Good morning. In this edition:

• ✍️ Presidential autopen use
• 👅 Taste bud lifespans
• 🤖 Multibillion-dollar AGI problem

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.41-minute read (1,172 words).

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“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.”

—Bob Marley (1945-1981)

Former President Biden recently escalated his battle against Republican critics that condemn his use of autopen and say aides took advantage by signing decisions in his name.

• In a New York Times interview published Sunday, Biden called President Trump and other Republicans “liars” for claiming his aides had used an autopen to sign pardons without Biden’s authorization during his final days in office.
• The Times also reports that Biden didn’t approve every single name for larger categories of people to be issued pardons or granted clemency, but rather approved which standards would be used.

The issue is far from over: In recent months, the Trump White House, DOJ, and Congress have all launched ongoing investigations into a series of pardons made by Biden via autopen in his final weeks in office, as well as Biden’s overall mental competence during his term.

But what exactly is an autopen?

An autopen, also called a robot pen, is a physical machine that automates a person's signature with a pen or other writing instrument. It’s different from a scanned signature, which is a digital image.

Autopens are typically used to replicate a person's signature on high volumes of letters, certificates, diplomas and other documents.

How have past admins used autopen? Many US presidents dating back to Jefferson have used the machine in some capacity, including for signature requests and last-minute bill signings. That includes Trump, though he says the process should be reserved for niceties such as signing letters to people who write to the White House.

Officially…The autopen received a blessing from Bush admin’s Justice Department in 2005, when the agency issued a legal opinion saying the President could approve a bill from Congress by directing a subordinate to place his signature. The opinion stressed that the president could only delegate the signature—not the decision to sign the document itself.

📊 Flash poll: In general, how do you feel about the use of autopens by US presidents?

• It should be widely allowed
• It’s OK for less important stuff, but not for more important decisions
• It should be banned
• Unsure/other

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🏌️👀 Fourrrrrrrrrr: Results from the latest four-day workweek trial are coming in.

The experiment, published by Boston College and the 4 Day Week Foundation earlier this month, encompassed ~1,000 employees across 17 UK companies and other organizations. Each employee worked a shorter week while retaining the same pay and workload for a six month-period between last November and April.

And while workers reaped the benefits over this span, many companies did, too.

• BrandPipe, a software company based in London, reported fewer sick days, as well as a revenue jump of ~130%.
• Three other organizations shared revenue data as part of the trial; two saw their sales increase, while one that had a different comparison period saw a decrease.

All of the study’s participating companies continued with the four-day workweek after the trial, according to the authors.

If a lot of this sounds familiar…Separate four-day workweek experiments in the US and Germany have led to similar results—while the last major UK pilot in 2022 involved 61 companies and ~3,000 workers, with 92% of companies deciding to continue with the shorter week afterwards.

However: These studies aren’t without their critics, who point to limited data and a potential self-selection bias present in the companies who choose to participate.

Big picture: 38% of senior leaders are open to implementing a four-day workweek at their business, compared to just 23% last year, according to a recent Tech.co survey of employers.

One determined bidder is about to become Mars’ largest property holder. Though no word yet on if it’s zoned for commercial or residential development.

Later today, Sotheby’s in New York is auctioning off a 57-lb piece of rock, called NWA 16788, that’s believed to have blown off the surface of Mars and traveled ~140 million miles to Earth.

• The chunk of rock from the red planet is ~70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth.
• In fact, it represents ~7% of all the Martian material currently on Earth, according to Sotheby’s.

It also marks a rare red find: Out of the ~80,000 officially recognized meteorites found on Earth, less than 400 originated from Mars.

It's not clear exactly when this Mars meteorite hit Earth, but testing shows it probably happened in recent years prior to the rock being discovered in the Sahara Desert in late 2023. Sotheby’s expects it to fetch between $2 million-$4 million in today’s proceedings.

Zoom out: Other non-Martian items on sale during Sotheby's “Geek Week 2025,” a natural history-themed garage sale of sorts, include an ~11-foot-long juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton believed to be from the late Jurassic period (est. value: $4 million–$6 million). In total, 122 items that would make Indiana Jones (or Nic Cage) jealous are up for grabs.

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📝 June CPI shows inflation was 2.7% YoY in the month, up from May's 2.4% increase; analysts say the reading marks a potential sign companies are starting to pass tariff costs on to consumers.
• 📈 Nvidia says the US gov't lifted its measure preventing the company from shipping certain AI ships to China; shares up 4% following the news.
• 🧲 MP Materials, owner of America's only rare earths mine, signs $500 million magnet-supply agreement with Apple; the deal comes after the Pentagon took a majority stake in MP last week.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Dyce Games

• 🏆 Severance, The Penguin, The Studio lead the 2025 Emmy Awards nominations; see the full list of nominees by clicking the link. | Animated children's show Bluey is the most streamed US show in first half of 2025, with 25 billion minutes viewed.
• 🤫 Unreleased Beyoncé music and tour set lists were stolen from a rental car in Atlanta; the theft occurred days before the singer's Cowboy Carter tour stop in the city.
• 🔥 Portland's WNBA expansion team will be called the Portland Fire; team is set to join the league in 2026.

*From our partners: 🤔 Who of your friends is the most moody? Funny?? Attractive???... ‘Rate My Friends’ includes 300 topics for players to rate themselves, then see if other players agree. Score by guessing closest. Get ‘Rate My Friends’ from Dyce Games here.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌌 100 undiscovered galaxies may be orbiting Milky Way, per new supercomputer simulations of our galaxy’s dark matter.
• 🧬 Scientists recover ancient proteins from 24 million-year-old fossilized rhino tooth, creating the oldest detailed protein sequence on record; process could revolutionize archaeological science similar to how DNA analysis did.
• 🤖 Major companies announce $90+ billion investment across tech, energy, and finance to turn Pennsylvania into an AI hub; investors include Google, Meta, Anthropic, Constellation Energy, Blackstone, and more.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• ⛺ Los Angeles County has ~72,000 homeless residents this year (out of 10 million people), per new annual count; marks a ~10% drop from last year.
• 🏛️ Trump admin fired 17 immigration judges across 10 states in recent days.
• 🪙 Three crypto bills projected to pass the House as part of “Crypto Week” unexpectedly stall as 13 Republicans join with Democrats to block them. (Dive deeper: Crypto Week in the Houseeeee)

☝️ Over 2 inches of rain fell on Central Park over a 60-minute period Monday night, marking the second-wettest hour ever recorded in New York City. Flash flooding inundated NYC’s subway system, covered city streets with water, and caused at least two deaths in nearby New Jersey.

🤔 Did You Know? Taste buds have an average lifespan of 8-12 days, with the body constantly replacing them through the birth of new cells.

📰 Worth a Read: How the Etch A Sketch etched itself into pop culture

🖱️ Clickbait: Scientist's pet cat helps discover new virus—again

🇫🇷 A crêpe-shoot: Can the French reinvent America’s broken department-store model? (The French: We say oui.)

🤖 Aye aye aye AI, AI, AI: Nobody agrees on the definition of AGI, and it’s a multibillion dollar problem.

🐐 The smell of cigars and championships: Michael Jordan’s former mansion is listed on Airbnb.

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*A message from our partners

How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Your challenge is to guess whether the actual number is over or under the given value.

• 📸 5 billion: The number of photos taken globally everyday
• ☕ 20%: The percentage of people that drink their coffee black
• 🤳 150: The number of times the average person checks their phone daily

🧪 Heman Bekele received his first chemistry kit when he was seven. Less than a decade later, the chemistry-obsessed teen won Time's Kid of the Year award for his work towards skin cancer research, with his most recent project consisting of a bar of soap that can treat and prevent skin cancer.

🎭 While audio descriptions and closed captioning are common for film and television, live theater has notoriously been inaccessible to blind or hard-of-hearing individuals. Gravity Access, a project introducing sensory and descriptive experiences to live performances, is aiming to turn that on its head. 

🫶 Just because it's cute: Check out this video of a little girl feeling true power for the first time (and get ready for a little giggle).

+Note: These stories previously appeared in a Sept. 2024 edition of Positive DONUT, our weekly newsletter surfacing all the good things you don't hear about in the news.

1. 📸 Over; 5.3 billion pictures/day
2. ☕ Under; 18%
3. 🤳 Under; ~144 times/day

+Clue for the Games newsletter: Today’s Conjoiner sequence isn’t exactly a piece of cake. It’s not a cakewalk, either.