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Welcome to Wednesday. As Bon Jovi once said, “Whoaaaaaa, we’re halfway there.”
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The goal: Make it to here.
⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.45 minutes to read.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
–Will Rogers
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🇺🇸 Reopenings Across America
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Throughout the pandemic, state and local officials have largely been in charge of determining what restrictions, if any, to impose to slow new COVID-19 infections.
🤿 A deeper dive…
Image: NYT
Currently, more than half of states are “fully reopened” (26), which the NYT defines as having lifted all specific restrictions on businesses statewide except mask and social distancing mandates and limits on gatherings.
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Within that group, the governors of eight states - AZ, FL, GA, IA, MO, MT, OK, & TX - have rolled back all remaining COVID-19 restrictions, including mask mandates, social distancing, and limits on gatherings.
Another five states are set to “fully reopen” later this month, while the governors of Michigan, Ohio, and New Mexico have set targets for doing so based on vaccination or case rates.
⏭️ What’s Next?
Each individual state has its own plan for the reopening process, which can oftentimes - but not always - vary by county or even by city.
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👇🗞 Quick Bits
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🇮🇱🇵🇸 Conflict Continues
Israel carried out multiple airstrikes in Gaza yesterday while the militant group Hamas fired hundreds of rockets towards Tel-Aviv and other Israeli cities.
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The death toll over the past two days climbed to at least 43 Palestinians - including thirteen children - and six Israelis, including a child, per Reuters. Seven of the Palestinian deaths on Monday (including three children) were attributed to an explosion with unclear origins.
Most of the rockets launched by Hamas were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defense system, though several hit populated areas.
More: The situation is ongoing as of Wednesday morning.
Even More: What’s behind the latest clashes in Jerusalem?
From the Right: WSJ
From the Left: BBC
*Correction: Yesterday we referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as “Al-Asqa.” We apologize for the error and did not mean any offense.
*Editor’s Note; For Transparency’s Sake: When we cover emerging and fluid events with conflicting reports and numerous eyewitness accounts, we instruct our journalists to place an emphasis on getting the factual accuracy/timeline of the events correct – and since we work together to update those events up until publish-time, typing mistakes can slip past both our guardrails.
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⛽ Gas Shortages in the Southeast
Image: Colonial Pipeline
The average U.S. gas price climbed to $2.99 this week – its highest level since late 2014 and a seven-cent increase from last week – following the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.
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Gas stations in seven states along the pipeline were estimated to have shortages on Tuesday, per GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan.
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The proportion of gas stations experiencing shortages ranged from 0.5% in Tennessee to 12.3% in North Carolina (as of 8 pm CT).
More: The governors of Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia had all declared states of emergency as of Tuesday in response to gas shortages.
Even More: The Colonial Pipeline is responsible for carrying ~45% of all refined fuel to the East Coast, including gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and home heating oil.
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🎓 Freshmen Kicked-off Campus for COVID Violation
Three freshmen at UMass Amherst were kicked-off campus and not allowed to take their semester finals after a social media photo depicting them unmasked and attending an off-campus party was sent to school officials in March.
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In a statement, the school said: “Students received a number of public health messages this semester that emphasized the importance of following public health protocols and the consequences for not complying, and those messages were also shared on UMass social media channels.”
Parents of the students involved pushed back against the school's decision, revealing they have hired a lawyer and plan to file a lawsuit. The students were forced to forfeit $16K apiece in tuition.
From the Left: USA Today
From the Right: NY Post
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DONUT Holes
💉🚗 Uber and Lyft will provide free rides to and from vaccination sites until July 4 under a new partnership with the White House, per the WSJ.
📈 Job openings in the U.S. rose nearly 8% to a record high in March (8.1M), according to a Labor Department report issued yesterday. (Previous record: 7.6M, set in November 2018.)
💰 YouTube announced a $100 million fund that will pay the most popular creators on Shorts, its TikTok, Reels, and Spotlight competitor; anyone posting videos is eligible to participate in the fund.
🏥 A former nursing assistant-turned-serial killer was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after she confessed to using insulin to murder seven elderly patients at a VA hospital in West Virginia.
⚖️ The Fulton County DA intends to seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing eight people - six of them women of Asian descent - at three Atlanta-area massage businesses in March; suspect to be indicted on terrorism, murder, and hate crime charges.
🗣The Rumor Mill: TikTok is testing a jobs service for Gen Z, per Axios.
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📸 Pic of the Day
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Image: Manchester City |
Manchester City was crowned champion of the Premier League.
🏇More Sports: Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit - whose victory was called into question after a failed drug test - has been allowed to enter the upcoming Preakness Stakes under certain conditions.
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📢🗣💬 This Week’s Poll Results…
Yes - "Children under the age of 13 are already engaging on social media. Restrictions are easily bypassed as they stand by simply lying about age. Putting protections in place, as opposed to restrictions, would be more beneficial for the safety of children."
No - Due to the prevalence of responses, we included a few different perspectives.
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Parent: "I have watched my children get consumed by the influence of virtual strangers. We have had ongoing conversations about how to appropriately manage social media in reference to healthy boundaries and healthy outlooks. These conversations were challenging even into their upper teens. It seems like an unnecessary stressor for young children to cope with. They will be drawn to it, but that doesn't mean it will be good for them."
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Millennial: "I am 33 years old and I don’t always make the best decisions on Instagram (aside from it being a time sink). I expect young children to have an even harder time. I think people today (children and adults) need more personal interactions, and more time to be bored. I believe boredom in children is the beginning of creativity :) social media hampers all of that. And there are also issues of privacy and exposure and predators, to name a few."
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Gen Z: "I'm a Gen Z kid, so I was put on the internet a lot earlier than I should have been. I had gotten instructions from my parents on what I could and couldn't do, but I was 10 years old – and what 10-year-old is going to remember a set of rules from their parents? I talked to strangers a lot older than me, gave out information I should have kept private, and learned a lot of things inappropriate for my age. It's very hard for young kids to understand what is ok to share and to look at – they're kids for God's sake – and they're very curious, of course they're going to push the limits. That's not saying that you should keep social media from all teens, but I do believe that giving social media to kids under 13 is too early (coming from a kid who lied about her age on her Google accounts)."
Unsure - "Social media is here to stay, so I think children need to learn social media responsibility early. However, I am concerned about the psychological impact it may have."
+Note on Sample Size: We received ~800 responses. (Thank you!!! 🥳)
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🎭👏 Live for the Applause
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Image: Twitter
Broadway theaters have not heard the roar of applause for nearly 15 months due to COVID-19 restrictions.
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Come From Away, a Tony and Olivier award-winning musical that sold out over 1,200 performances pre-pandemic, was one of the first to announce its return to the stage starting September 21.
Images: Broadway World
When the cast returned to the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in Manhattan last weekend to start prep for opening night, Broadway once again heard the echoes of applause as fans lined up to celebrate their return.
Watch the heartwarming video.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🍩🚗 A DONUT Original: The EV Takeover
Gif: Giphy
As prices drop and range increases, consumers are much more eager to buy electric vehicles now than they were in the late 90s: sales increased 43% globally in 2020 – with more than 3 million sold – even as overall car sales declined.
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In North America alone, sales of EVs and hybrids have nearly doubled since 2016.
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Car manufacturers on the continent are set to triple the number of EV models on the market by 2024.
A recent article from The Guardian predicts electric vehicles are on the verge of mass adoption, with a “tipping point” estimated to occur sometime between 2023 and 2025. Start your silent engines…
Keep reading.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🪐🇦🇶 The Discovery Channel
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Which was observed by humans first: Uranus or Antarctica? (Not a trick question, get your mind out of the gutter. 😜)
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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🍩 Share the DONUT
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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Answer: Uranus
Uranus was discovered in 1781, while Antarctica was first sighted in 1820.
To be fair, Uranus is a lot bigger.
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