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Good morning. Our head is on a swivel: A tiger was spotted walking around our neighboring city of Houston late Sunday.
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The tiger meandered toward an off-duty deputy who had a drawn gun... but was then coaxed away by a 26-year-old man out on bond for a July 2017 murder.
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Before authorities could arrive, he loaded the animal into his car and fled the scene, leading to a police manhunt. The 26-year-old was arrested last night.
The tiger is still at large.
⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today's newsletter takes 4.29 minutes to read.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
–Steve Jobs
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
📱 Instagram for Kids: Good Idea or Nah?
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The National Association of Attorneys General, a group of 44 AGs from various states and territories, published an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday calling on the company to abandon plans for an Instagram platform focused on children under the age of 13.
📜 Background:
In the U.S., children under 13 are subject to enhanced legal protections under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
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Traditionally, social media companies - including FB & Instagram - have complied with COPPA by banning all users under 13, though Zuckerberg has acknowledged many children join by lying about their age.
In March, Facebook confirmed it was exploring creating an Instagram service for children.
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🤿 A deeper dive…
The letter was signed by 44 state-level attorneys general. They cited three main reasons for their position:
1. Use of social media can be harmful to the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of children.
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The attorneys general cited a peer-reviewed study: “In the last decade, increasing mental distress and treatment for mental health conditions among youth in North America has paralleled a steep rise in the use of smartphones and social media by children and adolescents.”
2. Young children are not equipped to handle the range of challenges that come with having an Instagram account.
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“Children do not have a developed understanding of privacy. Specifically, they may not fully appreciate what content is appropriate for them to share with others, the permanency of content they post on an online platform, and who has access to what they share online,” the letter states.
3. Facebook has a history of failing to protect the safety and privacy of children on its platform.
The attorneys general pointed to two recent occurrences:
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A design flaw in FB’s Messenger Kids app, intended for kids aged six to 12, allowing children to join group chats with strangers.
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Some instances where Instagram’s algorithm promoted diet content to users with eating disorders.
⏭️ What’s Next?
Facebook has not revealed a launch date for its Instagram service for children.
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At a congressional hearing in March, Zuckerberg said the social media giant is “early in our thinking” regarding how an app for kids would work.
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📰 Quick Bits
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🇮🇳 New COVID “Variant of Concern”
The WHO will classify B.1.167 - the highly-contagious, triple mutant strain of COVID-19 currently spreading in India - as a “variant of concern” at the global level, an official said on Monday, citing preliminary studies finding increased levels of transmission.
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A variant can be labeled as “of concern” if it has been shown to be more contagious, more deadly, or more resistant to current vaccines and treatments, according to WHO guidelines.
However… The organization said current data shows the existing COVID-19 vaccines “remain effective at preventing disease and death in people infected with this variant.”
More: The WHO has previously designated three other strains as “of concern” – B.1.1.7 (first detected in the UK), B.1.351 (South Africa), and P.1 (Brazil).
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📝 MDMA Shows Promise as PTSD Treatment
A peer-reviewed Phase 3 study published in Nature yesterday found MDMA, the illegal drug also known as ecstasy or molly, brought relief to patients suffering from PTSD when paired with talk therapy.
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Of the 90 people who volunteered for the study, researchers found 67% of participants who received MDMA and talk therapy no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis two months after treatment, compared with 32% in the placebo group (who only received talk therapy).
More: Before MDMA-assisted therapy can be approved for therapeutic use, the FDA requires a second positive Phase 3 trial (which is currently underway with 100 participants). Approval could come as soon as 2023.
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🇮🇱🇵🇸 Violence in Jerusalem
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israeli police were injured in confrontations early Monday in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in both Islam and Judaism.
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In response to the morning’s violence, the militant group Hamas fired hundreds of rockets into Israel that included six aimed at Jerusalem, which was targeted for the first time since the Gaza War in 2014.
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Their move prompted retaliatory Israeli airstrikes targeting Gaza that officials said were responsible for at least 15 of 22 reported Palestinian deaths on Monday (the other seven were killed in an explosion that could have come from Hamas or Israel).
More: Monday's aggressions came during Jerusalem Day, an Israeli holiday marking the capture of parts of Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Even More: It also occurred during the last days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends this week.
From the Right: WSJ
From the Left: Guardian
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DONUT Holes...
🤗 Hugs between friends and family will be allowed in England starting May 17 for the first time since the pandemic began; UK to enter next phase of lockdown easing.
💉 The FDA authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12- to 15-year-old adolescents.
🏳️🌈 The Biden administration reinstated anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, especially transgender folks; reverses Trump administration policy excluding “gender identity” from Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. (From the Left | From the Right)
💻🛢️ An Eastern European criminal group known as DarkSide was responsible for this weekend’s Colonial Pipeline cyberattack disrupting 45% of the East Coast’s fuel supply, the FBI confirmed yesterday; segments are being brought back online in a stepwise fashion. (What happened?)
🚘 Tesla’s Autopilot could not have been engaged in last month’s fatal Model S crash in Texas, according to a preliminary report from the NTSB; no probable cause yet released (initial reports indicated no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash).
💬Quote of the Day
“We continue to believe that the [Hollywood Foreign Press Association] is committed to meaningful reform. However, change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right. As such, NBC will not air the 2022 Golden Globes. Assuming the organization executes on its plan, we are hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023.” –NBC, per a statement released yesterday. Here's some background.
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🔢 By the Numbers
$26B - The amount of revenue Pfizer expects to generate from its COVID-19 vaccine in 2021.
$4,213.46 – Ether’s new all-time-high (reached yesterday morning). The coin now accounts for ~20% of the combined value of all cryptocurrencies; its previous high of 24% was set in August 2017.
1.4B - The number of miles NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has to travel home from its expedition to the asteroid Bennu. The two-year journey will take the craft around the sun twice.
44% - The percentage of people aged 33-40 with at least one chronic health condition, per a recent CNBC/Harris Poll survey.
$500M+ – The amount of money Jeff Bezos reportedly spent on his new superyacht, according to Bloomberg Wealth; construction is due to be finished next month.
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📣🗣💬 This Week’s Poll Question
Do you believe children under 13 should have access to social media?*
Yes
No
Unsure
*Poll results and the best comments for each response will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🛬 Baby’s First Flight
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Images: CNN
There were two big surprises on a Hawaii-bound Delta flight last week. Not only did one passenger welcome a new bundle of joy – she didn’t even know she was pregnant in the first place.
1) This does happen (it’s called a ‘cryptic pregnancy’) and 2) thankfully it was this flight – there just-so-happened to be three NICU nurses and a physician named Dr. Dale Glenn on board.
Lacking the proper equipment needed to care for such an early birth, the four medical professionals had to think quickly and get creative.
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The team used shoelaces to tie off the umbilical cord and microwaved bottles as baby warmers. At one point, an Apple Watch was used to monitor the newborn’s heart rate.
Lavi Mounga and Dr. Glenn after welcoming baby Raymond
Somehow, Lavi and her baby were kept stable for three hours as they flew over the Pacific Ocean into Hawaii. (The medical team: mic-drop.)
Read more.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🚀 Explosive Finding…
Image: NASA/JPL/MSSS/The Murray Lab
Once upon a time, about 3 to 4 billion years ago, Mars was a hotspot for volcanic activity.
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Most researchers believe the planet’s volatility tapered off about 3 million years ago, meaning the Red Planet may be “dead” – at least in geological terms.
However... A team of planetary scientists identified a dark deposit roughly the size of Washington, D.C., marking what appears to be ash and rock along a fissure in the Martian surface.
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The finding suggests Mars may have been hospitable for microbial life within the past 50,000 years.
Read more.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🎧 The Connecting King
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Bluetooth technology is named after a former king from which country?
A) India
B) France
C) Britain
D) Denmark
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) Denmark
Bluetooth technology is named after ancient Viking King Harald “Bluetooth” of Denmark and Norway. Scholars say King Harald was nicknamed "Blåtand," meaning blue tooth, because he had a dead tooth.
Fun Fact: The Intel employee who suggested the name said he did so because King Harald “was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries.”
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