Good Morning. A man stole $216,000 in rare manuscripts from UCLA, swapped in fakes with matching asset tags, and got a year of home confinement. We break down the heist that fooled a university.
Plus, the six-second marriage upgrade, a Nobel chemist's move to China, and the science of unfinished tasks (forwarded this email? Join 523k readers).
TOP STORY TODAY
$216K Library Heist
A 39-year-old California man was sentenced Wednesday to a year of home confinement for stealing $216,000 worth of rare Chinese manuscripts from UCLA's library system between December 2024 and July 2025.
His method was straight out of a heist movie. Jeffrey Ying reserved the rare books, took them home, then returned convincing counterfeits complete with matching university asset tags. He typically flew to China within days of each theft.
The scheme unraveled when librarians traced missing manuscripts to a visitor named Alan Fujimori, an alias tied to earlier thefts at UC Berkeley. Investigators found blank fakes, forged labels, and two other alias library cards in his Brentwood hotel room.
Netflix Considers TV
Netflix executives are discussing adding live, always-on channels and bundling rival streaming services like Peacock into its app, according to people familiar with the talks, after the company's annual business review this spring flagged declining subscriber engagement.
The stakes are real. Shares are down more than 40% over the past 12 months, and Netflix's share of US TV viewing fell to 7.8% in April, its lowest since May 2025. A standard plan now costs $19.99 monthly.
Live TV could supercharge Netflix's ad business, which generated roughly $1.5 billion last year and is projected to double in 2026, since viewers can't skip live commercials. Executives are even weighing bids for the 2030 and 2034 World Cups.
Norway’s Viking Factory
Norway faces England Saturday in its first-ever World Cup quarterfinal, led by 6-foot-5 striker Erling Haaland, who has seven goals in the tournament after a brace against Brazil in the round of 16.
Here's the twist: Haaland came from a youth system that breaks every American rule. His childhood club in Bryne, a town of 14,000, was free, open to everyone, and barely kept score. Norway doesn't sort kids by talent until age 13.
The results speak. Of the 40 boys on Haaland's youth team, 35 played into adulthood and six turned pro. Haaland also grew up skiing, playing handball, and setting long jump records before choosing soccer. Why the US is obsessed with Haaland.
TOGETHER WITH 80,000 HOURS
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100 Tiny Upgrades for Your Marriage
Great marriages are not built on grand gestures. They compound, like money: tiny deposits, made daily, in the right account. So we made a list of 100. A few from it:
Say "I already handled it." The four best words in a marriage.
The six-second kiss. Long enough to mean it, short enough to do it daily.
Buy the small thing they talked themselves out of at the store.
Sit in the car five extra minutes after you park. The best talks live there.
Say "I was wrong." Full stop. No comma, no but.
The guide sorts all 100 by love language, and a five-question quiz tells you which list your spouse actually wants you reading. Get your free copy right here.
Your Brain Has a Browser Tab Problem
Ever switch from answering emails to writing a report, but your mind keeps drifting back to the inbox? Researcher Dr. Sophie Leroy has spent 17 years studying this, and she has a name for it: attention residue. When you jump from Task A to Task B, part of your brain stays stuck on Task A, quietly burning cognitive fuel you need for the work in front of you.
The worst triggers? Leaving tasks unfinished, getting interrupted, or knowing you'll have to rush later. Your brain refuses to let those loose ends go, so it keeps them running in the background like a tab you forgot to close.
The fix is simple but not easy: finish what you start, or at least write down exactly where you left off and when you'll return to it. That small act of closure tells your brain it can release the task. Fewer open loops, more horsepower for the thing that actually matters right now (we read about this study in this book).
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▲ Nobel chemist Omar Yaghi defects to China's Tsinghua, announced on July 4, to lead AI materials lab
▲ DSA memberships doubles past 100,000 as four socialist primary winners head toward Congress in November
▲ Data centers target tribal land where sovereignty lets Big Tech skip 3-10 years of permitting delays
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