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🇺🇸 White House Sanctions Russia 🇷🇺

The Biden administration announced a range of retaliatory measures in response to “the full scope of Russia’s harmful foreign activities,” citing alleged election interference, a widespread hacking campaign, and Moscow’s claimed annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

• The White House will sanction dozens of Russian officials and entities, expel ten diplomats from the U.S., and set new restrictions on buying Russian debt (among other things).

More: As part of the sanctions, the U.S. formally accused Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of carrying out last year’s massive SolarWinds hack that affected federal agencies and corporations alike.

⚖️ Chauvin Trial Update

The last day of testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial concluded before noon yesterday.

• Chauvin invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the defense rested its case.
• The prosecution rested its case Tuesday morning after calling 38 witnesses over the course of 11 days.

Judge Peter Cahill dismissed the jury until Monday morning for closing arguments. He told them to pack a bag for their deliberations, during which they will be sequestered (isolated from any outside influence).

🧪 Breaking Bad: North Carolina

A high school teacher and basketball coach at a charter school near Charlotte, NC, was killed in a shootout with members of a Mexican drug cartel last week, according to local authorities.

• Police said Barney Harris and his brother-in-law killed a cartel member while attempting to steal drugs and cash from a trailer park ‘stash house.’
• Soon after, other cartel members showed up and more gunfire erupted, killing Harris.

Harris’ brother-in-law escaped uninjured, and was later arrested and charged with armed robbery and first-degree murder.

🧠 In the Know...

🇩🇰 Denmark became the first country to permanently halt use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine due to blood clot fears. Read the official announcement.

💊 More than 87k Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending September 2020, according to CDC data – a 29% increase over the previous year.

🚨 Breaking: A gunman killed at least eight people and injured others at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis before killing himself. Follow as the story develops.

☝️ 1 Last Thing…

💔 A-Rod and J-Lo officially call it quits.

*Correction: Yesterday, we stated the death of George Floyd occurred 10 "blocks" from where Daunte Wright was killed. This is incorrect – we meant to say "miles" instead. Apologies for the error.

📝 Jobless Report Card

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims fell to 576k last week, according to the Department of Labor, the fewest since the pandemic started.

• The number marks a decrease from 769k the previous week. The four-week moving average, which smooths out volatility, also fell to a pandemic low of 683k.

More: A total of 16.9M people continued to collect jobless benefits last week – more than 1.2M fewer than the previous week.

Another Economic Number: Retail sales rose 9.8% in March.

🚘 Fasten Your Seatbelts

Image: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz unveiled its flagship 2022 EQS all-electric sedan, which will arrive at U.S. dealerships this fall.

• The first models will offer up to 516 horsepower to go along with a 130 mph top speed and 478-mile range.
• The German automaker has not yet disclosed the starting price of the EQS, which will be part of its larger S-Class family.

Fun Fact: The EQS sedan is currently the world's most aerodynamic production car.

📉 Not AppLovin’ It

Mobile gaming company AppLovin raised $1.8B in an initial public offering early Thursday morning valuing it at $28.6B.

• AppLovin creates tools to help developers of smartphone apps improve marketing and increase revenue. It also runs more than 200 mobile-game apps (the full list) and has said it holds about 1% market share of the $189B global mobile apps market.

The company’s stock closed Thursday down 18.5% from its IPO price, cutting AppLovin’s valuation to $23.3B.

🧠 In the Know...

📝 Read Jeff Bezos' last letter to Amazon shareholders as CEO.

🌎 How the Earth has changed since 1984, courtesy of Google Earth.

🐉 Furry, er… Scale-y Friends Friday: The Dragon Master

Fourteen-year-old Belle Cress has loved fantasy and dragons her whole life. Her dream? To have one of the flying creatures as a pet.

• After an almost year-long battle with osteoporosis - a rare form of bone-cancer - The Make-A-Wish Foundation set out to make her dream come true.

Images: Make-A-Wish

Make-A-Wish partnered with Arrow Electronics in this “marvel of engineering,” creating a fully functional robot dragon for the fantasy loving teen.

• Dusk the Dragon is able to recognize and respond to Belle’s face, react to touch in multiple ways, and move on its own, showing off animal-like movements like stretching its body and wings. (Fun fact: The pair's initial meeting took place in VR.)

“What everybody involved in this project tried to do was bring Belle’s imagination to life, and I think we’ve done that.”

The seventeen pound dragon’s body was 3D printed with each scale individually glued to its body. It contains 26 motors, several computer boards, blinking eyes, unfoldable wings, and of course, a wagging tail.

“Excited … like a feeling that I can’t really explain in my chest … sort of nervous.. excited,” Belle said, “I’ve loved dragons ever since I can remember.”

Check out Dusk’s construction process.