Dose Of News Useful Today

Wednesday, March 24

🐫 Over the Hump

Welcome to Wednesday. On the docket: Israel’s fourth election in two years, GameStop’s first earnings report of 2021, and it appears 5G is coming to space.

⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.02 minutes to read.

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Daily Sprinkle

"Do not wait for someone else to come and speak for you. It's you who can change the world."

–Malala Yousafzai

✅ Evanston Approves Reparations

The Chicago suburb of Evanston on Monday became the first U.S. city to make reparations available to its Black residents for what it describes as harm caused by “discriminatory housing policies and practices and inaction on the city's part."

🤿 A deeper dive…
Evanston’s city council voted 8-1 to approve the measure. It allocates $400K towards direct payments of up to $25K to eligible Black households for home repairs or down payments on property.

Qualifying residents must either have lived in or been a direct descendant of a Black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, when the city banned discriminatory housing.

This is the first initiative of Evanston’s reparations fund, established in 2019, to address historical wealth and opportunity gaps for Black residents. The fund is being bankrolled by the first $10M in revenue from the city’s 3% tax on the sale of recreational marijuana.

The lone vote against the plan, Alderman Cicely Fleming, released a statement saying she is “100% in support of reparations” but called the program “a housing plan dressed up as reparations.”

🏛️ At the Federal Level…
House Democrats in January reintroduced H.R. 40, which proposes creating a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for Black Americans, after it was first proposed in 2019.

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🇮🇱 Israel’s General Election

Israel held its fourth election in two years yesterday.

With around 90% of the vote counted (as of 4:45 am CT), it appears PM Benjamin Netanyahu's path to a 61-seat parliamentary majority is closing – a scenario that would see the country potentially face a fifth election.

Absentee ballots still need to be tallied, so official results may not be known for days.

From the Left → Axios	From the Right → Jerusalem Post

📝 Colorado Shooting

A gunman opened fire in a supermarket in Boulder, CO, on Monday, killing ten people. The suspect, identified Tuesday as a 21-year-old male from Arvada, CO, surrendered to police after being shot in the leg. He has been charged with ten counts of first-degree murder.

Officials released the names of the victims yesterday.

From the Left → Denver Post	From the Right → WSJ

⏰ Catch Up Quick:

⚖️ Jury selection in the Derek Chauvin trial concluded yesterday. Opening statements are scheduled to begin Monday morning. (From the Left | From the Right)

💉 Texas announced all adult residents will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting Monday, with priority given to those 80 years old or older.

🏛️ The Senate voted 68-29 to confirm two-term Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as Labor secretary. (From the Left | From the Right)

💼 Prince Harry Goes to Work

Prince Harry accepted the role of chief impact officer at health tech startup BetterUp Inc.

The San Francisco-based company offers professional and mental health coaching services.

More: Prince Harry won’t manage employees or have direct reports, but is expected to have input into initiatives including product strategy decisions and charitable contributions, and advocate publicly on topics related to mental health.

🤑 Eat Green

Eat Just, producer of “alt-protein,” announced a $200M round of funding led by the sovereign wealth fund of the state of Qatar, with the investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen also contributing.

Since its launch as Hampton Creek in 2011, the company has raised more than $650M to build out its line of plant-based egg replacements and, more recently, lab-grown meat.

More: Eat Just became the world’s first government-approved vendor of lab-grown chicken last December after getting the thumbs up from the Singapore Food Agency.

📽️ A Trip to the Movies

Disney announced a slate of changes to its summer film schedule:

Cruella will debut as planned on May 28, and will be released in cinemas and on Disney+.
Black Widow, originally set for May 7, is now debuting July 9 in cinemas and on Disney+.
Pixar film Luca will now be released exclusively on Disney+.

Other films affected include Free Guy, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The King’s Man, and Deep Water.

🎦 More Cinema News: Regal Cinemas will open roughly 500 locations across the U.S. starting April 2. Separately, its parent company announced a multiyear deal with Warner Bros. to guarantee a period of theater exclusivity for films starting in 2022. (Read more.)

⏰ Catch Up Quick:

🎮 GameStop released its first earnings report since its Reddit-fueled stock surge in January. Read more.

📝 Robinhood filed confidentially for IPO, as first reported by Bloomberg ($) and confirmed by Axios.

🌐 Amazon selected Adam Selipsky, former 11-year AWS VP and current CEO of Salesforce-owned Tableau, to head Amazon Web Services.

🧪🧬 The Kitchen Chemist

“[The students] see that science and math is not this big bad boogie man. It is actually useful and they are able to do it.”

Being a STEM teacher is Jonte Lee’s passion and “true profession” in life. When online learning began, the teacher had to quickly figure out how to teach chemistry via Zoom.

He did so by transforming his kitchen into a full-on science lab.

Images: YouTube

As quarantine went on, Jonte began sharing some of his lessons on social media and now is widely known as “The Kitchen Chemist,” attracting students of all ages from around the globe.

“This is my dream. I want to be a community teacher… not limited by four walls.”

Jonte was recently “Zoom-bombed” during class by none other than Kevin Hart, who had some exciting news to share: Jonte will be featured on Regular Heroes, a new series from Amazon!

Hart did more than deliver the exciting news during the call – the comedian donated brand new chemistry supplies to the school and provided multiple scholarships to Jonte’s students.

What is Happiness? A Conversation with an illusionist!

“Live in the moment” is more than a quote displayed on decorative throw pillows. For Derren Brown, it’s his motto for life -- a mindset and lifestyle he’s adapted from the Greek stoics. Derren is a mentalist and illusionist, star of Netflix’s ‘The Push’, and the best-selling author of ‘Happy’.

In today’s wide-ranging conversation, Derren joins host Vicky Nisbet, AVP of Comms & Media at Salesforce UK, to discuss practical tips for “living in the moment” and what he thinks is the key to lasting happiness. Plus, he shares what we often get wrong about goal setting and uncovers ways that quarantine has unlocked opportunities for us to reconnect with our inner selves.

Listen Now →

🌌 Out Of This World… Lockheed Martin’s space division announced a partnership with satellite start-up Omnispace, stating their intention to explore the possibility of establishing a 5G network in space.

🚫 Mistaken Identity... the main page for an Oakland-based punk rock band - and the individual accounts of its three members - were temporarily disabled by Facebook after it falsely identified the band’s name as being associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory.

👂 Listen To This… the CEO of Clubhouse, a popular audio-chat iPhone app, announced the social networking platform could be available for Android as soon as this summer – and may soon ditch its invite-only feature.

🌱 It’s Alive… complex carbon-bearing molecules - long theorized by astronomers - were identified in space for the first time, a discovery that can help scientists understand how the prerequisites for life form in space.