Good morning. Welcome to a new week, where productivity rises and falls like the tide.

According to a recent study of 300 human resources managers at US companies with 20 or more employees, the two most productive days of the week are *checks notes* Monday and Tuesday. Specifically, 39% of HR managers think employees get the most done on Tuesdays, while 24% believe productivity peaks on Mondays.

As for the least productive days? Thursday and Friday, with each receiving just 3% of the responses. Though still no word on whether Slacking your work bestie about weekend plans counts as being productive (team bonding, of course).

Now, let’s do something we all agree is productive and NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.61 minutes to read.

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"To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often."

–Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

America’s decades-long standoff with China over Taiwan is heating up. On Friday, the White House announced plans to provide Taiwan with $345 million worth of military training and equipment from the Pentagon’s stockpiles, as part of a congressionally approved measure aimed at deterring China from invading Taiwan.

⏪ Some quick background: Taiwan split from China in 1949 following a civil war in which the defeated ruling Chinese government fled to the island and declared independence. Ever since then, China’s leaders – including current President Xi Jinping – have maintained their right to retake control of Taiwan by force if necessary.

• Under its one-China policy enacted in 1979, the US government officially “acknowledges” China’s position that Taiwan belongs to them, but also opposes any efforts to disrupt the status quo in which Taiwan is self-governed.

📅 That brings us to present day: The US currently has a “robust unofficial relationship” with Taiwan, according to the State Department. This includes a trade deal through which Taiwan, the world’s semiconductor superpower, supplies 90% of all chips used by US tech companies, and America supplies a majority of Taiwan’s military imports.

But China has consistently opposed any official US-Taiwan relations whatsoever, often using military exercises to voice their displeasure. On two separate occasions in the past year, Beijing has launched a simulated invasion of Taiwan as a direct response to high-level meetings between US and Taiwanese lawmakers.

🤔 What happens if China invades Taiwan for real?... Short answer: it’s unclear. President Biden last year said the US would deploy troops to defend Taiwan if China invaded the island – but the State Department later walked back that commitment, saying US policy towards Taiwan remains unchanged.

• The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act allows the US to provide “defense articles and defense services” to help Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, but it doesn’t guarantee US military intervention in the event of an invasion.

📊 Flash poll: If Taiwan is invaded by China, how do you think the US should react?

Deploy US troops to fight against China

Provide military/financial support, but don’t deploy troops (similar to Ukraine)

Stay out of the conflict entirely

Unsure/other

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• 🍟 How Mcdonald's is extending an already impressive lead in the fast food biz
• 🥑 Why Americans just can’t get enough avocados

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🇷🇺 Moscow was hit by its fourth drone strike in the past month. The Russian Defense Ministry says three Ukrainian drones targeting the capital city were shot down or jammed yesterday before reaching their intended targets, damaging two office buildings and a pig breeding complex. A spokesperson for Ukraine's Air Force said the drones were intended to impact Russian citizens who felt Putin's invasion was distant.

🇨🇳⚖️ Chinese fast-fashion rivals Shein and Temu are fighting each other in US courts. The two companies have each filed several lawsuits accusing the other of corporate dirty tricks, including trademark infringement and bullying suppliers to pick their side. Temu, which launched in the US in July 2022, has already gained 75.1 million monthly active American users – a figure three times larger than Shein, which launched in the US in 2017.

🇳🇪 Soldiers who staged a coup in Niger last week declared their leader as the new head of state. In an address broadcast on state television on Friday, a spokesperson for the new ruling military junta said Niger’s constitution was suspended and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, the leader of Niger’s presidential guard, was now in charge. In response to the coup, leaders from ECOWAS – a 15-member bloc of West African countries – published a statement yesterday giving Niger’s military junta seven days to reinstate President Mohamed Bazoum or face a potential military invasion.

Last night, in a converted minor league baseball stadium located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, MI New York defeated the Seattle Orcas to take home the Major League Cricket title. This caps off the league’s inaugural season.

The big takeaway? America appears ready for some cricket.

🏏 Background: Major League Cricket, a pro sports league backed by $120+ million in capital from prominent investors including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, was co-founded by Sameer Mehta and billionaire Vijay Srinivasan, who had previously co-founded Willow TV, a paid sports network dedicated to bringing overseas cricket matches to the US market.

Major League Cricket aims to tap into an estimated base of between 20 million–30 million cricket fans located within the US, who (similar to die-hard tennis fans) mostly rely on foreign broadcasts of matches at unusual hours.

And so far, so good.

• MLC’s six teams played matches in stadiums located in Texas (max capacity ~7,200) and North Carolina (~3,500). As of July 26, a few days before the end of the about-two-and-a-half-week-long season, the league had sold out every one of its matches.
• At least 80% of those in attendance were 35-years-old or younger, SBNation reports.

📈👀 Looking ahead… The league aims to have more than six international-grade stadiums in critical American markets over the next few years. And that’s not the only US-located cricket on the horizon. America is set to co-host the 2024 T20 World Cup, a major cricket event that recently drew over 6 billion video views.

💬 Quoted… ​​"If you have more than 100 million people sign up [over five days], ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet."

A physical Musk vs. Zuck cage-match may not be happening, but a virtual cage-match between the two has already started – and it’s getting interesting. In a recent internal town hall, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared to confirm a recent WSJ report indicating Twitter-competitor Threads’ engagement has dropped significantly since its launch. The Zuck doesn’t seem too worried, however: “The drop in users is normal. I'm optimistic about retention rates improving as we add more features to the app.”

• Data from online traffic service SimilarWeb revealed Thread’s daily active Android users dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million within a week of the platform's launch. For context, the lower number is around 22% of Twitter’s daily active Android user base, vs. ~45% for the higher number.

☀️🥵 Stat of the Day: The temperature in Phoenix, Arizona, was over 110 °F for the 31st straight day on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The city’s previous record stretch of temps 110 °F and above was 18 days in 1974.

🤔 Did You Know?... Baseball is referred to as “America’s pastime,” but cricket actually came to the country first. The British game’s roots in the US date back to the 1750s, and cricket scores graced the front page of major newspapers well into the 1860s, the Financial Times reports. But the game faded in popularity following the Civil War, in which many of the US players died.

📰 Worth a Read: The Research Scandal at Stanford Is More Common Than You Think → (NY Times)

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• ☝️ You’re looking at the Associated Press’ best pictures of last week, featuring scenes from Israel, Ukraine, Greece, and the Women’s World Cup.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Pendulum

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board last week (S&P: +1.0%; Dow: +0.7%; Nasdaq: +2.0%).
• 🚚📉 Trucking giant Yellow is filing for bankruptcy; the 99-year-old company employs 30,000 workers, including 22,000 Teamsters members.
• 🚫 Trader Joe’s issued voluntary recalls over the past week pertaining to two types of cookies, a soup, and premade falafel; the recalls were prompted because the products may contain rocks or insects.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with The Newsletter Newsletter

• ⚾ Three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer was traded from the New York Mets to the Texas Rangers yesterday. | 🏊‍♀️ American swimmer Katie Ledecky broke Michael Phelp's record with her 16th individual gold medal at the world championships.
• 🎀🍿 Barbie brought in $93 million in its second weekend at the US box office (one of the best second weekends ever); the film has now grossed $775 million worldwide.
• ✖️ “Tweets” are reportedly changing to “posts.”

*From our partners: 🗞️🤩 The Newsletter Newsletter is your ultimate guide for all things…. newsletter. Get the latest newsletter research and analysis, saving you time while delivering the best tips to your inbox every Friday. Subscribe for free to The Newsletter Newsletter.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☄️ Two different ongoing meteor showers are projected to peak at the same time tonight, with an estimated rate of 15 to 20 meteors per hour in the night sky. | 🚀📺 NASA is launching a streaming service called NASA+ later this year; the ad-free, no-cost service will include live coverage of future launches, documentaries, and new original TV series.
• 🪱 A team of researchers successfully reanimated the bodies of 46,000-year-old microscopic roundworms they found frozen 130 feet below the Arctic permafrost – and the worms immediately started reproducing; that’s per a new peer-reviewed study published in PLOS Genetics.
• 🧬 Scientists from Denmark managed to successfully “vacuum” animal DNA from thin air for later analysis.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌡️ The ongoing US heat wave is expected to ease up in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions early this week, though temps will likely remain high in most southern states for at least several more days.
• 🥪 Subway is offering the chance to win free sandwiches for life as part of a new promotion – but you have to commit to legally changing your name to “Subway” to enter the drawing.
• 🗳️ Rudy Giuliani, the former NYC mayor and former lawyer for then-President Donald Trump, admitted last week to lying about claims that two Georgia election workers committed ballot fraud during the 2020 presidential race. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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Monday: Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker appears in court following indictment in Trump classified documents case

Tuesday: The USWNT takes on Portugal in their final World Cup group stage match; The US assumes the presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of August

Wednesday: National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

Thursday: Back to the Future: The Musical opens on Broadway

Friday: July jobs report

On Friday, we covered how the median age of elected US officials has spiked in recent years, putting America near the top among other developed countries when it comes to the age of its lawmakers.

❓ Our question to you: Would you be in favor of enacting a maximum age limit for elected US officials?

• 👍 Yes: 84%
• 👎 No: 9%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 7%

🤔 Follow-up question for “Yes” folks: In your opinion, what should that age limit be?

• 55: 2%
• 60: 5%
• 65: 32%
• 70: 39%
• 75: 19%
• 80: 3%

Click here to read the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 18,071 votes and 2,055 longform responses.

After Arthur the cat went mysteriously missing back in June, his owners spent five weeks searching for their beloved kitty. They posted flyers and spread word of mouth throughout the neighborhood in hopes that Arthur would return home. 

❤️ Call, answered... When a landlord shared in the neighborhood Facebook group that their tenants had reported sounds of meowing below the home, it only took 12 minutes for a crowd of people to get over there to search for Arthur. 

• The cat was found below the floor boards, dehydrated and underweight but otherwise okay (it's believed he survived by eating spiders and licking condesation from pipes). Neighbors got in touch with his owners, who rushed home to see him.
• Arthur has fully recovered from his ordeal, and is now prancing about happy and healthy.

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

1. Athl
2. Bac
3. Gust
4. Icos
5. Meta

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Athl = Prize (e.g., athlete)
2. Bac = Rod-shaped (bacteria)
3. Gust = Taste (disgust)
4. Icos = Twenty (icosagon)
5. Meta = Above (metaphor, metaphysics)