Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖 AI intensifies work
• ☄️ Large meteor over Ohio
• 📫 USPS in financial trouble

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.40-minute read (905 words).

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There was a typo in yesterday’s DONUT Holes: Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed and left 10 million residents without power, not “presidents.” Apologies for the error, and thanks to everyone who wrote in.

"Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy."

–Howard W. Newton (1903–1951)

Artificial intelligence was supposed to take tedious tasks off workers’ plates to free up more time for meaningful work.

But a new study from workplace productivity software company ActivTrak suggests it may be doing the opposite, and intensifying the modern workday instead of easing it.

Let’s break it down

ActivTrak examined 164,000 workers’ digital work activity, focusing on the 180 days before and after they began using AI tools on the job. They discovered that employees became more active across their digital workdays after the technology entered the mix.

Some of the biggest changes showed up in workplace communication:

• Time spent on email, messaging, and chat apps nearly doubled, while usage of business-management tools like HR and accounting software jumped 94%.
• The study found AI helped workers draft emails faster, which resulted in more emails being sent out in a shorter amount of time.

“It’s not that AI doesn’t create efficiency, it’s that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing other work,” said Gabriela Mauch, ActivTrak’s chief customer officer and head of its productivity lab.

At the same time, workers spent less time in long, uninterrupted stretches of focused work used to solve complex problems. Those periods fell 9% among employees using AI compared with those who weren’t using the tools.

The results track with other research

A new analysis published in Harvard Business Review found that productivity tools powered by AI can intensify work instead of reducing it, as organizations often raise expectations once employees begin completing tasks faster.

And a recent UC Berkeley study found AI-enabled tech workers reported feeling “momentum and a sense of expanded capability,” but also feeling “busier, more stretched, or less able to fully disconnect.”

Researchers say the technology often changes the pace of work more than the amount, lowering the barrier to producing emails, summaries, and reports, which can increase the overall volume of workplace communication.

Big picture: AI adoption is rising quickly among America’s workforce. ActivTrak’s data shows 80% of workers now use AI tools in some form, up from 53% two years ago, while Gallup surveys show similar levels of white-collar AI adoption across the US.

📊 Flash poll: To our working readers who use AI tools on the job: all things considered, has the technology made your overall workload easier or harder to manage?

• Easier
• Harder
• About the same

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🔋 LG Energy Solution, the battery unit of Korean electronics giant LG, agrees to produce battery cells for Tesla’s energy-storage business at new $4.3 billion Michigan factory.
• 📦 Amazon reportedly plans to cut the number of packages it ships via USPS by roughly two-thirds by this fall; USPS delivered 1+ billion Amazon packages last year, representing 15% of the Postal Service’s US volume.
• 🎰 Kalshi is accused of illegal gambling and election wagering in misdemeanor criminal suit filed by the state of Arizona; it’s the first criminal case brought against the predictions market, which is also facing multiple civil cases.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚾ Venezuela defeats Team USA 3-2 last night to win the country's first-ever World Baseball Classic championship. | 🏈 Miami Dolphins trade star WR Jaylen Waddle to the Denver Broncos for 1st- and 3rd-round picks in this year’s draft, as well as a 4th-round pick swap.
• 🎥 Dune: Part Three drops first look trailer ahead of its December 18 release date.
• 🎶 Lollapalooza releases full 2026 lineup, including Charlie XCX, Tate McRae, Lorde, Olivia Dean, and The Smashing Pumpkins.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☄️ Meteor over Ohio causes large boom yesterday morning that jolts people as far away as Pennsylvania, per the National Weather Service.
• 🪰💡 Researchers uncover mathematical rules which male fireflies follow to synchronize their flashing mating displays.
• 🥵 Over 420 US counties on the western half of the country had their warmest December–February periods on record, based on average temperatures; that’s per NOAA data that goes back 131 years.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 💥 Top US counterterrorism official Joe Kent steps down over his concerns with the war in Iran; Kent, who led the National Counterterrorism Center, publishes a letter saying: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” | Israeli military strikes kill two top Iranian leaders: the country’s security chief, and the head of its Basij militia.
• 📫 US Postal Service is set to run out of cash within a year and may have to cut deliveries, Postmaster General David Steiner warns in testimony before Congress.
• 🏛️ Senate votes 51-48 to open debate on SAVE America Act, allowing for amendments and extended floor discussion on Trump-backed election bill in the coming days. (Dive deeper: Trump urges Congress to SAVE America)

👆More than 1.5 million bats are taking over the skies in DONUT HQ’s backyard (Austin, Texas) as part of their annual migration. Each night from now through the fall, they swarm over Lady Bird Lake, drawing crowds of up to 2,000 people. The spectacle brings in ~140,000 visitors and an estimated $10 million to the city each year.

🤔 Did you know? Q is the only letter to not appear in the name of any US state. The next rarest letters are Z and J at one apiece (Arizona and New Jersey).

📰 Worth a read: Wired headphone sales are exploding. What's with the Bluetooth backlash?

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• What US homes looked like in the year you were born
• 20 years of treating heart attacks: 7 things I never do after 7 pm
• The future of code is exciting and terrifying

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Can you name the last three winners of the Best Actress Academy Award? (Including this past weekend)

🍾 A 10-year-old recently launched a message in a bottle from the Bahamas. Somehow, it showed up in Portugal a year later, where a stranger actually called him. Now, they're making plans to meet up and throw another bottle in the ocean.

1. Jessie Buckley, Hamnet (2026)
2. Mikey Madison, Anora (2025)
3. Emma Stone, Poor Things (2024)

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