Good morning. Hands up!🖐️

• Put a finger down if you have a cute pet.
• Put a finger down if said pet brings an incredible amount of joy to your life.
• Put a finger down if said pet also costs a lot of $$$ to care for.

If you’re still holding up two fingers, peace be with you too✌️. But you’re also in luck. Because this year’s DONUT Pet Playoffs are about to start – and it’s about time your adorable, joy-bringing pet starts pulling some of their own weight😉.

Check out this year’s Pet Playoff prizes and enter your pet to compete for free.

Now, NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.94 minutes to read.

P.S. Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe here for free.

"Success does not consist in never making mistakes, but in never making the same one a second time."

–George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Later today, UPS and the Teamsters Union, which represents 340,000 UPS workers, will once again be sitting across the negotiating table. And like meat hanging from a ceiling, the steaks stakes are high – the two sides will be working to avert America’s biggest strike in 60 years.

What’s at stake

If a deal isn’t reached before next Tuesday, the union has promised to walk off the job. Should that happen, it would have a very real impact on the US economy.

• UPS delivers ~24 million packages per day – or about a quarter of all US parcel shipments. And if its workers strike, analysts say this shipping volume could not feasibly be absorbed by competitors like FedEx and USPS.
• To put a number to this problem, a 10-day walkout would cost the US economy an estimated ~$7 billion – and consumers would bear at least some of the brunt. According to analysts, a walkout could add up to 0.2% to the annual inflation rate and would almost certainly impact shipping times overall.

💬 The asks: Most of the non-economic components of the new five-year contract have already been hammered out, per negotiators. UPS agreed last month to a range of new heat-safety protections, including bringing air conditioning to its iconic brown delivery fleet for the first time.

But one of the key sticking points remaining is the issue of pay for part-time workers. Neither side has made their offers public, though Bloomberg reports the difference is as much as $6 to $7 per hour.

📸 Big picture: As they say, there’s nothing new under the sun. And in many ways, the context for this year’s negotiations resembles the circumstances that led to a nationwide Teamsters walkout at UPS in 1997 (the last time UPS workers went on strike). The company was also in the midst of several profitable years, and the rapid growth in its part-time workforce loomed large, the NY Times reports.

• That particular strike involved ~185,000 workers, lasted 15 days, and cost UPS at least $600 million. The union centered its demands on securing better wages and job security – and secured employee gains on both fronts.

Is your mental clarity not at its sharpest? Would your life turn into a circus act without reminders and sticky notes, with you juggling tasks like some professional clown?🤡💼

Perhaps it’s time to switch from regular fuel to premium… aka mushroom-infused coffee! And our pals at Enerhealth are mushroom-infused pioneers. Their best-selling Nutricafé Lion’s Mane Coffee...

• 🧠 Helps support improved mental clarity and memory
• 🍄 Is infused with 150mg of fruiting body and 55 mg of mycelium extracts of Lion's Mane
• 👌 Is made with 100% organic, fair-trade, whole Arabica coffee beans
• 🥰 Is roasted frequently in small batches with love

Since 2005, Enerhealth has been crafting organic coffee and cocoa with powerful medicinal mushroom blends. They use arabica beans to minimize jitteriness and sleep disruption, and there’s no mushroom taste – just 100% delicious.

Save 15% on Enerhealth today with code DONUT15.

🌊 A “gravity hole” in the Indian Ocean may have come from the remnants of an extinct ancient ocean called Tethys. For decades, scientists have wondered about the origins of a 1.2-million-square-mile region in the Indian Ocean where Earth's gravitational pull is significantly weaker than other parts, causing the sea level to be 348 feet lower than the global average. Now, a new peer-reviewed study suggests the area was created by low-density magma plumes from deep within Earth, which erupted as the ancient Tethys Ocean was squished between the continental plates of India and Asia ~50 million years ago.

🇲🇾 Malaysia’s government canceled a local music festival after British band The 1975 criticized the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws. In the middle of the band’s performance on Friday, The 1975 frontman Matt Healy criticized a 150-year-old Malaysian law penalizing homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison, and also kissed the band’s male bassist. The 1975 cut their show short 30 minutes later, telling the audience they “just got banned from Kuala Lumpur.” Then on Saturday morning, the Malaysian government canceled the remaining two days of the music festival. The 1975 also canceled their forthcoming shows in India and Taiwan following the incident.

🌎🪙 Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, officially launched yesterday. The new project’s core product is World ID, which it describes as a digital passport that proves its holder is a real human and not an AI bot. To get a unique World ID, customers must sign up for an in-person iris scan using a bowling ball-sized “orb.” The project, which has 2 million users from its beta period, launched yesterday across 35 cities in 20 countries.

+Update: Israeli lawmakers yesterday approved a key part of a controversial plan to curb the Supreme Court’s authority, a measure which has sparked nationwide protests since it was introduced in January.

Taylor Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour, which began in mid-March and heads to Europe for one year beginning August 9, is on track to become the first in history to earn over $1 billion in total sales.

But it’s not just T-Swift and her team who are raking in the dough. Swifties have been filling up hotels, restaurants, bars, and other local businesses in all 18 US cities the Eras Tour has visited so far.

A few examples:

• Chicago and Minneapolis each broke all-time records for the number of occupied hotel rooms while Swift was in town last month.
• The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum saw its highest monthly attendance in 65 years when the Eras Tour came to Nashville.
• Swift’s two-night stop in Denver earlier this month added an estimated $140 million to Colorado’s 2023 GDP. In Cincinnati, that figure was ~$92 million, while Kansas City saw a $46 million boost…

… and the list goes on and on. The US portion of Swift’s Eras Tour is on pace to generate $4.6 billion in total consumer spending, an amount larger than the GDP of 35 countries.

☝️ One interesting thing (Taylor’s version): Each T-Swift concertgoer spends an average of $1,300 per show on tickets, outfits, travel, and food – or $720 higher than their intended budget. Though in the grand scheme of things there are almost no ragrets; 91% of attendees say they’d pay the same amount to attend another Swift concert.

Good news for those on the job hunt: the space industry is probably hiring. According to a new report from the Space Foundation, a leading space nonprofit, the global space economy is expected to grow 41% over the next five years to reach ~$770 billion.

Space companies exist in two main areas:

• Infrastructure and support for activities in space: This section accounts for around one-third of the overall industry, and includes things like ground stations used for satellite communications, Bloomberg reports.
• Space-based products: The remaining two-thirds of industry spend belongs in this category, which mostly comprises satellite-based products. The single biggest business is the sale of position, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellite data; it makes up 39% of all commercial revenue.

📈👀 Looking ahead… A large part of the industry’s future growth is expected to be driven by government spending on space programs, which increased 8% last year to a combined $119 billion. The biggest spender is the US, accounting for ~60% of overall gov’t outflow, followed by China (14%), and the European Space Agency (5%).

🥁🧊 Meet the Ice Barrel 300!... Sleek and fully insulated. Compact and lightweight. The Ice Barrel 300 is the easiest way to bring ice baths to your routine and reap the benefits of cold therapy….

• 🥶 Both lid and body are fully insulated with polyurethane foam
• 😊 Comfortable, upright-seating to maintain a natural position
• 💪 Ultra-durable – made from recycled plastic, covered by lifetime warranty
• 🔬 Scientifically-backed to improve performance/recovery – both physical and mental

🏆 Featured in Sports Illustrated and Women’s Health, Ice Barrel is the #1 most accessible cold therapy solution out there.

Save $175 on Ice Barrel for a limited time with code DONUT.

💬 Quoted… "You need to do [your makeup] in a way that’s appropriate in southern humidity or else you’re going to have orange rivers running down your face…”

This is some of the advice Trisha Addicks, owner of Georgia-based sorority consulting firm It’s All Greek to Me, offers clients attending rush events at universities like the University of Georgia. Another free tip: keep a “rush bag” with deodorant, a portable fan, water, and face powder.

• It’s All Greek to Me is part of a growing industry that has emerged in recent years, where some are paying as high as $4,000 for things like on-call service during rush and help navigating complex application processes that can involve essays, as well as advice on topics like what to wear, how to act, what to say, and the wisdom of scrubbing potentially off-putting social media posts, the WSJ reports.

⚽️ Stat of the Day: If you’ve been tuning in to this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, you may have noticed something – if one team scores a goal, the other team probably won’t be scoring at all. In fact, 14 out of the first 15 matches have been shutouts.

🤔 Did You Know?... The concept of animals going extinct wasn’t widely accepted until the 1800s. Prior to that, any discoveries of a skeleton belonging to an extinct animal was assumed to have come from a species still living on Earth.

📰 Worth a Read: Cleaning Up ChatGPT Takes Heavy Toll on Human Workers → (WSJ)

• ☝️ You’re looking at the winner of the annual Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest in Key West, FL, which featured more than 140 white-bearded contestants.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P: +0.4%; Dow: +0.5%; Nasdaq: +0.2%); the Dow notched its 11th straight day of gains, its best streak since February 2017.
• 📊 Johnson & Johnson plans to reduce its stake in Kenvue by at least 80% via an exchange offer.
• 🐦➡️❌ Twitter revealed its interim "X" logo.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Spleash

• 🎶 Spotify is raising the price of its premium plan, from $9.99/month to $10.99/month.
• 📱 TikTok is adding the ability to share text-based posts with music and stickers; it looks eerily similar to Instagram Stories.
• 🇸🇦⚽ Saudi Arabian soccer team Al Halal SFC has reportedly offered to pay Paris Saint-Germain a record-high posting fee of $332 million to acquire star Kylian Mbappé; Al Halal also reportedly offered Mbappé a 1-year, $775 million contract.

*From our partners: ☀️🐶 Keep that hot dog cool with the Spleash… the easy way to hydrate your furry pal when walking. Easily attaches to most leash types with a convenient lightweight design. Save 15% on The Spleash with code TheDonut15.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Pendulum

• 🫀 The risk of having a fatal heart attack doubles during heat waves that also coincide with periods of poor air quality, per a peer-reviewed study published yesterday in Circulation.
• 🌌 The Milky Way galaxy contains 6x more “rogue” planets that aren’t tethered to a star than planets orbiting parent stars, according to new research from NASA.
• 🛰️ GPS data can be used to predict major earthquakes roughly two hours in advance, per a new peer-reviewed study published in Science.

*From our partners: 🦠 Go with your gut… and get the next-generation strain everyone is talking about. Available exclusively from Pendulum as a daily probiotic, Akkermansia is helping thousands improve gut health and strengthen the gut lining. Save 20% on first order with code THEDONUT.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🥵 Phoenix, AZ, experienced a record 25th consecutive day with high temperatures above 110°F.
• ✋ The IRS yesterday halted its decadeslong practice of unannounced visits to peoples’ homes or businesses to collect unpaid taxes, citing safety concerns.
• ⚖️ The Department of Justice sued Texas yesterday over a string of buoys deployed on the Rio Grande River to prevent people from illegally crossing the border from Mexico to the US; the DOJ says state officials were required to request and obtain permission from the federal government. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 💊 ​​Don't waste money on biotin or collagen supplements. Here’s what to do instead.

*Sponsored post

Yesterday, we covered a lawsuit from nearly 200 school districts and hundreds of individual parents accusing TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook of contributing to an ongoing youth mental health crisis in America.

❓ Our question to you: Do you think social media companies should be held legally responsible for the recent uptick in US students experiencing mental health problems?

• 👍 Yes: 45%
• 👎 No: 38%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 17%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 11,286 votes and 1,046 longform responses.

When Portland, Maine, resident Jessica Means went to check her mail last week, she was surprised to find a postcard from an unknown sender.

Not only did she not recognize the name at the bottom of the card from Paris, but it was postmarked and signed in 1969 – or 54 years ago. 

🔎 Unraveling the mystery... It turns out, the postcard was intended for the original owners of Jessica's home and had somehow got lost in transit. A new poststamp from July 12th of this year was added to the card, but no one seems to know who finally sent it her way – or where it had disappeared to for all those years. 

• “I’d really like to say thank you to whoever decided to put a stamp on the postcard and drop it in the mail on July 12,” Jessica told Bangor Daily News. “I’m sure they knew the intended recipients were long gone and yet they chose to mail it anyway. I just want that person to know that the card not only made it but that that one small, simple gesture made my day.”

❓ Trivia: Which superhero's alter ego is named Reed Richards?

🥤 True or False?... Mello Yello was introduced by Coca-Cola to compete with Mountain Dew.

🤔 Riddle Me This… What can you find at the end of a rainbow?

(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: Mr. Fantastic

🥤 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: The letter "w"