| THIS IS HIDDEN PRE-HEADER TEXT
|
|
|
Good morning. As you wipe the crusties out of your eyes (TMI?), allow us to regale you with the weekend’s happenings – including Project X 2.0 in Huntington Beach.
⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 3.87 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: 8.40 minutes)
|
|
🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“Friendship with one’s self is all important, because without it one can not be friends with anyone else in the world.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
|
|
🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🏫 Critical Race Theory in Schools
|
The Texas Senate passed a bill early Saturday that would implement a number of changes to the state’s education system, including preventing schools from requiring staff to discuss or teach critical race theory.
🤿 A deeper dive…
The bill would require teachers who talk about “current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs” to look at viewpoints "from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective."
-
It would also explicitly ban the teaching of a number of concepts, including the ideas that “meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race” and "an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's race or sex." (The full list.)
🇺🇸 Across the U.S.
The Texas bill is similar to measures in Idaho and Oklahoma signed into law within the past month. Several other Republican-controlled state legislatures are also considering legislation banning CRT.
-
On a federal level, former President Trump introduced an executive order in 2020 seeking to ban diversity training and training on CRT for federal workers, which has since been revoked by President Biden.
⏭️ What’s Next?
The Texas House already passed the bill on May 11, but now has to approve it again due to changes made by the Senate before the measure ends up on the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott.
|
|
|
📰 Quick Bits
|
|
|
|
|
🇧🇾🛬 Belarus Grounds Plane, Arrests Journalist
Raman Pratasevich, a prominent journalist and opponent of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, was arrested Sunday after the Ryanair plane in which he was traveling - headed from Greece to Lithuania - was diverted to Minsk, Belarus, for several hours due to a purported bomb threat.
From the AP: “There were conflicting accounts of the move.
-
The press service of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said the president himself ordered that a MiG-29 fighter jet accompany the airliner after he was informed of the bomb threat.
-
Deputy air force commander Andrei Gurtsevich said the plane’s crew made the decision to land in Minsk.
-
But Ryanair said in a statement that Belarusian air traffic control instructed the plane to divert to the capital.”
Belarusian officials later said no explosives were found on board. The incident sparked an international outcry, with Lithuania’s president calling it “a state-sponsored terror act.”
More: EU leaders are expected to discuss possible sanctions against Belarus at a scheduled meeting today.
|
|
|
📝 Gender Diversity Study
In a study published this week in the journal Pediatrics, researchers in Pittsburgh found nearly 1 in 10 students in over a dozen public high schools identify as gender-diverse.
📙 Definition: Gender diversity refers to the extent to which a person’s gender identity, role, or expression differs from the cultural norms prescribed for people of a particular sex, per the American Psychological Association.
-
The study found 9.2% of the 3,168 participants reported differences between their sexes assigned at birth and their experienced gender identities – far higher than the ~2% cited in most national estimates.
Keep reading.
|
|
|
DONUT Holes…
-
🏌️ Phil Mickelson secured a two-shot victory at the PGA Championship on Sunday, becoming golf’s oldest major winner ever at 50.
-
🏦 Banks are on pace in 2021 to give more money in bonds and loans to green projects than fossil fuel projects for the first time ever, according to a Bloomberg analysis ($).
-
🤸 Gymnast Simone Biles became the first woman ever to complete a Yurchenko double pike vault in competition at the U.S. Classic in Indianapolis on Saturday. (Watch it.)
-
🗳️ Seven rural counties in Oregon have voted to secede from the state and join Idaho. (From the Left | From the Right)
-
🚀 Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic completed its first successful space flight in more than two years on Saturday, the first of four flights the company has planned for 2021.
+Bonus, per the WSJ: Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology sought hospital care after becoming sick in November 2019, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report. (Plus: Take a 360° look at the origins of COVID)
|
|
|
📸 The Weekend in Pics…
Image: David J. Philip, AP
Police in Huntington Beach, CA, declared an “unlawful assembly” and imposed an emergency curfew late Saturday in response to the second night of Adrian’s Kickback – an impromptu, two-day birthday party that began from a now-deleted viral TikTok video.
Images: AP
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won his first Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.
Image: Alex Miles/AFP
Mount Nyiragongo, a volcano in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, erupted overnight Saturday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate to nearby Rwanda and causing at least 15 deaths.
🔭 The Week Ahead...
Monday: Closing arguments in the Epic vs. Apple court battle
Tuesday: The one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death
Wednesday: Ohio selects the first winner in its “Vax-a-Million” campaign
Thursday: Friends: The Reunion airs on HBO Max; U.S. releases second estimate for Q1 GDP
Friday: National Hamburger Day
|
|
|
🍩 A Very DONUT Announcement
|
|
Today marks the official launch of our new and improved DONUT Shop.
The Origin Story...
Our mission: Positively transform news and conversation in the U.S. by providing a home for impartial, trustworthy information that’s fun and easy to consume.
-
We believe access to quality information is a human right, so our news will always be 100% free.
The downside: Delivering the news is not 100% free for us – meaning we need to generate revenue to stay alive.
|
"It all starts with flamethrowers... and with merch. But mainly flamethrowers." –Elon Musk, probably.
|
Seeing no reasonable path to flamethrowers, we chose merch.
But not just any merch. We set out to create the softest and comfiest merch known to humankind.
Let us know how we did. 😉
+BONUS: Get 15% off by using the code DONUT15 at checkout. Sale ends tonight at midnight.
|
|
|
🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
✉️ An “Extra Credit” Celebration
|
Image: Twitter
Just one hour after she interviewed for the optometry program at the University of Incarnate World, 22-year-old Gurjiv Kaur received an email with her formal acceptance.
-
Keeping the news a secret until her parents got home, Gurjiv set them up in front of a camera and told them they would be playing a game of “tongue twisters” for an extra credit assignment – little did her father know, he was holding the letter in his hands.
Their reaction is absolutely priceless.
|
|
|
🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
|
🚑 Life, Death, and Robots
Image: E&T
As an emergency lifesaving procedure, CPR can double or triple a person’s chances of survival after going into cardiac arrest. But the success of CPR relies on the consistency of chest compressions administered to a patient, which can be interrupted when a human first responder becomes fatigued.
To improve the efficacy of CPR procedures, a UK ambulance service has begun using a robotic paramedic device called LUCAS 3 to administer chest compressions to patients in cardiac arrest.
-
LUCAS 3 delivers high-quality CPR within seven seconds of emergency responders arriving on the scene, and continues to mechanically administer consistent chest compressions throughout a patient’s journey to the hospital.
Keep reading.
|
|
|
💡 Dose of Knowledge
🐵 Glow, Glow, Glow Your Coat
|
Which of these mammals has bioluminescent fur? (I.e., fur that changes color under UV light.)
A) Wombat
B) Kangaroo
C) Marten
D) Platypus
|
(keep scrolling for the answer) |
|
|
🍩 Share the DONUT
|
An easy way to support us – but for free this time.
Exclusive rewards, dope merch, and even a trip to DONUT HQ in Austin are at your fingertips. All you have to do is:
1. Copy your unique referral link below.
2. Post said link on social media, drop it in the company Slack channel, share it with your nosy neighbor, etc.
3. Watch the rewards roll in.
|
|
|
|
Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
|
💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
|
|
D) Platypus
In 2020, researchers discovered platypus fur glows under UV light, a trait found in just two other mammals – the opossum, and several species of flying squirrel.
|
|
|
|
