Good morning, and a warm welcome to all our new subscribers. In today’s edition:

• 👥 Americans start to touch grass
• 🏈 College football’s AP Top 25
• ♟️ 11-year-old queen of chess

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.03-minute read (1,072 words).

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"Success is defined as the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

–Unknown

Bad news for aspiring robot rock stars: Spotify is now checking whether artists exist somewhere other than a server rack.

Starting in mid-September, the streaming giant will begin rolling out an “AI Persona” badge identifying artists whose public identities may be AI-generated.

The label will appear on artist profiles, in search results, and alongside tracks in playlists. Artists carrying the badge also won’t appear in personalized recommendations unless a user already follows them.

• The badge focuses on who the artist is, rather than how their music was made.
• Human musicians who use AI during the creative process won’t automatically receive the label, and can separately disclose their use of the technology through Spotify’s existing AI Credits feature.

Who decides who’s a robot? Spotify hopes AI-generated profiles will voluntarily disclose themselves, but the company will also review suspicious accounts and can apply the label itself. Artists can appeal if Spotify mistakes an IRL musician for Wall-E behind a turntable.

Zoom out: The move came days before the Motion Picture Association, the trade association that lobbies for major studios like Disney, Netflix, and Sony Pictures, struck its first agreement with an AI company.

The deal with ByteDance, the former majority owner of TikTok’s US operations, strengthens copyright guardrails on its image and video generation models, which previously drew legal threats over unauthorized content featuring copyrighted material (like SpongeBob SquarePants and Stranger Things).

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Younger Americans are increasingly leaning into IRL connections and experiences to combat a widespread loneliness epidemic, showing up in droves to in-person social activities across the country.

There’s a club for that

The number of connection oriented meetups has skyrocketed across the country over the past year, according to data from Eventbrite.

• The biggest gains have been seen in trivia nights (+403%), mahjong gatherings (+235%), birdwatching meetups (+131%), and plant swaps (+117%).
• Puzzle competitions also saw 151% growth over the year-long period ending July 2025, per separate Eventbrite numbers shared with Axios.

Other niche categories seeing surge in interest among younger folks include silent book clubs, birding groups, run clubs, and pottery/craft circles.

The in-person trend also extends to dating. Experiences explicitly using “meet-cute” language have grown 117% in the first half of 2026, as more younger Americans seek a sweet "How'd you meet?" amid growing burnout from traditional dating apps and rising screentime.

Zoom out: Despite the recent uptick, Americans are still spending significantly less time hanging out than they were 20 years ago, a trend that cuts across every generation. Average time spent socializing per day has fallen from 45 to 35 minutes over the last 20 years, with the steepest decline seen among 15-to-24-year-olds (from 1 hour → 35 mins per day).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 Yield on 30-year Treasury bond surpasses 5.31%, marking its highest level since June 2007, as benchmark global oil prices rise slightly.
• 🤖 OpenAI signs 10-gigawatt data-center deal with SoftBank’s SB Energy that’s partly backed by up to $105 billion in financing from Nvidia; southern Ohio project will rely on construction of 9.2-gigawatt natural-gas plant owned by the US gov’t and financed by Japan under recent trade deal.
• 🎥 Paramount asks judge to require 12 states and the Writers Guild of America to put up ~$1.9 billion bond for challenging its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, to be paid if the plaintiffs lose.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 AP Top 25 preseason poll for college football ranks Ohio State as #1, with Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame, and Texas rounding out the top-five.
• 🙏 Hayden Panettiere, a prolific actor who starred in popular TV series (Heroes, Nashville) and movie franchises (Scream, Bring It On) died at 36.
• 🏀 Buss family reportedly agrees to sell its remaining 17.8% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to new majority owners Josh Kushner and Bob Iger; Buss family had owned the Lakers since Jerry bought the team in 1979.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 📱 More screen time during childhood is linked to better cognitive processing in adolescence, challenging previous screen time assumptions.
• 🦠 Ebola outbreak in the DRC is now the deadliest in the country's history, killing 2,325 people out of 4,945 confirmed cases; UN says it’s the fastest growing Ebola outbreak on record, with one patient dying every 30 minutes.
• 🥡 Uber Eats is partnering with Zipline for drone deliveries to start by the end of this year; the companies aim to reach 1 million deliveries/day by the end of 2029.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🌎 President Trump directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce US military exercises with South Korea, saying the decades-old drills send a hostile signal to North Korea as he seeks to maintain relations with Kim Jong-un. | Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it interferes with US efforts involving Iran; the 60-day ceasefire expired yesterday with US-Iran negotiations stalled.
• ⚖️ Supreme Court again rejects President Trump's attempt to overturn federal civil jury’s verdict holding him liable for sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll; Carroll has already received ~$5.6 million in damages and interest, with a separate appeal over a $83.3 million defamation verdict still pending.
• 🤳 Meta faces California trial starting today over allegations that Facebook and Instagram used addictive features that harmed children and teens; Meta was ordered to pay $942 million in a similar case in New Mexico two weeks ago; 29 state AGs are seeking ~$200 billion and changes to the platforms’ designs.

☝️ Builders in Dendermonde, Belgium, discovered ~$10.4 million worth of gold bars and coins last week while in the process of constructing a homeless shelter at the site of an old brewery. It’s unclear who will end up with the gold, which could potentially go to any descendants of the brewery’s owner, the organization carrying out construction, or the workers themselves.

🤔 Did you know? In his will, Ben Franklin left a sum of £1,000 apiece to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia to make low-interest loans to young tradesmen getting their start in business for 100 years, then spend a portion on public works for the next 100 years while still making loans. In 1990, two centuries after Franklin’s death, the total value of the matured funds had grown through compound interest to reach ~$6.5 million.

📰 Worth a read: She’s the newest queen of chess—and she’s only 11 years old.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• 6-word mantra brings calm to millions with anxiety
• 2026’s ugliest animated movie is so bad it’s good
• People are ‘marrying’ chatbots. Lawmakers want to stop them

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Yesterday we covered new data that shows many of America’s largest cities are continuing to see a yearslong decline in violent crime through the first half of 2026

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, which option best describes the current state of violent crime in America?

• Extremely serious problem: 37%
• Moderately serious problem: 42%
• Not too serious problem: 13%
• Not at all serious problem: 8%

Read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 532 votes and 41 longform responses.

❓ Trivia: What’s the indentation at the bottom of a wine bottle called?

🗼 True or false?...The Eiffel Tower grows taller when it’s hot outside.

🤔 Riddle me this: What has a head but no brain?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👕 A serial Guinness World Record breaker enlisted 10 coworkers and a Las Vegas mentalist to take on the fastest T-shirt-folding relay. After several attempts, the 12-person team ironed out the wrinkles and folded 12 shirts in 2 mins and 19.7 seconds, beating the previous record by about four seconds.

❓ Trivia: A punt

🗼 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: Answers include a coin, nail, pin, hammer, or leafy vegetable.

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