Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 📝 California is cracking down on homeless encampments
• 🏅 Recapping the Paris Olympics
• 🤖 AI friends?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.71-minute read (1,253 words).

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"If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded."

–Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

On Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) delivered a message to local governments across the state: Start cleaning up homeless encampments ASAP, or lose out on state funding to address homelessness in 2025 and beyond.

Newsom’s comments mark the latest escalation of his statewide campaign to move homeless residents out of encampments and into shelters, which was prompted by a June Supreme Court ruling that made it legal for local governments to do so.

• Last month, the California governor signed an executive order directing state agencies to start clearing homeless encampments on state land.
• At the same time, Newsom also began pressuring local governments to remove local encampments – though the governor can’t legally force them to act.

Some rights groups are pushing back against the move. Many homeless shelters say they lack enough resources to accommodate everyone who would be displaced if local governments began clearing encampments. Last year, California had ~71,000 shelter beds available – or enough to cover less than 40% of the state’s 180,000+ homeless people, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Yes, but… Newsom and other state officials argue local governments across California have been provided ample funding in recent years to help address homelessness within their communities – so there’s no excuse for failing to clear encampments.

• Since Newsom first took office in 2019, the state has spent ~$24 billion to address the state’s homelessness situation, including $1+ billion in encampment resolution grants specifically aimed at cleaning up homeless encampments and addressing the underlying issues, according to Newsom’s office.

Zoom out: An estimated 650,000+ Americans were experiencing homelessness as of January 2023, representing the highest figure since the US government began using a yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. Roughly 40% of homeless individuals in the US sleep outside, per federal data.

📊 Flash poll: Do you support California’s new statewide push to clear homeless encampments?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇺🇦🇷🇺 Ukraine confirmed its troops are fighting inside Russia. On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s armed forces for making it possible to “push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.” His comments marked the first time Ukraine officially acknowledged the ongoing incursion since it began last Tuesday. The attack, which reportedly includes thousands of Ukrainian troops, has prompted both a counter-operation from Russia’s military and tens of thousands of civilian evacuations.

📲 A Chinese-language operation carrying out USPS text scams was recently exposed. The scam centers around fake texts claiming USPS is delivering a parcel but needs more details, including a credit card number, in order to do so. US security researcher Grant Smith recently tracked down the Chinese-language group behind one such campaign – then hacked into their systems and handed over evidence to US authorities. What Smith found: The so-called “Smishing Triad” sends 50,000-100,000 scam messages per day, has gained access to 438,000+ unique US credit cards, and sells its scamming kit on Telegram for $200/month.

🇺🇸🇻🇪 The US is reportedly offering to pardon Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro if he steps down. According to a new Wall Street Journal report, US officials have discussed a long-shot plan to push Maduro into giving up power in exchange for amnesty, as more evidence emerges that he lost last month’s election in Venezuela. The pardon would apply to Justice Department indictments filed in 2020 that accuse Maduro of conspiring to flood the US with cocaine (which carry a $15 million bounty).

The Olympic flame was extinguished during yesterday’s closing ceremony – which also featured an appearance from Tom Cruise – officially ending the 2024 Paris Games. Here’s a picture-driven recap of all the action:

🏄 Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina, a three-time world champion, ends a run in Tahiti’s “Place of Skulls” with potentially the most iconic photo to come out of the 2024 Olympic Games. The event also saw Free Willy make an appearance.

🕺 Canada's Philip Kim, known as Phil Wizard (👆), took home the men’s breaking gold medal in the sport’s first (and potentially only) appearance in the Olympic Games, while Japan’s Ami Yuasa (B-Girl Ami) took home the women’s gold. But it was Australia's Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, who garnered the most attention.

🏀 The US beat France by a matter of inches to secure the women's basketball gold medal yesterday; France's Gabby Williams almost made a three-point buzzer beater to tie the game at 67 and force overtime (👆), but her foot was deemed to be on the line so the basket only counted for two (final score: 67-66). Team USA also took home the men’s basketball gold medal, defeating France 98-87 in the title match.

🏌️‍♀️ New Zealand women’s golfer Lydia Ko can now add a gold medal to her trophy case, after taking silver in Rio in 2016 and bronze in Tokyo three years ago. Her Paris win qualifies her for the Ladies Professional Golf Association Hall of Fame; this pic was taken on the podium following her victory.

This pic speaks for itself🏅💪🇺🇸. Check out the full medal count here.

More Olympics reading:

• US gymnast Jordan Chiles' bronze medal to be reallocated to Romania
• Algerian boxer Imane Khelif wins gold in face of political controversy
• The best broadcasting calls of the 2024 Games
• The most tear-jerking moments of the Paris Olympics
• Was the shallow pool in Paris really slowing Olympic swimmers down? What the science says
• Paris 2024: A record-breaking Olympic Games, on and off the field

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“We observed users using language that might indicate forming connections with the model.”

• OpenAI is increasingly worried the plot of Her is playing out in real life for some of its users. GPT4-o’s new human-sounding voice mode began rolling out to paying customers on July 30 – and in a report published Thursday, the AI company says early testing found users are more likely to form human-like emotional connections with the technology, which ends up reducing their desire for human interaction. OpenAI says these connections could potentially help benefit lonely individuals, but also have the potential to negatively impact users’ “healthy relationships” as well as social norms.

• ☝️ Google DeepMind recently unveiled the first AI-powered robotic table tennis player capable of competing at an amateur human level; researchers say the bot achieved a 100% win rate against beginners and 55% versus amateurs in testing, though it struggled with advanced opponents.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The Motley Fool

• 💰 US markets rose across the board on Friday (S&P: +0.5%; Dow: +0.1%; Nasdaq: +0.5%) to finish mostly flat for the week (S&P: +0.0%; Dow: -0.6%; Nasdaq: -0.2%).
• 🙏 Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO and longtime Google exec, died at 56 following a two-year battle with lung cancer.
• 🛻 Stellantis is laying off up to 2,450 US plant workers; will discontinue an older version of its Ram 1500 pickup.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 Box office: Deadpool & Wolverine led domestic ticket sales for a third straight weekend with $54.2 million; it also surpassed $1 billion in worldwide sales; It Ends With Us, a Blake Lively-starring romance based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book, earned a better-than-expected $50 million domestically in its debut weekend; Borderlands debuted with $8.8 million in domestic sales (vs. a ~$115 million production budget).
• 🔥🏜️ Burning Man released a last-minute pool of ~3,000 tickets; sales have been lagging this year.
• 🏈 Week 2 of the NFL preseason concluded yesterday; see the full scoreboard.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Paleovalley

• 👃 The FDA approved the first nasal spray designed to treat severe allergic reactions; the spray, sold as Neffy, provides a needle-free alternative to traditional injectable products like EpiPens. | 🚫💊 Separately, the FDA declined to approve MDMA (ecstasy) as a treatment for PTSD, saying further study is necessary.
• 🛰️🏺 A research team published results from the first archaeological fieldwork ever conducted in space; the study is aimed at understanding, documenting, and preserving the heritage of astronaut culture onboard the ISS.
• 🧠 UCLA researchers created a drug that can restore both cognition and lost memories in mice affected with Alzheimer’s disease.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🚨 City officials in Uvalde, Texas, released a massive collection of audio/video recordings, text messages, and official documents relating to the May 2022 school shooting that left 21 people dead; the collection was published in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of major news orgs.
• 💻🗳️ Microsoft researchers on Friday said hackers linked to Iran’s government targeted a high-ranking official at an unidentified US presidential campaign in June.
• 📝 Politico reported a leak of internal Trump campaign documents on Saturday; it’s currently unclear whether the documents emerged from Iranian efforts.

CLICKBAIT

• 🧑‍🚀 Two Astronauts Are Stuck in Space. Here’s How They’re Passing the Time.

🏘️ Stat of the Day: Home affordability has significantly worsened across the US since the height of the pandemic, according to the National Association of Realtors’ affordability index. In January 2021, American families needed an income of $49,152 to afford the median-priced single-family home with a 20% down payment – but that same purchase would require a family income of $110,544 in June 2024.

🤔 Did You Know? On average, Olympic athletes live about five years longer than the general population, according to a study that examined 8,000+ athletes who made the Olympics from 1912-2012.

📰 Worth a Read: How to Make Better Decisions with Second-Level Thinking → (Ness Labs)

Monday: Elon Musk interviews former President Trump

Tuesday: Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin hold non-presidential primaries

Wednesday: National Creamsicle Day

Thursday: TikTok will be removed from phones managed by House of Representatives; July retail sales data released

Friday: Alien: Romulus hits theaters; Post Malone's country album, F-1 Trillion, drops

On Friday, we covered some of the mounting scientific evidence that GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy can help treat a wide range of other serious conditions, in addition to weight loss and diabetes.

❓ Our question to you: Have you personally ever tried a GLP-1 drug? (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, etc.)

• 👍 Yes: 21%
• 👎 No: 79%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 3,495 votes and 367 longform responses.

Grammy-nominated rap producer Metro Boomin has always been a mama's boy.

Raised by a single mother whom he lost unexpectedly two years ago, Metro Boomin described his mom as his best friend in the universe. “My mother dedicated her entire life to being the best mother she possibly could, and I watched her do it all on her own,” he said.

🦸‍♀️ Now, the producer is using his success to be a champion for single moms everywhere. He founded the “Single Moms Are Superheroes" initiative before his own mom's passing – but now that she's gone, the project has taken on an even deeper meaning. 

• Most recently, he announced an initiative to provide show tickets and $20,000 grants to nonprofits supporting single mothers in each city on his current tour.

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

1. Acu
2. Call
3. Ceram
4. Du
5. Gest

1. Acu = Sharp (e.g., acupuncture, acute)
2. Call = Beautiful (calligraphy)
3. Ceram = Clay (ceramic)
4. Du = Two (dual, duopoly)
5. Gest = Carry (digest)