Monday, August 25
Headlines
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De minimis exemption to end Aug. 29 for many countries, prompting confusion. Germany’s Deutsche Post and DHL Parcel Germany, France’s La Poste, and Spain’s Correos postal services have announced they are temporarily suspending at least some shipments of merchandise from businesses to US customers. The news comes as the de minimis exemption for low-value parcels shipped from international destinations to US consumers goes away for all nations this week—China and Hong Kong were already barred from using it in May. While the move will raise costs for imports, the bigger issue for parcel companies is the increased paperwork, which they will be using the pause on shipments to figure out.
Keurig Dr Pepper close to buying Peet’s, WSJ says. In an exclusive, the Wall Street Journal reported that the American beverage conglomerate wants to slurp up Amsterdam-based JDE Peet’s, which calls itself the “world’s leading pure-play coffee and tea company,” for $18 billion. While the outlet’s sources said the discussions “could always fall apart,” they also said that the combined entity would split out its coffee unit from its beverage unit—all but prognosticating that the world will never get a Dr Pepper Blackberry Coffee K-Cup.
And the weekend’s box-office winner was...K-pop. A streaming company walked an original film into movie theaters and won the top prize at the box office. That’s how the weekend went for Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters, a sing-along version of the animated film musical by the same name that took over the streaming platform this summer. No. 2 at the box office went to the horror movie Weapons, and the Jamie Lee Curtis-Lindsay Lohan reunion Freakier Friday came in at No. 3. Industry watchers note that Netflix broke its own rule of eschewing wide theatrical releases with this offering. The version on the streamer is currently its second-most-watched movie ever.—HVL
Keurig Dr Pepper close to buying Peet’s, WSJ says. In an exclusive, the Wall Street Journal reported that the American beverage conglomerate wants to slurp up Amsterdam-based JDE Peet’s, which calls itself the “world’s leading pure-play coffee and tea company,” for $18 billion. While the outlet’s sources said the discussions “could always fall apart,” they also said that the combined entity would split out its coffee unit from its beverage unit—all but prognosticating that the world will never get a Dr Pepper Blackberry Coffee K-Cup. And the weekend’s box-office winner was...K-pop. A streaming company walked an original film into movie theaters and won the top prize at the box office. That’s how the weekend went for Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters, a sing-along version of the animated film musical by the same name that took over the streaming platform this summer. No. 2 at the box office went to the horror movie Weapons, and the Jamie Lee Curtis-Lindsay Lohan reunion Freakier Friday came in at No. 3. Industry watchers note that Netflix broke its own rule of eschewing wide theatrical releases with this offering. The version on the streamer is currently its second-most-watched movie ever.—HVL
Robert Reich
Life in the Shadow of the American Dream
Voices of Americans
Friends,
From time to time I come across a personal story about life in Trump’s America that’s so powerful that I want to share it with you. Here’s one, from Andrew Tait. It was originally published in the Daily Yonder on August 1, 2025. (For more rural reporting and small-town stories, visit dailyyonder.com.)
***
My Family Lives in the Shadow of the American Dream
By Andrew Tait
I live in Shenandoah County, Virginia. I’m a factory worker, a farmer, and a father of two girls, one still in diapers. I get up before the sun, and most days I don’t sit down until after it’s gone.
My partner Hannah and I raise our girls on a small farm in the Valley. She works full-time too—though nobody calls it that. She’s a caregiver, a homemaker, a livestock handler, and a mother. She doesn’t get a paycheck. She doesn’t get a break. She doesn’t get counted.
Voices of Americans
 |
| (Andrew Tait and his family, Shenandoah County, Virginia) |
Friends,
From time to time I come across a personal story about life in Trump’s America that’s so powerful that I want to share it with you. Here’s one, from Andrew Tait. It was originally published in the Daily Yonder on August 1, 2025. (For more rural reporting and small-town stories, visit dailyyonder.com.)
***
My Family Lives in the Shadow of the American Dream
By Andrew Tait
I live in Shenandoah County, Virginia. I’m a factory worker, a farmer, and a father of two girls, one still in diapers. I get up before the sun, and most days I don’t sit down until after it’s gone.
My partner Hannah and I raise our girls on a small farm in the Valley. She works full-time too—though nobody calls it that. She’s a caregiver, a homemaker, a livestock handler, and a mother. She doesn’t get a paycheck. She doesn’t get a break. She doesn’t get counted.
At A Glance
TSA announces new luggage rules related to curling irons.
Timelapse of a girl over 20 years.
Burning Man's Black Rock City is America's most unusual town.
Ranking of America's 25 best pizzerias.
Diver finds 30,000 ancient Roman-era bronze and copper coins.
Dozens of teams participate in Lithuania's corgi race.
Meet the world's best air hockey player.
The origins of the term "nerd."
Clickbait: How flies sleep.
Historybook: Matthew Webb becomes first person to swim across English Channel (1875); Singer Aaliyah dies in plane crash (2001); Voyager 1 becomes first human-made object to enter interstellar space (2012); Astronaut Neil Armstrong dies (2012); Sen. John McCain dies (2018).
In The NEWS
Bits of Plastic
Microplastics, explained
Microplastics, or MPs, are tiny plastic particles less than five millimeters long and have become one of Earth's most widespread pollutants. Like synthetic plastics, MPs are mostly made of long chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms, formed by linking byproducts of refining crude oil and natural gas (watch explainer). Other chemical additives may be incorporated to modify the final product’s properties.
Primary MPs, such as microbeads commonly found in exfoliating cosmetic products, are intentionally manufactured to be small. Secondary MPs, like those released while washing synthetic textiles, form from the breakdown of larger plastics and make up the bulk of MPs in the environment (learn why plastic doesn't biodegrade).
As of 2024, the FDA claims there is insufficient evidence that MPs pose any human health risk, though initial biochemical studies have linked them to inflammation and hormone disruption.
... Read our full explainer on microplastics here.
Also, check out ...
> Microplastics are everywhere on Earth—even Mount Everest. (More)
> Locating where microplastics are concentrated in the human body. (More)
> The plastic designed to dissolve in saltwater. (More)
Risks and Returns
Venture Capital, 101
Venture capital is a form of investment that firms use to invest in startups and other emerging organizations with high growth potential. In other words, VC firms bet on companies with hopes that they’ll grow into larger corporate powerhouses.
Venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Kleiner Perkins are best known for helping fund some of the buzziest business movements of our time, from the cryptocurrency boom to the current AI craze. In 2023, US VC investments totaled roughly $170B, falling significantly from the roughly $242B invested in 2022 (how VCs decide to invest).
These investments are considered highly risky. Roughly 75% of VC-backed companies will fail. That means the other portfolio companies need to provide significant returns to make up for all the companies that don’t yield returns (how these numbers work).
... Read our full overview on VC here.
Also, check out ...
> One VC firm honors the successful companies it missed. (More)
> The annual list of the world's top 100 venture capitalists. (More)
> Explaining venture capital using Lego bricks. (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Illegal Immigrants
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Yes, it is true... our country's strength is because of those illegal immigrants as well as those legal immigrants who entered after LAWS WERE PASSED.
My concern about ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS is NOT because they are immigrants but because they are ILLEGAL.
Yes, it is true... not all illegal immigrants commit additional crimes after breaking the law to enter this country... BUT several of them do.
Their crimes are:
- RAPE
- MURDER
- DOMESTIC ABUSE
- SEX TRAFFICKING
- SELLING DRUGS
- THEFT
Yes, it is true... that many of these illegal immigrants perform the tasks and jobs that Americans REFUSE to do because they are dirty and arduous.
Yes, it is true... that Americans have grown fat, dumb, and happy because of all the privileges they have enjoyed over the years.
Yes, it is true... that Americans take their freedoms for granted as well as their lifestyles and quality of life.
MY OPINION:
We should remove all illegal immigrants and give them an opportunity to enter our country legally, providing they have not committed additional crimes since being in the country illegally.
AI Is Designing Bizarre New Physics Experiments That Actually Work
There are precision measurements, and then there’s the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. In each of LIGO’s twin gravitational wave detectors (one in Hanford, Washington, and the other in Livingston, Louisiana), laser beams bounce back and forth down the four-kilometer arms of a giant L.
When a gravitational wave passes through, the length of one arm changes relative to the other by less than the width of a proton. It’s by measuring these minuscule differences—a sensitivity akin to sensing the distance to the star Alpha Centauri down to the width of a human hair—that discoveries are made.
Sunday, August 24
When your job is ‘nose’
Eric Feferberg/AFP via Getty Images
Becoming a professional perfumer, or “nose,” is like pursuing an arthouse version of medicine—it can take a decade of scientific training, and you also want the French to like you.
Competition is fierce to be one of the hundreds of people in the world who can not only distinguish between the scents of different orange varieties but also splice smells into luxury fragrances like a chef creating a new recipe:A lucky few were born into the perfume families of Grasse, France, which is known as the fragrance capital of the world. (Chanel’s current nose—the son of its previous nose—hails from Grasse. As does the jasmine it uses in No. 5.)
The conventional perfumery route usually requires a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, a master’s from one of France’s three main perfume schools, and a multiyear program at a major fragrance manufacturer like Givaudan, where trainee acceptance rates can be less than 1%.
Still, some perfumers manage to pave their own way. Barnabé Fillion, Aesop’s in-house perfumer for 10 years, worked with a mentor instead of getting formal training. Self-taught sniffers are trying to leapfrog the traditional process altogether by launching their own indie perfume brands.
Common denominator: Fillion and many other perfumers—including Hermès’s *checks notes* Director of Olfactive Creation Christine Nagel—experience synesthesia, a condition that makes it possible for some people to see, hear, and feel a scent. That comes in handy when the Aesop creative brief asks you to evoke a combination of soul music, Chinese poetry, and the color green.
The sign of a good nose: avoiding obvious choices. Nagel opted for rhubarb over citrus for the notes of freshness in her first Hermès fragrance nearly 10 years ago.—ML
Robert Reich
Friends,
As a child, I was bullied and harassed for being short. I remember feeling powerless and vulnerable. I also recall my shame. I directed much of my anger at myself.
A large portion of America has felt bullied and harassed for decades. They’ve worked their asses off but haven’t gotten anywhere. Employers have fired them without cause or notice, made them into contract workers without any security or rights, spied on them during working hours, and otherwise treated them like children.
They’ve been bullied by landlords who keep hiking their rent. By banks that keep adding large fees to whatever they owe. By health insurers and hospitals that charge them an arm and a leg. By corporate grocery monopolies that push up food prices.
At A Glance
Henry Ford's 1941 plastic car was made from soybeans.
"Buy one, get one free" is a way to drive more spending.
Watermelons were once neither red nor sweet.
Geography was key to making Moscow Europe's biggest city.
How helpful is it to take vitamins as supplements?
Following the wild salmon supply chain, from Alaska to your plate.
Stem cells can reboot the ability of cells to repair themselves.
Visualizing the changes to Mac's control panel between 1984 and 2004.
How brutalist concrete transformed building design.
When it's good to let your food stick in the pan.
How the Discovery Channel popularized educational TV.
The Harlem Hellfighters, WWI's longest-serving US regiment.
Where do you fall on the sports misery index?
The world's top 10 hedge funds.
Assessing the respiratory risks of too much air conditioning.
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