Good morning. Wardrobe need an upgrade? How about a taste of Southern charm!

Chalo and The DONUT are teaming up to bring you a chance to win a pair of stylish cowboy boots. They’re easy to slip on, style up or down, and made to journey with you everywhere.

• The lucky winner will receive a pair of boots from their collection, plus a 30-minute consultation with Chalo’s founder. The runner-up will unlock a 20% discount.
• Also, tell your friends to enter: The top referrer gets a 15% discount.

Enter the giveaway free via this link, and best of luck.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.89-minute read (1,303 words).

"You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated."

–Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Since the Supreme Court overturned a federal law prohibiting sports betting in 2018, 38 states have legalized it.

And business is like those cars with a tricked-out bass system – booming. Americans spent ~$120 billion on legal sports bets last year, a 28% increase from 2022. And betting figures from this January show a 14x increase in sports betting since January 2019.

But while the industry itself is in the midst of a Gatsby-like party, growing research indicates people are financially worse off in states where betting is legal.

• This summer, UCLA and USC researchers published a paper that examined consumer-­credit data and analyzed what sports betting did to the financial health of the states where it was legal. They found a 28% jump in bankruptcies and an 8% increase in debt sent to collection, as well as growth in late auto loan payments and weakened credit scores.
• A separate study, published last month, found that for every dollar put toward a sports bet, a household’s net investments drop by $2; in the two to three years that followed the legalization of sports betting in a state, net investments dropped 14%.

Who’s affected: As with many things, a small percentage of America appears to be responsible for a majority of sports betting. In Connecticut, ~71% of all legal gambling revenue comes from the less than 7% of its residents who are problem (1.8%) or at-risk gamblers (4.9%), according to a study published earlier this year.

The house always wins. So far, legal sports betting has two big winners: gambling companies such as Fanduel and DraftKings, which are participating in a large, fast-growing market, and state governments, which have raked in $6+ billion in tax revenue from sports bets since 2018 (per Legal Sports Report).

👀 Looking ahead… The US online sports betting market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 10.73% through 2029, according to data from Statista.

+IMPORTANT: If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, the National Council on Problem Gambling Helpline offers a confidential, 24-hour helpline for problem gamblers or their family members. Just call 1-800-GAMBLER.

1 in 2 people suffer from high blood pressure. If you or someone you love are one of them, 120/Life contains the natural ingredients that can help…

• 💗 Pomegranate prevents blood vessels from constricting
• 🌺 Hibiscus acts as a natural ACE inhibitor/controls cholesterol
• 🍒 Tart cherries and cranberries fight inflammation
• 💓 Beetroots dilate blood vessels
• 😊 Magnesium helps your muscles relax

The science here is nothing new. 120/Life just blended it all together into a convenient and delicious beverage. And if you don’t see lower numbers within 2 weeks, they’ll refund your money.

Save 15% on 120/Life with code DONUT.

🇮🇳 Thousands of doctors across India are protesting for safer workplace conditions. (🚨TW) Nationwide protests erupted after a 31-year-old female medical trainee was raped and murdered while on-duty at a hospital in Kolkata on August 9. Public hospitals across India have recently begun turning away non-emergency patients due to mass doctor strikes, with protesters demanding increased hospital security and harsher penalties for attacks against medics. India’s government has promised to establish a committee to improve hospital safety, though protesting doctors say the move doesn’t go far enough.

🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russia and Iran used AI to spread disinformation about US presidential elections, per Meta and OpenAI. A new Meta security report found Russia remains the top source of election-related disinformation in the US, with its efforts largely concentrated on using fake Facebook and Instagram accounts to attack US candidates who support Ukraine. In a separate report, OpenAI said it deactivated a cluster of ChatGPT accounts that were crafting fake news as part of an Iranian disinformation campaign targeting the US election.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Ukraine’s military incursion in Russia’s Kursk region is entering its third week. Ukraine says it has captured ~400 square miles of Russian territory and 80+ local settlements to date, and also destroyed three strategically important bridges in the region. On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the country’s incursion is aimed at creating a “buffer zone” to prevent cross-border attacks from Russia. Officials in Moscow say Russia’s military has made equal gains in Ukraine in recent weeks, including claiming a string of villages.

Last Friday, a Missouri woman with a history of small-time scams and fraud was arrested on federal charges, which accuse her of trying to steal ownership of Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate and swindle Presley’s family out of millions of dollars.

Here’s what happened: In July 2023, six months after Elvis’ wife Lisa Marie Presley passed away, 53-year-old Lisa Findley allegedly sent an email to the attorneys of Elvis’ granddaughter, Riley Keough, claiming her late mother had pledged the Graceland estate/museum as collateral for a $3.8 million loan that Presley failed to pay back before she died.

• When Keough refused to send Findley the $2.85 million she was seeking, Findley published an allegedly fraudulent foreclosure notice and announced plans to auction off Graceland this past May.
• But, unlike Elvis himself, Keough did not leave the building. Instead, she successfully sued to halt the sale of Graceland, with a Tennessee judge ruling Findley’s documents had likely been forged.

👀 Looking ahead… The DOJ’s case against Findley centers around accusations that she acted under several aliases and forged multiple documents for a nonexistent private lender as part of her scheme to steal Graceland. If found guilty, Findley will be singing “Jailhouse Rock” for a period of 2-22 years.

Comfort is one of the rare things it’s difficult to have too much of.

From casual to performance, from boots to sandals, Xero Shoes are designed specifically for the unique contours of your foot. They’re the perfect blend of fashion-forward design and natural movement…

• 👍 Wider, foot-shaped toe box for comfort
• ✅ Low-to-the-ground, "zero-drop" design for proper posture
• 🙌 Flexible soles for natural foot movement
• 🪶 Lightweight for a "barely there" feel
• 🏆 79,000+ 5-star reviews

New colors are dropping this month at Xero Shoes.

“It sounds like a giant hive of bees. You know it’s coming because it’s pretty loud.”

Pickleball advocates will be happy to know their sport isn’t the only newfangled thing making loud noises in the neighborhood. Amazon’s buzzing budding drone program is also delivering a daily dose of irritation to local residents of College Station, Texas. In a recent letter to the FAA, College Station Mayor John Nichols said his city’s residents have grown tired of the drones’ constant loud buzzing near their homes in recent months. Mayor Nichols also pushed back against Amazon’s recent FAA requests seeking to more than double the company’s allowance of daily flights, which would allow Amazon drones to operate between 7am-10pm (rather than just daylight hours), as well as increase its drones’ delivery area by 4x.

📸 Big picture: The complaints mark the latest challenge for Amazon’s drone delivery program, which has struggled to get off the ground since being established in 2022 due to a combination of regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines, and widespread cost-cutting efforts at Amazon (including layoffs).

• ☝️ The world’s largest 3D-printed neighborhood – featuring 100 total homes – is nearing completion in Georgetown, Texas (located ~30 miles north of Austin).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The Motley Fool

• 💰 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +1.0%; Dow: +0.6%; Nasdaq: +1.4%). | 🤖 Chipmaker AMD is acquiring ZT Systems, an AI hardware company, for $5 billion. | 🏦🤝 Regional bank M&A is on the rise. | 🏪 Seven & i Holdings, a Japanese company that operates 85,000 7-Eleven stores, received a buyout offer from the Canadian owner of Circle K.
• 🚗 GM is laying off more than 1,000 employees in its software and services division.
• 🚢 UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch (of Autonomy fame) is one of six people missing after a yacht sank off the Italian coast.

*From our partners: 🏆📈 The most recommended company In Stock Advisor history… The Motley Fool has flashed the buy signal 9x for this stock – and it’s recently pulled back 61.5% from its peak, which means a potential great buy opportunity. Get access at The Motley Fool.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🙏 Phil Donahue, whose influential TV talk show aired for nearly 30 years, passed away at the age of 88. | 🧅 The Onion has resumed distribution of print editions for the first time in over a decade.
• 🎶 Chappell Roan reached a new high of No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Chart with her debut studio album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess; Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department led the list for a 15th non-consecutive week.
• ⚖️ Actress Julia Ormond can proceed with her lawsuit accusing Disney and talent agency CAA of enabling Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behavior in the mid-’90s, a New York judge ruled yesterday. | 🌌 The Acolyte, a Disney+ Star Wars offshoot series, has been canceled after one season.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Commons

• 🚀 The European Space Agency's JUICE mission is preparing to execute the first-ever double gravity boost – using both Earth and Venus' gravity to slingshot the craft – en route to study Jupiter's icy moons.
• 🐦 The dodo, a bird species hunted to extinction by humans in the 1600s, was actually powerful and speedy – not slow and inept as they’ve been depicted in pop culture, according to a new study.
• 🕷️ A species of orb-weaver spider can hijack the flashing light of a caught male firefly and manipulate it to resemble a female firefly’s ‘come-hither’ signal, thereby attracting more male insects to its web, per a new peer-reviewed study.

*From our partners: 🌎 The free app that rewards you for shopping sustainably… Commons rewards you for sustainable purchases from 50k+ brands. Earn for using public transit, EV chargers, thrift stores, farmers' markets, and lots more. Get rewarded for helping our planet today with Commons.

MISCELLANEOUS

• ✍️🏪 California enacted 10 new bills aimed at cracking down on retail theft across the state.
• 🔵 The Democratic National Convention kicked off yesterday; see updates from the first day. | 🇮🇷🗳️ Iran was behind the recent hack of former President Trump’s 2024 campaign, the FBI and other US intelligence agencies confirmed yesterday.
• ⚖️ Former Rep. George Santos pleaded guilty yesterday to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges; Santos, who faces 2-22 years in prison, waived his right to appeal any sentence less than 95 months. | 🏛️ Illinois’ state comptroller froze some payments to the town of Dolton, where embattled Mayor Tiffany Henyard is accused of misusing millions of dollars of taxpayer money; Henyard was recently seen at a village meeting after her apparent disappearance last week.

CLICKBAIT

• 🗣️ 5 phrases smart people always use to get noticed and succeed at work – without being the loudest in the room.

🔋⛽ Stats of the Day: Golfers aren’t the only ones trying to squeeze some extra yardage out of their drives. Extended-range EVs (EREVs) are currently the fastest-growing propulsion system for cars in China, with sales more than doubling over the past year to reach 30% of all domestic plug-in hybrid sales. The recent spike in EREV popularity is attributed to their ability to drive 600+ miles on a single charge – compared with ~300 miles for a typical EV – thanks to a small gas-powered engine whose sole purpose is to automatically recharge the battery (a feature that kicks in on ~5% of trips). EREVs will begin arriving in America next year when Stellantis rolls out the Ramcharger, an electric version of its Ram 1500 pickup truck that features a 690-mile driving range.

🤔 Did You Know? The British overseas territory of Gibraltar forgot it was a city for 180 years. In 2022, Gibraltar applied to become a city as part of UK Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, but was passed over for selection. However, it ended up becoming a city anyways after researchers discovered Queen Victoria had granted Gibraltar that status in 1842.

📰 Worth a Read: Deep in the Amazon rainforest lives a community whose hearts age more slowly → (BBC)

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

• 🍿 R-rated movies have accounted for 29% of domestic box office revenue so far this year, representing the highest market share since 2000 (not including the pandemic). (Read more)
• 🚫 Startup company failures in the US have increased by 60% over the past year, with startup bankruptcies currently 7x higher compared to 2019, per data from Carta. (Read more)
• 😬 46% of Americans think other people should apologize more often, while 11% think they themselves should apologize more often (from YouGov via Harper’s). (Read more)
• 🚴 Kasia Niewiadoma won the 600-mile women's 2024 Tour de France by just 4 seconds – the smallest margin in the race’s 121-year history (men’s or women’s). (Read more)
• 🏢 38% of Americans believe businesses should take a public stance on current events and public policy, down from 48% in 2022. (Read more)

Yesterday, we covered where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump stand on many of the key issues for American voters.

❓ Our question to you: If the November election was held today, which candidate would you vote for?

• Former President Trump: 26%
• Vice President Harris: 42%
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: 11%
• Another third-party candidate: 6%
• Not planning to vote/Too young to vote: 7%
• Unsure/other: 8%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 4,913 votes and 468 longform responses. Our audience is largely comprised of younger individuals.

105 photos have been chosen as finalists for the Ocean Photographer of the Year competition, beating out ~14,900 other submissions from around the world.

🌊 The great blue sea... The finalists include: an octopus sheltering in a plastic bag, a shot of scientists performing an ultrasound on a female tiger shark, a jackfish hiding inside a jellyfish, a group of baby plainfin midshipman still attached to their yolk sacs (☝️), and more.

❓ Trivia: Who created the modern periodic table of elements?

👃 True or False?... It’s impossible to hum while plugging your nose. (No cheating!)

🤔 Riddle Me This: What must take a bow before it can speak?

👆 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.

Start referring.👇

❓ Trivia: Dmitri Mendeleev

👃 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: A violin