Good morning. In this edition:

• 🙏 Manhattan office shooting
• 🚂 America’s first transcontinental railroad
• 🍽️ TV-dinner origin story

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.30-minute read (1,143 words).

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🚨 Breaking: An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, triggering tsunami waves in Russia and Japan as well as tsunami alerts for much of the US West Coast. This story is developing; see updates here.

“Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”

–Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790)

Following months of scrutiny, the FCC recently approved Skydance Media's $8 billion acquisition of CBS-owner Paramount. And the deal is raising eyebrows among opponents of the Trump admin over certain conditions related to bias in mainstream media.

What Skydance promised

In order to secure FCC approval of the deal, now set to close next Thursday, new Skydance owner David Ellison made a series of commitments and assurances to the Trump admin.

They include pledges to:

• Have Paramount-owned CBS News commit to unbiased journalism and ensure that its “editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”
• Install an ombudsman—or independent reviewer—at CBS News for “any complaints of bias or other concerns.”
• Shelve all current and future DEI programs at Paramount.

Supporters of the deal, including FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, praised Skydance’s changes and framed them as restoring public confidence in CBS by “root[ing] out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media."

But…Critics say Skydance’s commitments show the Trump admin is using the FCC to create a "pay-for-play regulatory environment" where approval depends on currying favor with the President.

• Paramount obtained the FCC’s go-ahead to merge less than a month after reaching a $16 million settlement with Trump, who sued over allegations that CBS deceptively edited a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris.
• The merger approval also came a week after Paramount canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where Trump is frequently a topic of criticism. (Though the show is losing a reported $40 million/year.)

Big picture: Analysts say the Skydance-Paramount merger signals a shift in how media and government interact. And depending on who you ask, that either represents necessary accountability for media companies, or a troubling precedent for the future.

📊 Flash poll: Which of the following best describes your opinion regarding media bias in the US?

• There is a great deal of bias in media
• There is a fair amount of bias in media
• There isn’t very much bias in media
• Unsure/other

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Investigators yesterday began assembling a detailed picture of the 27-year-old gunman who, one day earlier, killed four people at a Midtown Manhattan office building before fatally shooting himself.

What they’ve found:

• Hours before the shooting, the gunman drove cross-country to NYC from Las Vegas, where he was working in a casino’s surveillance department.
• A note found in the gunman’s wallet claimed he had CTE, a brain disease caused by repeated head trauma, and also accused the NFL of covering up the dangers of football.
• The shooter appears to have intentionally targeted NFL employees at the league’s HQ in that office building, but used the wrong elevator and ended up on a different floor, according to NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
• The gunman was a former high-school football star in California. It’s unclear whether his playing career continued after, or whether he sustained any brain injuries related to athletics, though records show he was recently the subject of a mental-health crisis hold in Nevada.

Looking ahead…The NYC medical examiner’s office will perform an autopsy on the gunman in the coming weeks, including an examination of his brain for signs of CTE.

While nobody enjoys getting stuck in front of a slow-moving freight train, the locomotive industry is about to deliver something that could actually streamline how goods move across America.

The biggest freight railroad in the country, Union Pacific, is purchasing fellow rail giant Norfolk Southern for $85 billion, the companies announced yesterday, forming America's first truly transcontinental railroad.

If the deal stays on the tracks

The tie-up is set to create a rail behemoth worth $200+ billion, which the companies say will:

• Make shipping goods between the East and West more efficient, since they wouldn’t have to be transferred between tracks run by different companies (the current practice).
• Produce billions in operational savings.
• Position rail as a viable cross-country shipping option to better compete with trucking.

But…The deal still requires regulatory approval. It’s also expected to face opposition from labor unions and companies that send their wares by rail, who are concerned that it would diminish competition and push up freight prices.

Looking ahead: If approved (likely a lengthy process), this megamerger could lead to further railroad consolidation. The Warren Buffett-owned BNSF, which operates tracks west of Chicago, and CSX, which dominates the Eastern US, are reportedly considering a merger in order to compete with a combined Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 Novo Nordisk shares fall ~22% after naming new CEO, cutting full-year guidance due to weaker growth expectations for Wegovy in the US. | Starbucks same-store sales fall for sixth-straight quarter; though CEO Brian Niccol says company's turnaround is ahead of schedule.
• ✈️ United Airlines flight attendants reject new labor contract that included immediate raises of 26%; union says of the 92% of eligible voters who cast ballots, 71% voted not to approve.
• 🐕 Pet-care startup Wag files for bankruptcy; was once valued at ~$650 million.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with MorningSave

• 📰 Fox News tops TV ratings for month of July, averaging ~2.4 million primetime viewers; however, figure marks YoY viewership decline of 30%; all major news networks also experiencing audience declines compared to the election-boosted 2024.
• 🙏 Joan Anderson, a former model who coined the name for the hula hoop and played an unsung role in its rise, passed away at age 101.
• ⚾ Emmanuel Clase, the Cleveland Guardians’ star closer, placed on leave by MLB as part of ongoing gambling investigation into bets on individual pitch outcomes.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ⚡ Cosmic rays, high-energy particles from space, could create energy needed to sustain life underground on planets and moons in our solar system, new study suggests; findings challenge traditional view that life can only exist near sunlight or volcanic heat.
• 🗣️ Developmental stuttering associated with 48 genes, according to largest-ever genetic analysis of the common speech impediment, which affects 400 million people worldwide.
• 💡 US Commerce Department reportedly considering an overhaul of the patent system to raise revenue; could charge patent holders 1% to 5% of patent value.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🏛️ Former NC Gov. Roy Cooper (D) sets Democratic fundraising record, $3.4+ million in 24 hours, after launching campaign for North Carolina’s senate seat on Monday. | President Trump says relationship with Jeffrey Epstein ended two decades ago because the financier repeatedly “stole” young women who worked at Mar-a-Lago’s spa; Trump says that included Virginia Giuffre, a well-known Epstein sex trafficking accuser who died by suicide this year.
• 🧑‍⚖️ Federal judge grants Planned Parenthood's request for nationwide injunction over Trump admin policy ending the org’s federal Medicaid reimbursements.
• 🌍 UK announces plan to recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in September, unless Israel improves humanitarian situation in Gaza and commits to new peace process.

☝️ You’re looking at a map showing the median US home price for each state as of December 2024, courtesy of Visual Capitalist.

🤔 Did You Know? TV dinners were first invented when a Swanson company salesman in 1953 had the idea to repurpose ~260 tons of frozen turkey the company had leftover from Thanksgiving and was struggling to dispose.

📰 Worth a Read: The criminal enterprise run by monkeys

🖱️ Clickbait: Eating watermelon is illegal in this Indianapolis suburb

🔭 PR spin win: Astronomer, the company everyone recently came to know for the wrong reasons, released a new ad featuring Gwyneth Paltrow, who was married to Coldplay’s Chris Martin for 10+ years.

🥤 Space juice: When NASA got caught up in the cola wars.

🔥 That’s fire: The first official trailer for Avatar: Fire & Ash, the third installment of James Cameron’s fantasy epic, just dropped. Watch it here.

✈️ Travel intel: Find out why Americans are opting out of international travel this summer, and where they are going instead. Explore Travel Intel.*

💼✨ Work smarter, not harder: The Assist serves up savvy tips to supercharge your grind—all with the same quirky flair you adore from The DONUT. Subscribe today.*

*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.

• 💅 4 millimeters: How much the average fingernail grows per month
• 🎾 50,000: Number of tennis balls used at each Wimbledon
• ✈️ 4: Average number of trips an American takes per year

🐝 A population of rare bilberry bumblebees is seeing a huge increase after active conservation efforts in Shropshire, England. The effort involved replanting wildflower meadows in the area, after which the bees came buzzing back.

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

• 💅 Under; 3.47 millimeters/month
• 🎾 Over; 55,000 tennis balls
• ✈️ Under; 2.5 trips/year

+Clue for the Games newsletter: One fact that’s helpful to know for today’s Conjoiner sequence: The Enneagram is a personality typing system that describes nine interconnected personality types, each with distinct core motivations, fears, and patterns of thinking and behavior.