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Good morning. What a week.
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What's on the docket for your weekend? Here's what ours looks like: 😴🛌🧗♂️🎳🥾
⏰ 🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today's newsletter takes 3.57 minutes to read.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“If you believe it’ll work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you don’t believe it’ll work out, you’ll see obstacles.”
–Wayne Dyer
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🇺🇸 Washington, D.C.: America’s 51st State?
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The House passed a bill to make Washington, D.C., America’s 51st state yesterday in a strictly party line vote (216 D to 208 R).
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Earlier this week, the White House issued a statement saying the Biden administration “strongly supports” the bill.
🤿 A deeper dive…
The legislation proposes creating a state called Washington, Douglass Commonwealth (named after Frederick Douglass), while a tiny sliver of land including the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the National Mall would remain a federal district.
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The new state would have one representative and two senators. Washington, D.C., which votes heavily Democratic (92% voted for Biden/Harris), currently has one representative in the House and zero in the Senate.
The House passed a similar bill last June, but no further action was taken in the Republican-led Senate.
⏭️ What’s Next?
D.C. statehood legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where current rules require 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.
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Even without the filibuster, only 45 of the 50 Democrats in the chamber are currently sponsoring the legislation.
If it became a state, D.C. would be the smallest geographically - around 66 square miles - and the third-smallest by population (~700k people; more than Wyoming & Vermont).
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👇🗞 Quick Bits
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🏛️ Senate Passes Anti-Hate Crime Bill
The Senate voted 94-1 in favor of an anti-hate crimes bill yesterday aimed at addressing a rise in attacks on Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The legislation would direct the DOJ to expedite the review of hate crimes related to the pandemic that were reported to law enforcement agencies.
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It would also direct the AG and Department of Health and Human Services to issue best-practice guidelines on how to mitigate racially discriminatory language in describing COVID-19.
More: Anti-Asian hate crime in 16 of America’s largest cities rose 145% in 2020 while overall hate crime fell 6%, according to an analysis from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
From the Right – WSJ
From the Left – CNBC
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🇷🇺 Pro-Navalny Russian Protests
More than 1,900 protesters were arrested in Russia on Wednesday, per OVD-Info, as demonstrators gathered across dozens of cities to demand the release of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
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The protests were scheduled for the same day President Vladimir Putin delivered his state of the union address.
More: In an Instagram post Thursday, Navalny - who is in the fourth week of a prison hunger strike - said he felt “pride and hope” after learning of the protests from his lawyer. His doctors said last week that Navalny could be near death due to sharply elevated potassium levels.
Even More: Russian politicians have a long history of hunger strikes. Dig deeper.
+In Other Russian News: Russia's defense minister said Thursday that military exercises near the border with Ukraine had been completed, and that he had ordered troops to return to their permanent bases by May 1, according to state media.
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🪐 In the Air Tonight
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover successfully converted some of the planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere to oxygen for the first time in history.
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Oxygen isn’t just useful for allowing astronauts to breathe – it can also provide fuel for combustion-powered space vehicles.
More: NASA predicts future expeditions to Mars will depend on producing oxygen-based fuel on the planet to make the trip home.
🌙 +Meanwhile, on the Moon: Israeli space technologies company HELIOS developed a method for producing oxygen by extracting it from the lunar surface, and is expected to develop a system that will launch two missions into space in the next three years.
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DONUT Holes...
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🏀 Sports media company Overtime raised $80M in funding from Jeff Bezos, Drake, and others to (among other things) juice its plans to launch a high school basketball league where players receive $100K per year.
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💼 Weekly unemployment claims fell to a pandemic low for the second week in a row, clocking in at 547,000 (vs. 586,000 last week).
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🚇 The man behind a failed 2017 NY subway suicide bombing was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years yesterday.
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🌎 President Biden hosted a virtual climate summit on Earth Day yesterday, where he and several world leaders announced new climate pledges. (+Take a 360° look at the White House’s climate strategy.)
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⚖️ The Supreme Court unanimously ruled the FTC doesn’t have the power to recover ill-gotten financial gains under a 1973 law, upending a tool the agency has used for decades. (From the Left | From the Right)
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🦠 Scientists at Texas A&M University say they’ve detected a new COVID-19 variant that shows signs of antibody resistance and more severe illness in young people. The team has submitted a paper to the CDC for further study.
🧠 +In the Know... All three major stock indexes fell ~1% yesterday following reports President Biden will propose a capital gains tax of 39.6% on top earners (currently 20%). (From the Left | From the Right)
📸 Pic of the Day…
Image: NASA
SpaceX made history this morning when it launched its Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft carrying four NASA astronauts to the ISS.
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It marked the first time the company launched both a reused rocket and a reused capsule.
Watch the launch (fast forward to ~21:45 left) and follow along on the journey.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🦥 Furry Friends Friday: A Lazy Baby
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Florida’s Brevard Zoo, home to over 900 animals and 135 different species, welcomed an absolutely adorable baby sloth earlier this month.
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It’s the first sloth to be born at the zoo in over two years.
Images: Brevard Zoo
The tiny Linnaeus two-toed sloth is still tightly clung to their mother – zoo officials have yet to release a name or sex of the baby.
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Caretakers were able to use positive reinforcement techniques to help keep mama sloth, Sammy, calm during ultrasounds throughout her pregnancy. Both Mom and Baby “appear to be thriving” since the birth.
Some zoo visitors have been lucky enough to see the newborn, as Sammy carries them out into public view. The new mom and baby have ample private spaces to retreat to if needed.
Although sloths are well-loved and admired creatures, the zoo advises people from keeping them as pets.
"If you can't make the trip down to South America, the best way to get your sloth fix is to visit your local accredited animal care facility."
… or you can watch this video.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🔔 Social Mediation… Nextdoor, a social networking app for individual neighborhoods, announced a new “anti-racism notification” that will give users the chance to edit potentially objectionable posts before they go live.
🤖 Impersonal Shopper… Kroger recently opened America’s first automated warehouse, a 335k-square-foot, robot-filled fulfillment center in Ohio capable of completing a 50-item order in under five minutes.
🧬 Hand-Me-Down Genes… renowned American geneticist George Church - developer of the first direct genomic sequencing method & one of the first people to have his whole genome sequenced - will auction off his genomic data as an NFT.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🥋 Did Ju-do?
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The sport of judo comes from which Asian country?
A) Japan
B) Vietnam
C) Thailand
D) Philippines
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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A) Japan
Judo was established in Japan in 1882 by Dr. Jigoro Kano. It is derived from jujutsu, a Japanese system of unarmed training and combat. Judo became an Olympic sport for men in 1964 and for women in 1992.
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