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Good morning. Houston residents can now rest easy – the loose tiger spotted last week was turned in to authorities and transferred to a North Texas animal sanctuary over the weekend.
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From our perspective: This news is more than good… it’s grrrrreat!
⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 3.38 minutes to read.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
–Socrates
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
😷 Mask Mandates for Businesses
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Last week, the CDC eased its guidelines for fully vaccinated people, saying they can now resume outdoor and indoor activities without wearing a mask (minus public transportation, hospitals/doctor's offices, homeless shelters, and prisons).
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However… The CDC’s new mask guidance is trumped by federal, state, or local regulations, meaning businesses and workplaces still retain the right to enforce mask mandates on their property.
🤿 A deeper dive…
In response to the guidance, a number of U.S. businesses announced new policies where vaccinated shoppers - and sometimes workers - are no longer required to wear masks on the premises in areas without an existing mandate.
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They include Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Trader Joe’s, Starbucks, and more – see the full list.
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In all of the announcements thus far, retailers have said they will not ask customers to offer proof of vaccination.
Other retailers have said they will continue to require everyone to wear masks - even if fully vaccinated - while reviewing the CDC’s new guidelines and soliciting feedback from employees.
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They include Kroger, Target, Walgreens, Apple, CVS, Home Depot, Meijer, and more – see the full list.
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📰 Quick Bits
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🇨🇳🪐 China Lands Rover on Mars
A Chinese rover successfully touched down on Mars on Friday, making China the second nation to achieve a soft landing on the red planet (other countries that have tried either crashed or quickly lost contact).
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The rover, named Zhurong after a Chinese mythological god of fire, initially launched in July 2020 and has spent the past several months orbiting Mars as part of the Tianwen-1 mission.
More: The main task of the mission is to perform a global and extensive survey of the entire planet using Zhurong.
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🇮🇱🇵🇸 The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Violence between Israel and Palestine continued for a seventh straight day on Sunday.
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Israeli airstrikes on Saturday destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza housing the offices of several international media outlets (including the AP & Al Jazeera). Officials said it was home to Hamas military intelligence. Hamas continued to fire rockets targeting Tel-Aviv and other areas in Israel, bringing its total fired over the past week to ~3,100.
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At least 188 Palestinians have been killed and 1,230 wounded, while eight Israelis have been killed and hundreds more injured (according to the AP).
More: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ruled out the possibility of an immediate ceasefire with the Palestinians.
Even More: What’s behind the conflict?
From the Right: WSJ
From the Left: NBC News
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🃏 Target Suspends Pokémon Cards
Target temporarily suspended in-store sales of Pokémon and sports trading cards on Friday, citing employee and customer safety concerns.
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📜 Background: Trading cards have surged in popularity during the pandemic, especially Pokémon cards. Some early editions of the card game have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in online auctions; even recently-printed cards are rapidly increasing in price.
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Target did not elaborate on what caused the decision, or what threatened people’s safety.
However… The move followed an incident earlier this month where a trading-card customer leaving a Target in Wisconsin was attacked by three men in the parking lot, leading the victim to draw his gun (no shots were fired; the victim suffered minor injuries).
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DONUT Holes...
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📴 DarkSide, the criminal ransomware group that targeted the Colonial Pipeline, is purportedly shutting down – though hacking groups such as these often disband only to pop up under a different name.
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💰 The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $1.9 trillion in the first seven months of this fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department's monthly budget report. (From the Left | From the Right)
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🏔️ The Muldrow Glacier in Alaska's Denali National Park is moving 10-20 meters per day – its fastest pace in the last 64 years. (Time-lapse video.)
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🏛️ Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York was selected as House Republican chair on Friday, replacing Liz Cheney. (From the Left | From the Right | Background from the DONUT)
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⚖️ A jury in a North Carolina federal civil rights case awarded $75 million to two Black, intellectually disabled half brothers who spent decades behind bars after being wrongfully convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.
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📱 President Biden had a personal Venmo account… until Buzzfeed News found it on Friday.
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📸 The Weekend in Pics...
Image: Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun
A capacity-limited crowd of ~10,000 saw Rombauer win the 146th Preakness Stakes on Saturday. Derby Winner and former Triple Crown hopeful Medina Spirit finished third.
Image: Twitter
☝️ Vanessa Bryant, wife of the late Kobe Bryant, accepts induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame on his behalf.
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Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Tamika Catchings, and Kim Mulkey were among the others inducted at Saturday’s delayed 2020 ceremony. This year’s event is set for September.
🔭 The Week Ahead...
Monday: Tax Day (extended from April 15)
Tuesday: Eurovision Song Contest begins (ends Saturday)
Wednesday: Ford unveils its all-electric F-150, called Lightning
Thursday: PGA Championship begins (ends Sunday)
Friday: National Pizza Party Day
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
👧👧 The One Where They Meet for the First Time
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Images: TikTok
“It was the BEST day of my life.”
First-grader Julia received an exciting birthday surprise this month; the seven-year-old finally met her best friend, Luna.
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After first connecting via online-learning last fall, the two have become inseparable – virtually, that is.
During Julia’s birthday stroll through the park last week, that all changed.
Start your Monday with a smile.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🧠 Much To Think About…
Image: YouTube
A man paralyzed from the neck down for over a decade was able to write complete sentences on a computer screen using a brain implant that translates thought into handwriting, according to a recent study from Stanford University. (Full text)
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Using the “mindwriting” system, the man typed a total of 90 characters at an average speed of 18 words per minute – for comparison, an able-bodied person can type an average of 23 words per minute on a smartphone. (How does it work?)
This is the first time scientists have created sentences from brain activity linked to handwriting, paving the way for more sophisticated devices to help paralyzed people communicate faster and more clearly.
Keep reading.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🍹 Escape to Margaritaville
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Where was the frozen margarita machine invented?
A) Mexico
B) Florida
C) New Mexico
D) Texas
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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🍩 Share the DONUT
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1. Copy your unique referral link. 👇
2. Post said link on social media, drop it in your group chat, send it to your ex, etc. (Okay, maybe not the last one – delete our suggestion... just like those drunk texts.😉)
3. Watch the rewards roll in.
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) Texas
The first frozen margarita machine was created by Dallas restaurateur Mariano Martinez in 1971. As told to NBC DFW:
“One day I was in a 7-Eleven store and I saw kids buy a Slurpee and it’s what gave me the idea. I said ‘Hey, I wonder if you could freeze a margarita in a Slurpee type of machine?”
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