👋 Hello there,
Welcome to another edition of the Stellar Recap, a weekly newsletter where I share interesting content you may have missed. This issue features 88 bullets.
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📊 Business, Economics & Personal Finance
With a fortune of $48.6B, Colin Huang, the founder of Temu is now the richest person in China (🔒Bloomberg).
US consumers collectively racked up $1.14T in credit card debt in Q2, up 5.8% YoY.
Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, Alphabet, and Amazon account for ~40% of Nvidia’s revenue. Microsoft alone accounts for ~19% off Nvidia’s revenue. Nvidia accounts for 45% of Microsoft’s capital expenditures.
From 1928-2023, the annualized value of the S&P 500 for the month of Sep. is -13.5%, which makes it the worst month for stocks.
Global migration advisory firm Henley & Partners expects that a record 128K millionaires will relocate this year (🔒FT) compared with the 120K that moved last year. Switzerland, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Dubai, and Singapore are among the countries with low tax programs aimed at enticing wealthy foreign expats.
The International Longshoremen Association (ILA) is threatening to strike on Nov. 1 if negotiations for its East Coast port workers fail to reach a favorable agreement. The ILA is the largest maritime union in N. America, representing 85K workers across 36 ports. >50% of cargo shipped to the US comes through its E. Coast ports.
Yale’s Budget Lab estimated that ~4M US workers were in tipped occupations in 2023, which represented ~2.5% of all US workers.
A recent survey showed that ~1 in 5 US physicians have student loan debt. Student debt was most prevalent among those in family medicine at 25%. A separate survey using data from 2018-2021 found that 26.7% of healthcare workers have student loan debt vs an average of 16.5% for workers overall.
Banknotes worth ~£78.4K featuring King Charles III were auctioned for 11x their face value. One rare £10 note went for sold for £17K.
Jeffrey Piccolo filed a $50K+ wrongful death lawsuit against Disney after his wife died last year from an allergic reaction at a theme park restaurant. Disney filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, stating that Piccolo waived his right to sue when he signed up for a free Disney+ trial in 2019 and again when he bought an Epcot ticket last year. This suggests that 150M+ Disney+ subscribers have signed away their right to sue the company in any situation.
Transportation costs in the US, which includes prices for new and used vehicles, plane tickets, gas, and other related goods and services, have risen most quickly (27%) since Feb. 2020 relative to other categories. (Actually, energy has seen the biggest increase at 30.4% but the category is volatile and generally removed these analyses).
Grocery brands spend $100+ per item and store (🔒WSJ) to get a product placed at ~eye-level spots on store shelves.
A report from Insurify found that drivers in California, Missouri, and Minnesota could see their car insurance premiums increase by 50%+ this year.
🧘 Health, Healthcare & Safety
New data showed that persistent sadness or hopelessness among teen girls fell from 57% in 2021 to 53% in 2023, while thoughts of suicide fell from 30% to 27%. However, the share of girls who felt like they were being bullied at school rose from 15% to 19%. In 2023, ~3 in 10 LGBTQ students were bullied at school, and 2 in 10 attempted suicide.
Bowling Green, KY, has the highest concentration of people with injectable weight-loss drug prescriptions in the US (🔒Bloomberg), according to data from PurpleLab Inc. 4% of residents there received a weight-loss prescription in the past year vs ~1% in places like Brooklyn, NY or Miami, FL.
19 imported cases of Oropouche virus (OROV) were reported in EU countries in Jun. and Jul. OROV is a zoonotic disease similar to Zika and spreads to humans from infected midges and mosquitoes. Europe’s disease agency has issued a warning to vacationers about the risks.
1 in 5 US adults, adolescents, and youth (50M+ Americans) experienced a behavioral health issue between 2019-2020 but <50% of all adults with a mental health issue had timely access to behavioral health care in 2021 and only 25% received treatment.
A new study found that a blood test that analyzes ~200 proteins can predict a person’s risk of developing 18 chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.
3 studies on MDMA by Lykos Therapeutics were retracted due to “protocol violations amounting to unethical conduct.” Lykos admitted that it failed to notify the journal about sexual assault allegations made against 1 therapist in a study, but maintains that its papers’ findings are scientifically sound.
The Norman Regional Health System in Oklahoma closed its bariatric surgery center last month after seeing a 30% drop in demand for procedures, which it attributed to popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.
A new study found that children born during the Holodomor famine in Ukraine between 1932-33 were 2x more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as adults compared to those born in regions with no famine.
A seed originally found in South America called the tonka bean has been showing up on pastry chefs’ menus at high-end restaurants (🔒NYT), despite being banned since 1954 by the FDA amid evidence that a chemical it contains (coumarin) may cause liver damage.
A new Gallup poll found that 45% of Americans say drinking 1-2 alcoholic beverages a day is bad for one’s health. Adults ages 18-34 are especially likely to endorse the statement compared with those aged 35+.
Ford and Mazda issued do-not-drive warnings for 457K+ vehicles that contain recalled Takata airbags. Ford’s warning covers ~374.3K model year 2004-2014 vehicles while Mazda’s warning covers ~82.9K model year 2003-2015 vehicles.
Millions of Americans receive prescriptions by mail but temperatures inside of cargo areas of delivery trucks can reach 150F (🔒NYT), which is far above the 68-77 degrees recommended for safe drug storage.
The WHO declared the mpox outbreak a global public health emergency. The current outbreak has affected ~100K people worldwide, including 32K+ people in the US.
A new KFF study found that ~1 in 7 US women of reproductive age have had an abortion at some point in their life. That number is ~1 in 5 among Black and Hispanic women. ~3 in 4 women think abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
Just 2 of the 462 medical experts serving on national advisory councils for the NIH are osteopathic physicians (DOs) vs. 213 MDs. NIH currently funds $55.6M in active research at osteopathic medical schools vs. ~$23B for MD-granting schools.
Medicare is expected to save $6B from the 1st round of price negotiations on 10 widely used drugs. Seniors are expected to save ~$1.5B on out-of-pocket drug costs as a result of the price changes when they take effect in 2026.
A new study of ~240 people with brain injuries who are physically unresponsive found that 25% were conscious according to brain scans which showed the people consistently responding to commands to mentally envision themselves doing things like playing tennis or opening and closing their hand.
New findings suggest that aging isn’t a steady process and instead happens in bursts, particularly at ~44 yrs and 60 yrs. In our 40s, there’s a change to the processes related to cardiovascular disease, and to metabolizing fatty compounds and alcohol. In our 60s, there’s a shift in immune regulation and carbohydrate metabolism.
A young woman recently died while hiking Half Dome and her death has drawn attention to Yosemite National Park’s permit system. The permitting system has led to unintended changes in behavior such as continuing to hike despite dangerous conditions. For example, slipping on wet rocks accounted for 6 of the 10 deaths that have occurred this year, including the person who is at the center of this story. It doesn’t help that the cables on that particular trail are generally dangerous.
🎓 Lifelong Learning
The art of image prompting by Google.
The possible number of genealogical ancestors a person has doubles with each generation such that after 10 generations (~300 yrs) the number of ancestors that 2 people share will start to converge.
How does your weight compare to other Americans, according to CDC data?
Dries Depoorter created an AI selfie coach which he demonstrates in a 5 min. video.
🌴 Lifestyle & Travel
Applications for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics open in Sep. 2024. For those who are willing to pay for a ticket, the sign-up site is now open for early tickets which can be purchased starting in Feb. 2025. Those who miss the initial draw can buy general access tickets in Apr. 2025.
Animal breeders registered ~8.3K mini goats with the US Miniature Dairy Goat Association, up 73% since Jul. 2021.
Kentucky just debuted its Wildlands Waterfall Trail which is ~553 mi long and includes a curated collection of 17 natural falls. There are 800+ waterfalls in the area.
The North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC is the best zoo, according to Newsweek readers. Fun fact: the NC Zoo is the world’s largest natural habitat zoo, at 2.8K acres.
A sports shooter explains the sci-fi glasses and gear Olympic shooters compete with (8.5 min. video).
🗳️ Politics, Security & International Affairs
Donald Trump’s campaign was hacked by what it believes to be Iranian actors. Stolen documents, related to the campaign’s research on Trump’s VP JD Vance, were leaked to Politico. Iran has denied the accusations.
A new Senate report showed that US consumers have very little recourse when they’re scammed using Zelle. Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo collectively rejected $560M worth of scam disputes between 2021 and 2023.
Since 1992, 30 states have voted for the candidate of the opposite party from the previous election at least once and 26 states have been won by less than a 3-pt margin at least once.
Ukraine’s military now controls 386 sq mi of Russian territory in the Kursk region. It’s the largest gain over the border since Russian forces invaded 2.5 yrs ago. Moscow has since pulled out troops in Ukraine to bolster Kursk.
A federal appeals court ruled against the Biden administration’s SAVE plan for student loan borrowers. The court order can’t be applied retrospectively so the 8M people who enrolled in the plan before this ruling will not have to make back payments for the interest on their loans in Jul. It’s unclear what will happen going forward though.
Hackers leaked 2.7B data records with Social Security numbers, all known physical addresses, and possible aliases that were allegedly gathered by National Public Data a company which collects and sells access to personal data for use in background checks for private investigators.
A new study of 2K+ deepfakes found that Elon Musk is the most common “spokesperson” for cryptocurrency-related scams (🔒NYT), accounting for ~25% of all scams.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported that 40K+ Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip (🔒WP). The official figure doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
For ~the entire year, more people in Pennsylvania and North Carolina had been registering as Republicans than as Democrats when signing up to vote. But Democratic registrations have been outnumbering Republican registrations since Biden dropped out and endorsed Kamala Harris (🔒NYT). The Democratic margin has since faded, though not completely.
⏩ Pop Culture, Art, Sports & Entertainment
Team USA took home 126 Olympic medals: 40 gold; 44 silver; 42 bronze. China and the US tied for the most gold medals but the US was ranked #1 overall due to its higher count of silver medals. Student athletes at Stanford University won 39 individual medals, which was enough to tie with Canada for 11th place in the medal count.
The 100 best movies of the 2000s, according to Indie Wire.
Amazon reported that the new Tyler Perry movie, Divorce in the Black, is the single biggest driver of sign-ups to Prime Video of any Amazon MGM Studios-produced movie. Nielsen data showed that the movie accumulated 498M watched min. in its 1st 4 days of availability.
The Georgia Bulldogs are the #1 college football team, according to the AP Top 25 poll released last Mon.
Bari Weiss’s newsletter The Free Press, is the top moneymaker on Substack with 100K+ paid subscribers. Subscriptions cost $8/mo for full access.
Leonardo DiCaprio is the greatest actor in US movie history according to data on 1) online ratings of films in which the person was a lead actor, 2) median box office earnings of their films, and 3) Oscar nominations.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are the 1st celebrity couple in 34 yrs to simultaneously top the box office at #1 and #2 with Deadpool & Wolverine and It Ends with Us. The last couple was Bruce Willis and Demi Moore in 1990 with Die Hard 2 and Ghost. Related news: Deadpool & Wolverine became the highest-grossing R movie in history this week with $1.086B in box office sales, surpassing the record of $1.078B set by Joker in 2019.
A visualization of how high the pole vaulters jumped during the Paris Olympic Games.
🏡 Real Estate
According to Redfin, the total value of US homes rose 6.6% YoY to a record $49.6T as of Jun. Home values have climbed 120% since 2014.
The share of demand for short-term rentals in suburban US markets has been flat over the past year at ~9% YoY. In urban markets, the share of demand for short-term rentals is ~7%. High fees are likely contributing to the lack of growth.
Oshkosh, WI is the the most desirable market in the US for the 1st time in Realtor.com’s data history. Listings in Oshkosh received 3.7x more views per property in Jul than the national average. Properties were listed for just 18 days, which was 32 fewer days than the national average.
A $300M home in Malibu is coming to market as a private listing. If sold for its asking price, it would be the most expensive home ever sold in the US. Images of the property haven’t been shared. The current record holder is a $210M home in Malibu that sold in Jun.
The median home price in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area rose 11.6% YoY to $2.08M in Q2. It’s the 1st time that a US metro topped $2M, in data going back to 1979. 7 of the top 10 priciest markets were in California.
In Sep. 1985, 72% of US consumers said it was a good time to buy a home (🔒WSJ). Just 12% said the same in Jun. 2024.
The US is short ~4M units to meet demand, according to Freddie Mac, and Congress is considering selling federal land to help alleviate the housing shortage.
A record 8.5% of US homes are worth $1M+, up from 7.6% a year ago and more than 2x the 4% share before the pandemic. The analysis looked at the 50 most populous metros.
One of the largest ranches in the US is going on the market for $142M (🔒WSJ). The ranch is ~790 sq mi which is more territory than the city of Houston.
🌎 Society
In 38 of the 50 biggest US metro areas, Americans born to low-income families in 1992 were doing worse at age 27 than those born in 1978 at that age.
38% of US adults think that businesses should take public stances on current events, down from 41% in 2023 and 48% in 2022. The biggest drops in sentiment are among groups that were previously the most receptive, including Democrats, Black Americans, and Asian Americans.
A new study found that Americans’ values fluctuate with the seasons which may be linked to self-reported anxiety.
US public schools lost 1M+ students between 2019 and 2022, as parents began homeschooling kids more during the pandemic and as birthrates continue to decline.
In 2022, the average age gap between US husbands and wives was 2.2 yrs, down from an average of 2.4 yrs in 2000 and 4.9 yrs in 1880. The majority (51%) of opposite-sex spouses are now the same age.
🧪 Science, Climate, Environment & Technology
Researchers analyzed 700K-yr-old fossils from a remote Indonesian island and found that the ancestors of Homo floresiensis, aka “hobbits”, were ~3.5ft tall. That’s ~2.4” shorter than the estimated height of their hobbit decendents.
Invasive blue crabs have consumed up to 90% of young clams along the coasts of Italy (🔒WP). The invasion also stands to change the region’s culinary culture as chefs in the region worry that blue crabs could completely overtake marine ecosystems in the Upper Adriatic.
The US consumed 20.3 lbs of seafood per capita in 2021, up from 11.7 lbs in 1970.
A new study found that global wildfire-related carbon emissions from Mar. 2023 - Feb. 2024 were 16% above the average of fire seasons since 2002, amounting to 8.6B metric tons of CO2. Wildfires in Canada produced ~10 yrs worth of carbon emissions in 2023.
The South American lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa) has a genome 30x the size of that of humans (91B vs. 3B bas pairs), making it the largest animal genome sequenced yet.
Utah’s famous Double Arch at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area has collapsed.
Job ads for data technicians have spiked 18% since Jan. 2020 (🔒WSJ) while tech jobs overall have declined by 50%+. Median pay has increased 43% to $75.1K and experienced techs can command six figures.
A new study suggests that the 16-ft, 6-ton “Altar Stone” in the inner circle of the Stonehenge monument is from northeastern Scotland which is ~500 mi away.
A GE study found that US households leave a load of wet laundry unattended in the washing machine for an average of 2 hrs (🔒WSJ) so companies are now making machines that can both wash and dry in ~2 hrs. These machines cost ~$2K.
A new study estimated that ~4.4B people lack access to safely managed drinking water, which is more than 2x the WHO’s estimate.
During the past 500 yrs, 8 European countries colonized 68% of the world’s countries and the consequences of this colonization still linger on the scientific enterprise (🔒Science).
Heman Bekele is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year. Bekele is 15 yrs old and recently won the top prize at his local science fair with his project that aims to invent soap that could one day treat and prevent multiple forms of skin cancer.
Wishing you a good week
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