among a group of senior US officials whose Microsoft emails were hacked earlier this year by an organization based in China, per multiple reports.
• 🎓💰 Student loan borrowers on income-driven repayment plans who have made 20 or 25 years of payments will have their remaining balances wiped out in coming weeks, the Education Department announced on Friday; the plan will wipe out a combined ~$39 billion in debt for over 800,000 borrowers. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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Monday: World Emoji Day🥳 🎉📅

Tuesday: The first hearing in the federal criminal case against former President Trump

Wednesday: Hump day🐪

Thursday: Weekly unemployment claims; Comic-Con kicks off in San Diego; the Women's World Cup begins⚽️; golf's British Open tees off⛳️

Friday: Barbie and Oppenheimer both hit theaters nationwide

On Friday, we covered the fraud charges against Alex Mahinsky, founder and ex-CEO of failed crypto lending platform Celsius Network, along with the crypto industry’s recent surge in price and victory in a recent SEC lawsuit.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, the crypto industry will play a ___ in the US economy over the long term.

• Very large role: 11%
• Large role: 18%
• Medium-sized role: 20%
• Small role: 29%
• Very small role: 22%

Click here to read the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 9,019 votes and 850 longform responses.

Seventy-four years ago, a young Englishman named Kevin Topham went out dancing at a local Newark dance hall called The Corn Exchange.

It was that night the Royal Air Force veteran would meet the love of his life, Molly. The couple was married three years later – and stayed together for over 60 years until Molly's passing in 2018. 

❤️ Memories never die... Kevin never forgot the moment he saw Molly for the first time on that dance floor. While The Corn Exchange closed down decades ago, he recently found out the club was reopening as Club X – and all he wanted to do was dance. 

• Kevin asked his caregiver Donna Harvey if she would accompany him. After chatting with the Club X managers, the duo was given the honor of having the very first dance in the new venue. 
• 'It was just so humbling and it melted my heart, because it made him happy," said Donna of the special moment. "He hasn't stopped talking about it."

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

1. Contra
2. Doc
3. Felic
4. Solv
5. Corp

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Contra = Against (e.g., contradiction)
2. Doc = Teach (doctorate, indoctrinate)
3. Felic = Happy, merry (felicity)
4. Solv = Loosen (dissolve, solvent)
5. Corp = Body (corporation, corpse)