Good morning. We usually like to give you a break from breaking news while you enjoy your Sunday brunch, but sometimes the news won't wait for Monday. Last night, President Trump said the US had dropped bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites, bringing the US directly into the war between Israel and Iran. The president called the strikes a success, and he posted on Truth Social, "NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!" You can follow the latest here. |
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The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section. Careers CASTING THE BOSS: Jeremy Allen White of The Bear and the dreams you aren't comfortable bringing up at work will play Bruce Springsteen in the new biopic about the iconic singer. Personal NEW SURVIVAL TECHNIQUE: During a heat wave or fights on the reef, clown fish can actually shrink themselves to survive. This is wildly more successful than humans' tactic for handling heat/conflict resolution—getting really upset and letting it ruin your day. NOT DEAD YET: Casual readers are screened out, and no one with less than 600k Instagram followers can get a book deal. So, DIY zines are making a huge comeback. FOUND - SEDAN: An 80-year-old man tried to drive a Benz down the iconic Spanish Steps in Rome, but got stuck halfway down. Authorities had to lift the car out with a crane. In the driver's defense, he didn't see a "no parking" sign anywhere. For Sale FAKE PANGOLIN PURSE: The only mammal covered completely in scales is likely heading to the endangered species list. The US Fish & Wildlife Service proposed moving the scaly little guys to the list to ban their imports and sales. First mink, now pangolin, next they're going to say we can't buy any more blue whale boots. FRENCH 102: Wild weather patterns bolstered by climate change may be changing juniper berries, which in effect could change the flavor of gin. Blame your bitter Negroni on traffic. DOG GUM: There's a new breath chew for canines that reportedly reduces stinky breath in just a week. It's called PupGum, which is a huge miss when they could have called it DogGone.—MM | | |
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Tonight, the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder will play the first Game 7 of an NBA Finals since 2016, when LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers rallied from a 3–1 series deficit by winning the final three games of the series to beat the Golden State Warriors. Just how close has this Pacers–Thunder series been? Through six games, OKC has outscored Indiana by just seven points. Recent history says the Pacers, despite playing Game 7 on the road, have the advantage: The last three teams to force a Game 7 in the NBA Finals went on to win the championship.—DL |
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| | Did you hear about the group of PhD scientists from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Stanford who walked into a lab—and left with a breakthrough probiotic in hand? These scientists zeroed in on one of the most beneficial strains for gut health, Akkermansia muciniphila. They figured out how to bring live Akkermansia muciniphila to the probiotics market. The final result of their work? Pendulum's Akkermansia probiotic. This particular strain is so groundbreaking because it can strengthen gut lining, improve metabolic and digestive health, and naturally increase GLP-1.* With more than 15k medical provider recommendations, 4.5k mentions of Akkermansia muciniphila in scientific publications, and loyal customers like Halle Berry, this stuff sure sounds promising. Try Akkermansia yourself and take 20% off. |
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Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even see a baby tortoise.  Goliath, the 135-year-old tortoise, became a father. Electricity was still a novel invention when Goliath was born, and it took until the age of AI for him to find a mate he was willing to breed with. Earlier this month, Zoo Miami welcomed the first Galápagos tortoise hatchling ever born there, a win for the species and for handlers who had been unsuccessfully introducing Goliath to female tortoises for years. With Sweet Pea, the hatchling's near-centenarian mother, Goliath finally found his match. The zoo submitted the pair to the Guinness Book of World Records to officially make them "The Oldest First-Time Parents in History."
 Breakthrough HIV prevention drug gets FDA approval. This week, US regulators greenlit Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that was at least 96% effective at protecting against HIV infection in clinical trials. The current leading HIV prevention drug is a daily pill known as PrEP that's 99% effective when taken on time every day, but its efficacy plummets if you skip doses. The convenience of Lenacapavir—which was Science magazine's "Breakthrough of the Year" in 2024—could, in practice, make it more effective than PrEP if the manufacturer, Gilead Sciences, broadens access. The drug is now available in the US…but right now it costs $28,000 per year.
🩸 Blood test could detect cancer three years earlier. Tumors shed genetic material that can show up in a person's bloodstream months to years before they're diagnosed with cancer, according to a new Johns Hopkins study. When analyzing the blood samples of 26 patients who were diagnosed with cancer within six months of blood collection, the researchers detected tumor DNA in eight people (or 31% of the time). The team also had three-year-old blood samples on hand for six of those eight people, and microscopic cancer mutations were detected in four of them. The discovery paves the way for early intervention at a time when tumors are "more likely to be curable," one of the study's authors said.—ML |
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The most vicious piece of anti-ocean swimming propaganda turned 50 this week: Jaws premiered in June 1975, forever changing how the world views summer movies. Steven Spielberg's shark thriller became the first modern blockbuster at a time when summer typically meant low ticket sales. But Jaws blew it out of the water, showing that cinemas could get butts in seats even during wet swim trunk season. Chilling suspense and deathly danger lurking in the depths of the ocean, set in the maritime quaintness of fictional Amity Island, NY, turned out to be a recipe for an instant hit: - Jaws is now the 14th highest-grossing film in history, with an inflation-adjusted lifetime box office of almost $2.4 billion, according to IMDb.
- The movie spawned a franchise of three sequels that continues to generate revenue for Universal Studios and its parent company, NBCUniversal, through merchandise and residuals.
So, how did a movie created by a 27-year-old director and plagued by production snags become a cultural touchstone and a commercial legend as unexpected as a shark attack? Production suspense Universal took a gamble by giving the young Spielberg, who had made just one prior feature-length film, a $3.5 million budget, which was a generous amount by 1970s Hollywood standards. Ultimately, production issues caused filming to run 100 days longer than anticipated, raising the overall cost to $9 million. But some problems turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The main issue was the unreliability of the mechanical shark at the heart of the movie. Costly and time-consuming shark repairs forced Spielberg to keep the predator out of sight of the audience for the first hour of the film's runtime. So, instead of scaring audiences with an animatronic gimmick that looks like it belongs at a themed casual restaurant, Spielberg relied on techniques, like filming underwater from the shark's perspective, coupled with John Williams's iconic soundtrack, to send chills down viewers' spines. Your film school friend can probably spend hours explaining how the movie taps into the fear of the unknown to conjure suspense, placing Jaws in the pantheon of cinematic masterpieces alongside Alfred Hitchcock classics. Birth of the blockbuster Once the drawn-out process of filling film reels was over, Universal made some unorthodox distribution decisions. - The studio spent an unprecedented $700,000 on TV ads aimed at teenagers with time on their hands during summer vacation.
- It also launched Jaws on 464 screens nationwide, as opposed to waiting for it to do well in a more limited release.
The advertising blitz—along with the popularity of the best-selling book that the movie was based on—paid off. Jaws became the first movie in history to earn a box office over $100 million (grossing over $260 million), with much of the ticket sales coming in the first month. This paved the way for other splashy summer releases from big-name directors, accompanied by massive marketing budgets and an emphasis on opening weekend box office. Star Wars: A New Hope followed the Jaws model in 1977 to become the second movie to cross the $100 million box-office haul threshold, and Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror Alien blew up the summer box office two years after that. It still impacts culture today Jaws fueled studios' appetite for so-called creature features, adventure movies about deadly beasts. Tropes from Jaws have become staples of the genre, appearing in films from Alien to the 2025 Dangerous Animals, according to New York Times reporters Rumsey Taylor and Eve Washington. A vast majority of creature features have followed the Jaws formula of a reluctant hero defying a careless authority figure to defeat a dangerous and mysterious creature with the help of experts (and explosives). Jaws also spawned a new kind of tourism to Martha's Vineyard, where the movie was filmed. Visitors flock to jump off "Jaws Bridge," the shooting location for the shocking scene of the shark attacking a dock. Meanwhile, a local museum displays a replica of the boat used in the shark-hunting mission, whose size was famously judged by the protagonist. The island is going all out with events to commemorate the anniversary (more on that in Place to Be). To mark the 50th anniversary of Jaws on a national scale…the film is getting a weeklong rerelease in theaters across the US starting on August 29th, wisely timed to coincide with the tail end of swimming season.—SK | | |
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The 50th anniversary celebration of the release of Jaws is in full swing at Martha's Vineyard, the shooting location for Hollywood's first summer blockbuster that set the standard for water-based fear and mayors who put money over people's safety. The beaches are scheduled to be open there all summer despite the new lurking danger in the oceans (microplastics), and the Vineyard that portrayed the fictional Amity Island has no shortage of events tied to the film for visitors to enjoy: - The Martha's Vineyard Museum has a sprawling exhibition that will run through early September, filled with rare photographs, storyboards, and props from the movie. The display, which has been five years in the making, focused on locals who helped bring the film to the big screen. There's a sold-out meet-and-greet with several cast members this weekend, so check the secondary ticket market if you want to say hello to the guy who played Deputy Hendricks today.
But don't feel like you missed out, because the celebration continues throughout the summer. A production of the Broadway show based on behind-the-scenes events during the filming of the movie will start playing in July. There will also be tours of filming locations and a chance to watch the film at a drive-in before its rerelease in August. They're gonna need a bigger island: Around 200,000 people visit Martha's Vineyard during peak summer months, but the island's chamber of commerce is expecting that number to grow by tens of thousands this summer.—DL |
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 Listen: King Isis's new EP Sirenity has pop, rock, electronic, and everything else you could want.
Clean: A glass cloth that looks like a basket of wings. Secure: Might be time to go back to an old-fashioned bird feeder so you don't get hacked. Read: A book to help you identify dad shoes in the wild. Bake: Cakes are too much pressure. Make the perfect summer trifle. AI makeover: Coca-Cola, Sephora, and Canva are just a few of the brands using AI to spice up their marketing. See how in our latest video, sponsored by Microsoft.* Micro-learning, macro-change: Millions of people are using this psychology-based app to help crush their health goals through a personalized approach with proven results. See how.* *A message from our sponsor. |
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Last week, we asked: "What is your go-to, unique housewarming gift?" Here are our favorite responses: - "Fireplace tools. Only if they have a fireplace for the first time! Otherwise, it's a Garden Nome...."—Andy from San Francisco, CA
- "Giving someone a completely stocked first aid kit."—Cathy from Las Vegas, NV
- "The NYTimes #1 Cheese Slicer - I know it sounds lame, but if you haven't used a *good* cheese slicer, you really don't know what you're missing. It's amazing for grilling, home-cooked meals, hosting, and that late-night cheese snack."—Phil from Bergen, Norway
- "I make a big batch of seasoned, mashed avocado and freeze tablespoon sized mounds. When they're hard, I throw them in a Ziploc and gift them as an easy avocado toast hack."—Katherine from Alexandria, NJ
- "I take a basket full of spices or cleaning supplies. These items are usually thrown away during a move as they are half empty or outdated. Then you don't need them until you realize you do."—Anonymous from California
- "While this old lady has learned through the years to avoid giving anything that reflects personal taste and demands being displayed on a wall, I like a small custom-made watercolor drawing in the form of a tree ornament."—Sue from Westfield, MA
This week's question What's one song everyone should put on their summer beach playlist? Matty's response to get the juices flowing: "Warm weather begs for ABBA, especially 'The Name of the Game.'" Share your response here. |
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| ✢ A Note From Pendulum *Based on preclinical studies. This product is not intended for weight loss. ✳︎ A Note From Domain Money Some Morning Brew inc. employees are real clients of Domain Money. Via Money with Katie and Morning Brew Daily Show, they receive compensation and have an incentive to promote Domain Money. See important disclosures at dmnmny.co/x |
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