Dose Of News Useful Today

Tuesday, September 29th

Espress Yourself

Good morning. Today marks a day we plan to vigorously celebrate: International Coffee Day. And by vigorously we mean taking shots of espresso and pumpkin spice lattes straight to the dome. (See, we’re a little hyper already. Today’s email is gonna be good.)

Daily Sprinkle

“The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.”

-Plutarch

Catalonia’s President Ruled Ineligible

Spain’s top court upheld a decision to ban Catalonia’s president, Quim Torra, from holding public office for 18 months on Monday after he was found guilty of disobeying a court order last year.

Blast From The Past
Catalonia, home to Barcelona, is a semi-autonomous region in north-eastern Spain where ~7.5M people reside. (History of the Catalonia region)

In October 2017, Catalonia held an independence referendum that was declared unconstitutional and suspended by Spain’s top court. In the limited results, officials say 90% of Catalans voted to become an independent republic state.
Later that month, the separatist-led Catalan parliament made a symbolic ‘declaration of independence’ based on the referendum.
In response, the Spanish government dismissed the Catalan president and his cabinet (who either fled or were imprisoned), dissolved the regional parliament, and suspended Catalan’s autonomy for nearly seven months.

In the snap election that followed, secessionists retained a slim majority in the Catalan parliament and elected their candidate, Quim Torra, to the presidency.

Fast Forward To Today
The court’s decision on Monday confirms a December 2019 ruling that barred Torra from holding public office for 18 months after he refused to remove yellow ribbons - a signal of support for the jailed separatist leaders - from public buildings, despite a court order to do so.

Torra is expected to be replaced by his deputy, Pere Aragonés, who represents a different separatist party. The Spanish government urged Catalonia to hold another election as soon as possible to avoid an extended caretaker administration.

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American Faces Thai Prison Over Online Review

Wesley Barnes, an American tourist who vacationed in Thailand, is being sued by a Thai hotel for causing “damage to [its] reputation” after he posted a series of negative reviews on Tripadvisor. Barnes, who accused the SeaView Hotel of “modern day slavery,” could spend up to two years in prison under the country’s controversial anti-defamation law.

LEFT CENTER → NYT (Free)	RIGHT CENTER → Barrons

MD County Reaches $20M Police Settlement

The family of William Green, a Black man who was fatally shot after being handcuffed in a police car, was awarded a $20M settlement yesterday from Prince George’s County, Maryland. Green was allegedly shot six times by Officer Michael Owen Jr after being detained as part of a traffic stop in January.

LEFT CENTER → ABC News	RIGHT CENTER → WSJ (Free)

Belarus Sees 50th Day of Protests

Sunday marked the 50th day of protests in Belarus, where more than 100,000 people took to the streets of the capital, Minsk, to march against President Alexander Lukashenko. The demonstrations emerged following the country’s controversial Aug. 9 presidential election, which protesters say was rigged in favor of Lukashenko. Government officials on Monday said more than 200 protesters were detained by police.

More: How it all started.


NEUTRAL → Associated Press	NEUTRAL → Reuters

Worth Noting: The U.S. will distribute 150M rapid COVID-19 tests from Abbott Laboratories to states over the next few weeks. The tests deliver results in as little as 15 minutes. Dig deeper.

👨‍👧‍👦 Father In Law… Switzerland approved a nationwide referendum to increase mandatory paid paternity leave from one day to ten days.

💬 The Great Debate… the first presidential debate takes place tonight from 9 to 10:30 p.m. ET (how to watch). Preview: Left Center | Right Center

Uber Wins Back London Operator’s License

A UK judge granted Uber an 18-month license to operate in London after the company appealed the city’s 2017 ban. London is Uber’s largest European market by far -- since 2012, the company has racked up around 3.5M users and 45k drivers from the capital city.

Google Clarifies In-App Purchase Policies

Google, under threat of regulation, updated its Google Play Store billing policies on Monday to clarify which types of transactions will be subject to its 30% commission on in-app purchases. The company said only a small percentage of apps on the Google Play Store would be affected by the policy change.

More: Last month, Epic Games filed lawsuits against Google and Apple after the tech giants pulled Fortnite from their respective app stores. This move was in response to Epic introducing a payment system that denied the companies their 30% cut on in-app purchases.

U.S. Hospital System Hit With Cyberattack

Universal Healthcare Systems, a major American hospital chain, was subjected to one of the largest medical cyberattacks in U.S. history over the weekend, with outages continuing through Monday. Some of the chain’s 400 locations have reportedly resorted to filing patient information with pen and paper due to computer system failure.

🏆 And The Winner Is… with a 2-0 victory over the Dallas Stars last night, the Tampa Bay Lightning secured their first Stanley Cup Championship since 2004. Full recap.

📈 Insider Provider… the SEC charged a former Amazon finance manager and two family members with insider trading on Monday. The trio allegedly profited ~$1.4M from the unlawful trading.

💲 By The Numbers… since the death of George Floyd in late May, Fortune 100 companies have committed $3.3B towards fighting racism and inequality. Dig deeper.

Raised On Recycling

In 2012, at just three years old, Ryan Hickman of Orange County, CA, accompanied his father on a trip to their local recycling center to drop off a few bags of cans and bottles. After learning about how the simple task of recycling can prevent the pollution of the environment and oceans, Ryan raced to his parents and asked if he could distribute empty plastic bags to friends and family members to collect their recycling.

Later that year, the young boy founded Ryan’s Recycling, an organization that collects used plastic, glass, and aluminum from all over Orange County. Over the past eight years, Ryan’s team has recycled more than 1 million cans and has donated almost $12,000 to the nearby Pacific Marine Mammal Center, which rescues injured seals and sea lions.

It Takes A Village To Save A Child

Last week, a herd of elephants in Kenya attempted to cross the Ewaso Ngiro river, which had swelled following a period of heavy rains. As the group traversed the raging waterway, the current of the muddy river was so strong that a six-month-old baby elephant was swept away from the others, trying desperately to keep its tiny trunk above the surface of the war as it floated rapidly downstream.

The young animal’s mother quickly jumped into action, catching her baby with her trunk and scrambling to the bank. However, noticing that the daring parent could not lift the little one out of the water herself, the rest of the herd ran into the river, created a wall around the baby, and used their trunks to deliver her safely to dry land. (Video)

You Got A Friend In Me

In May, 75-year-old Tony Williams of East Hampshire, England, lost his wife, Jo, to pancreatic cancer just nine days after her diagnosis. With no children or other family members to talk to during his time of mourning, Tony was left completely alone. All summer, the retired physicist was consumed by loneliness, waiting around his house for someone to call him – but nobody ever did.

Finally, the widower hung up a poster outside of his home, asking for someone to be his friend. Tony was soon swamped with responses, receiving so many emails from supportive strangers that his email inbox crashed. Now, Tony spends his days chatting with new friends from all over the world, including America, Japan, Egypt, and Australia. He has also received countless cards from local children who have offered to adopt Tony as their grandfather.

TOGETHER WITH

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⏳ Once Upon A Time… in a paper published last week, Australian researchers mathematically proved the existence of paradox-free time travel. Dig deeper.

🗳️ Election Resurrection… residents of Deveselu, a small village in Romania, re-elected their mayor by a landslide as a posthumous honor after he died from COVID-19 complications two weeks before the election.

💎 Diamond In The Rough… a man found what he thought was a pretty piece of glass in an Arkansas state park. As it turns out, he discovered a 9.07-carat diamond. (Photos)

📕 Random Fandom… A Million Random Digits was a number-cruncher’s bible for decades -- until one engineer, on a whim, exposed its fundamental flaws.