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"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little; do something."

–Sydney Smith (1771-1845)

In recent days, two senior members of the Senate – both in status and age – have faced new questions about whether they’re still mentally sharp enough to perform their duties.

• On Wednesday, 81-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suddenly froze in the middle of a press conference for about 30 seconds before being escorted off the podium.
• Then yesterday, 90-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) appeared confused when it came her turn to vote on a bill in Congress, and started delivering a speech instead of saying “aye” or “nay.” Later in the session, Feinstein was heard voting against another bill, before being corrected and switching to a “yes” vote.

How do they compare to other elected officials?

If America’s government attended a dinner, it’d probably be served around 4:30 pm. The median age of the Senate was 65.3 at the beginning of this year, its highest number in history.

The median age was slightly lower in the House, at 57.8, while the average age of the Supreme Court was 62.5. For context, the median age in the US is 38.9.

• At the top: President Biden is the oldest president in history at 80 years old. The second-oldest president is Donald Trump, who was 74 when he left office.

🌎 Big picture: The Constitution specifies a minimum age requirement of 25 for the House, 30 for the Senate, and 35 for presidents – but doesn’t address a maximum age limit.

The US is near the top among other developed countries when it comes to the age of its leaders. The EU’s elected lawmakers are an average of 52 years old, while the average OECD national leader is almost 25 years younger than President Biden.

📊 Flash poll: Would you be in favor of enacting a maximum age limit for elected US officials?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

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🇳🇪 Soldiers from Niger's presidential guard seized power in an apparent coup. President Mohamed Bazoum was detained on Wednesday by a group of soldiers, who blockaded the presidential palace and declared themselves in control of Niger’s government. On Thursday, Niger’s army published a statement on social media saying it would support the coup to avoid a “murderous confrontation” – though it’s unclear whether the statement was genuine, per the AP. President Bazoum was elected in 2021 as part of Niger’s first democratic transfer of power since gaining independence from France in 1960.

📵🏫 The UN’s education agency is recommending a global ban on smartphones in classrooms. That’s the conclusion of a UNESCO report published Wednesday, which cited international test score data indicating a “negative link” between excessive use of digital technology and student performance. UNESCO also said it found little evidence showing digital technology inherently adds value to education, and recommended resources instead be spent in other areas.

🇯🇵 Japan’s population declined for the 14th year in a row in 2022. New government data published Wednesday showed a record-high 1.56 million Japanese nationals died in 2022, compared to a record-low 771,000 births. And despite a sharp increase in foreign residents (+10% to 2.99 million) in addition to new government incentives encouraging citizens to have more children, Japan’s overall population declined by 0.65% last year to reach 125.4 million.

Temps in the US rn are like a pizza just out of the oven – hot, hot, hot.

But it’s not just America that’s experiencing a heat wave. According to the World Meteorological Organization and the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, July is shaping up to be the world’s hottest month in recorded history.

🌡️📈 Behind the global heat wave: Climate scientists point to a confluence of factors – human-caused climate change, the El Niño weather system, fewer aerosols in the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s heat, and the underwater Tongan volcano eruption from 2022 that added water vapor to the atmosphere, to name a few.

But regardless of the cause, global temps have been hotter than Dua Lipa performing live. In fact, 21 of the first 23 days of July were warmer than any previous days in human record (which dates back to the 1940s).

• Though to be fair, when talking about a planet that’s been around for about 4.5 billion years, around 80 years of temperature data may not provide a full picture. But scientists have used tree rings, ice cores, and other proxies to calculate that July 2023 is most likely the hottest month in about 120,000 years.

🥵🇺🇲 Closer to home: More than half of the US – 182 million people – were under a heat alert this morning, per the National Weather Service. This is expected to persist through the weekend.

If one were to act-out Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” it’d be rather expensive atm. According to data from Smart Cube, the price of sugar globally has increased 42% since June 2022 – or enough to make a person sing “I don’t want candy.”

🤔 What’s behind the price increase?... Song-related jokes aside, three words you’re probably tired of reading by now: supply and demand.

• Reduced supply: Bad weather resulted in low harvests for some of the world’s biggest producers. This year’s dry season is expected to be exacerbated by El Niño, which could result in a 10%–15% reduction in global sugarcane yield.
• Strong demand: Barron’s reports the demand for sugar is likely to outstrip production by six million to seven million metric tons over the next three years.

🍬📉 Looking ahead… The Great Halloween Candy Shortage that rarely comes to be could actually materialize this year. According to the WSJ, tight sugar supplies are pushing up candy companies’ costs and cutting into the production of sweets.

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💬 Quoted… ​​“This quarter, if I’m being honest, the theme was Grimace.”

On yesterday’s Q2 earnings call, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski was singing the purple mascot’s praises while discussing results that topped Wall Street estimates on both earnings and revenue. Same-store sales grew 11.7% in the quarter vs. estimates of 9.2%, a gap the company largely attributed to the success of Grimace’s birthday month promotion.

• And while there’s still no news on whether Grimace will be coming back, another character from McDonald’s past definitely is. The fast-food giant revealed yesterday that it plans to open a spinoff restaurant chain called CosMc’s, after a robotic alien that appeared in a few of the company’s commercials in the late 1980s.

💒💰 Stat of the Day: $1,326 = The average per-person cost to attend a bachelor/bachelorette party in the US, per data from online review platform Trustpilot.

🤔 Did You Know?... The exact meaning of the letter p in the “pH” scale is unknown, since its creator never explained their reasoning. (The H stands for hydrogen.)

📰 Worth a Read: What Happens When You Stop at One Glass of Wine a Day? → (WSJ)

• ☝️ Thousands of riders gathered in Sioux City, Iowa, last weekend for the world’s largest recreational bike ride, an annual 500-mile trek across the Hawkeye state.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

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• 💰 US markets closed down across the board yesterday (S&P: -0.6%; Dow: -0.7%; Nasdaq: -0.6%); the Dow snapped its 13-day winning streak. | 📈 Tupperware stock is up ~350% over the past five days.
• 🍺📉 Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, is laying off ~2% of its corporate staff, or ~350 employees.
• 🤔 Tesla has been exaggerating the range estimates for its EVs for years, per a newly-published Reuters investigation; which also accuses the EV-maker of creating an internal team to suppress customer complaints on this issue.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Spleash

• 🙏 Randy Meisner, a founding member of legendary rock band the Eagles, died Wednesday night at the age of 77.
• 🎭 Actors from popular TV shows like Abbott Elementary and Reservation Dogs are posting screenshots of their residual checks; the ongoing Hollywood writers strike is in its 13th week, while the actors strike is in its second week.
• ⚾ Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani threw a 1-hit shutout and smacked two home runs in a doubleheader sweep yesterday against the Detroit Tigers; Ohtani leads the MLB with 38 homers.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ⚡ Scientists in South Korea claim to have developed the first semiconductor in history that works at room temperature and ambient pressure; their work has yet to be peer-reviewed and the results haven’t been replicated, leading some scientists to doubt the discovery.
• 🚀⚛️ NASA and DARPA selected Lockheed Martin to develop a spacecraft with a nuclear thermal rocket engine, which the agencies plan to launch as early as 2027.
• 📱 All of the popular proposed “fixes” aimed at reducing the political divisiveness of Facebook and Instagram’s content algorithms don’t have a significant impact on users’ political attitudes, per a series of four research papers published yesterday in Science and Nature.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 📞🏥 Over 80% of emergency call centers in the US are understaffed, causing some 911 calls to go unanswered, per a recent national survey.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court yesterday allowed construction to resume on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a contested natural-gas pipeline currently being built in Virginia and West Virginia.
• 📑 Former President Trump was indicted on three additional charges yesterday relating to his alleged mishandling of classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate; the latest indictment accuses Trump of trying to delete surveillance footage so it couldn’t be turned over to a grand jury. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

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The 98th annual Chincoteague Pony Swim took place this week off the coast of Virginia. 

🤔 Wait... the what? The nearly century-old tradition consists of hundreds of ponies swimming the channel between Assateague Island and Chincoteague Island, where they're then paraded through town and auctioned. 

• "The ponies were the stars of the show as thousands of people, young and old, rookies and veterans, gathered along the crab infested marshland to wave a happy hello to the famed [ponies]," read a live update in the Salisbury Daily Times of the event.

🐴 Supporting your neighhhbors... The event doesn't only help control the wild pony population in the area, but it also serves a fundraiser for the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, which cares for the wild horses year round.

The DONUT’s weekly news quiz is back. Find out how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Butter
• Strawberries
• Buttermilk
• Vanilla extract
• Heavy cream
• Sugar
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Milk

2️⃣ Recipe #2:

• Mayonnaise
• Buttermilk
• Prepared pesto
• Garlic
• Black pepper
• Herb & garlic couscous
• Salmon
• Butter
• Olive oil
• Greek seasoning

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Ground beef
• Chili powder
• Ground chipotle
• Pepper & salt
• Cinnamon
• IPA beer
• Sugar
• Oregano
• Fire-roasted tomatoes
• Extra chunky salsa
• Pinto beans
• Sour cream
• Green onions
• Cheddar cheese
• Cilantro

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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☝️ Recipe #1: Strawberry biscuits

2️⃣ Recipe #2: Salmon couscous salad

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Lazy hazy beef chili