Good morning and Happy Bastille Day. Of course, in France they don’t call it Bastille Day but rather La Fête Nationale (the national celebration) or simply Le Quatorze Juillet (the 14th of July). Here at the Brew, we call it a good reason to start dreaming of retirement at 62 64.
Markets: Stocks climbed for the fourth straight day, which is great and all, but the real winners of yesterday’s trading were crypto investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies shot up across the board after a judge issued a favorable ruling for Ripple Labs in its battle against the SEC—the first time a crypto company emerged victorious in a case brought by the regulator. The FTC and SEC are probably ready for the weekend after a cringey few days.
Birth control pills will soon be as easy to get as chocolate and pickles now that the first over-the-counter oral contraceptive has the green light in the US.
Yesterday, the FDA approved Opill, a once-daily tablet that will be available online and in grocery, convenience, and drug stores as early as January, about 50 years after it was first cleared for prescription use. After post-Roeabortion bans and other threats to reproductive rights, this decision—long sought by major medical groups and unanimously supported by the FDA’s scientific advisory committee—hands a victory to public health supporters.
The details
Opill, known generically as norgestrel, will be available without a doctor’s prescription for buyers of all ages. That will primarily benefit teenagers and the 45% of women who face at least one barrier to reproductive healthcare services in the US as of 2021, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
Perrigo, the pill’s manufacturer, hasn’t named a price yet, but a VP at the company said at a news briefing that it’s “committed” to making Opill “affordable and accessible.”
Most insurance doesn’t cover over-the-counter medications, but congressional Democrats are pushing for a bill requiring insurers to pay for nonprescription birth control. Advocacy groups are pressuring state Medicaid programs to do the same.
About half of the 6.1 million annual pregnancies in the US are unplanned, according to the FDA. But experts say that could be reduced once America starts offering non-Rx birth control pills to the masses—something 100 nations already do, according to Free the Pill, a reproductive advocacy group.
Like most oral contraceptives, Opill is 93% effective in preventing pregnancy, compared to the ~87% effectiveness of using condoms alone.
Looking ahead…Opill could be the first of many over-the-counter birth control pills. Pharma company Cadence OTC is working with the FDA to get approval for its own nonprescription oral contraceptive, which is expected to start late-stage trials next year.—ML
Remember when your parents said video games were a waste of time? Well, joke’s on them. That’s because the gaming industry’s 2.5x growth potential is creating the perfect opportunity for you to invest in Virtuix.
Virtuix’s omnidirectional VR treadmills revolutionize gaming by letting players walk, run, crouch, and jump 360 degrees inside popular games and virtual worlds.
In fact, it’s been such a hit that they’ve already sold over $16m of products to companies like Dave & Buster’s while building a community of 300k+ registered players. Now Virtuix is ready to scale massively by bringing their ultimate gaming experience to millions of homes worldwide.
Hollywood enters a deep freeze. For the first time since Ronald Reagan was president…of the Screen Actors Guild (1960), both Hollywood writers and actors will be on strike after the actors union began its walkout yesterday. The twin strikes, which reflect frustrations over pay and AI guardrails, will halt all production of movies and TV shows and cause the pipeline of new content for studios to evaporate. Since this is Hollywood actors we’re talking about, this strike will be more high-profile than most: Yesterday, Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt left the movie’s premiere in London when the strike started.
Heat dome could topple temperature records. About one-third of the US population (over 112 million people) were under a heat alert yesterday as a heat dome bakes the South from coast to coast—and it’s not projected to let up over the weekend. Expect heat records to be broken in cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, where temperatures could exceed 120°F. In Death Valley, California, the temperature could blow past 130°F, which would be the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. Experts warn this thermometer-busting heat can be deadly—a new article in Nature estimated that last summer’s heat waves in Europe killed more than 61,000 people.
The case of cocaine in the White House goes cold. If you left your bag of cocaine in the White House a couple weeks ago, you can breathe a sigh of relief because investigators haven’t turned up any DNA or fingerprints in their crime lab analysis, per the AP. The white powder was found in a bag during a routine search of a West Wing lobby on July 2, but the area is heavily trafficked by visitors and the FBI was doubtful that it would find the perp. It’s not pursuing any more leads.
This week, OpenAI became a real tech company: It’s being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the Washington Post, regulators are probing whether OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, harms consumers, particularly by spreading misinformation that damages people’s reputations.
Why now? AI regulation is top of mind in Washington, DC, as AI experts and lawmakers raise concerns that the technology’s rapid growth is outpacing the government’s ability to keep it on a leash.
And reining in tech is the No. 1 goal of FTC Chair Lina Khan, who has been the architect of a (so far unsuccessful) crackdown on tech companies for alleged antitrust violations and consumer abuses:
The FTC suffered a major setback this week when a federal judge overruled its attempt to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Earlier this year, the FTC tried and failed to stop Meta’s acquisition of a VR gaming company.
Big picture: Khan appeared before lawmakers yesterday in a hearing that could’ve been directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Republicans criticized her string of antitrust losses as leader of the agency, while Democrats celebrated her for championing small businesses and consumers.—CC
FROM THE CREW
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A man dressed up as an American revolutionary holds a cricket bat on the field before the game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe via Getty Images
A new US cricket league backed by tech money hopes Americans will find the sport wicket awesome. The first game of Major League Cricket’s inaugural season was held yesterday between the Texas Super Kings and the LA Knight Riders in a refurbished minor league baseball stadium just outside of Dallas.
Traditional cricket matches, which are wildly popular in countries like India, England, and Australia, can sometimes last days, and the sport has a shockingly long “glossary of terms” on Wikipedia. But the T20 version, which six US teams will play for the next two weeks, is much shorter (each match lasts about three hours) and has simplified rules for our tiny little TikTok brains.
Haven’t we tried to make America care about cricket before? Yes, many times since the early 2000s. But with a growing Indian American population in the US and the surging popularity of international sports like Formula One racing and soccer (welcome, Messi), it could finally be cricket’s time to shine.
And if it fails, it won’t be for lack of funding: Some of the biggest business execs in the US, including Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and other investors have pledged at least $120 million to the league to make sure cricket finally sticks.—MM
Stat: For the first time since 2007, Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook have a new default font. Yesterday, Microsoft sent Calibri down to the minors and called up Aptos, a new sans-serif font that’s supposed to evoke mid-20th-century Swiss vibes. Before it switched to Calibri in 2007, Office used Times New Roman, and before that, presumably, Webdings.
Quote: “I’m serious about prisoner exchange.”
President Biden gave his biggest update yet on the Russian detention of WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich, stressing that the US is trying to nail down a prisoner swap with Russia similar to the one that freed Brittney Griner late last year. Gershkovich has been in Russian captivity for more than 100 days on what the US calls bogus espionage charges. Russian officials have said they might be open to a prisoner swap, but national security advisor Jake Sullivan acknowledged talks have not progressed much.
Read: Two pieces taking a big-picture view of all the extreme weather the world has experienced this summer. (Washington Post and New York Times)
The World Health Organization made its long-expected decision to label aspartame as a possible carcinogen, but it also said the sweetener is safe for consumption under the daily limit (the equivalent of nine-to-14 Diet Cokes a day)
Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of bankrupt crypto lending firm Celsius Network, was arrested and charged with fraud.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said he’s considering selling some of the company’s traditional TV assets, which include ABC and FX, because he thinks traditional TV is dying.
Job opening at the Fed: St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard is stepping down to become the dean of Purdue’s business school.
Tech review: Choosing the right tech for finance reporting, auditing, and ESG programs is crucial. Hear an analyst’s independent findings on Workiva’s ROI in this webinar.*
Hollywood enters a deep freeze. For the first time since Ronald Reagan was president…of the Screen Actors Guild (1960), both Hollywood writers and actors will 
Heat dome could topple temperature records. About one-third of the US population (over 112 million people) were under a 
The case of cocaine in the White House goes cold. If you left your bag of cocaine in the White House a couple weeks ago, you can breathe a sigh of relief because investigators haven’t turned up 
Trouble falling asleep? Let someone read you 
Unleash the smart revolution: Join Tech Brew on July 25 to learn how to take a product idea to launch. 
Hear from the CFOs of Overstock and Solo Brands about the tools they’re using to manage supply chain disruptions. 
