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Good morning. As many good things do, this one began with a question: "How can we empower you to more easily digest our newsletter and unlock more knowledge in less time?" While this endeavor will be a never-ending one, we believe we’re one step closer to it today.
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Introducing The DONUT Headline – an even-keeled, gift-wrapped TL;DR for every piece of news we cover. Put another way, it’s a newsletter skimmer’s best friend.
Thoughts? Just mash that reply button.
⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.84 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: 7.32 minutes.)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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⚖️ SCOTUS Rules on Student Speech
The Supreme Court published an 8-1 ruling on Wednesday siding with a teen student who claimed her school district violated the First Amendment by punishing her for a profanity-laden Snap she posted to her story while off campus.
Background: SCOTUS Tackles Student Speech.
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From NPR: “The court also declared that school administrators do have the power to punish student speech that occurs online or off campus if it genuinely disrupts classroom study. But the justices concluded that a few swear words posted online from off campus, as in this case, did not rise to the definition of disruptive.”
🎁 DONUT Headline: SCOTUS ruled schools can punish students for online or off-campus speech if it genuinely disrupts the classroom (determined on a case-by-case basis).
From the Left: ABC News
From the Right: WSJ
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🥪 Something Here Seems Fishy…
An NYT report published last Friday analyzed tuna bought from three different Subway locations in LA and found “no amplifiable tuna DNA” present in the samples.
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The investigation was in response to an ongoing class-action lawsuit in California where the plaintiffs claim Subway’s tuna sandwiches “are completely bereft of tuna as an ingredient.”
To be fair… When Inside Edition sent tuna samples from three Subway locations in Queens to the lab for testing earlier this year, they all checked out.
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Plus, the plaintiffs in the CA lawsuit softened their original claims in a new filing this month, focusing not on whether Subway’s tuna was tuna at all, but rather “100% sustainably caught skipjack and yellowfin tuna” as the company advertises.
💬 Relevant Quote:
“I don’t think a sandwich place would intentionally mislabel. They’re buying a can of tuna that says ‘tuna.’ If there’s any fraud in this case, it happened at the cannery.” –Dave Rudie, President of Catalina Offshore Products in San Diego
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🎁 DONUT Headline: The tuna at Subway might not actually be tuna at all, though there are conflicting reports. (Fast-food joints have been realllll quiet since this all dropped… 🤔)
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🛡️ John McAfee Dies in Prison
Tech entrepreneur John McAfee died by suicide yesterday in a Barcelona prison after the Spanish High Court authorized his extradition to the U.S. on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters ($).
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McAfee, 75, previously worked for NASA, Xerox, and Lockheed Martin before launching the world's first commercial computer anti-virus - which carries his name - in 1987 (which he ran until 1994).
His later business interests included smartphone apps, cryptocurrency (hold this thought), yoga, and herbal antibiotics. McAfee lived for a number of years in Belize, but returned to the U.S. in 2013 while wanted for questioning in a Belize murder investigation.
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McAfee was also a political activist and unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president in 2016 and 2020. In October 2020, he was arrested in Spain on U.S. tax evasion charges that would result in up to 30 years in prison, if convicted.
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He was later charged with securities fraud in March 2021 for a crypto ‘pump and dump’ scheme in 2017-18. (You can release that thought now.)
🎁 DONUT Headline: Notorious antivirus software pioneer John McAfee died in a Spanish prison hours after extradition approval to the U.S. to face up to 30 years in prison for tax evasion – and this probably isn’t Epstein 2.0.
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📸 Pic of the Day
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Image: AP |
Matteo Villardita, 28, an Italian man who routinely dresses up as Spider-Man to cheer up hospitalized children, meets with Pope Francis during his weekly Wednesday audience.
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DONUT Holes…
🚨 Breaking: A 12-story condo building north of Miami Beach partially collapsed this morning. The building was reportedly occupied at the time, but other details were not readily available prior to our publishing deadline. See updates here.
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💉 A CDC safety panel determined a “likely association” between Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines and over 1,200 cases of rare heart inflammation (out of 150M+ vaccine recipients); FDA will add a warning to fact sheets for both shots.
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💰 Warren Buffett resigned from his trustee position at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and donated $4.1B worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares to five foundations.
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🎤 Britney Spears testified before a Los Angeles probate judge on Wednesday asking the court to end her 13-year financial conservatorship, which she categorized as “abusive."
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🇺🇸🇲🇽 Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso, TX, on Friday; VP Harris has been tasked with leading the Biden administration’s response to increased migration over the border but faced months of Republican criticism for not having visited it. (From the Left | From the Right)
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🗳️ Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will face a recall election later this year, California's Secretary of State confirmed Wednesday; just the second time out of 55 attempts that a governor recall campaign has succeeded in California. (From the Left | From the Right)
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🇭🇰📰 Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s last remaining pro-democracy newspaper, published its final edition today. (Background from the DONUT)
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📺 Jerry Seinfeld will direct, produce, and star in a film about the creation of Pop Tarts for Netflix, titled "Unfrosted."
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🚨🇺🇸 Violent Crime in America
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President Biden and AG Garland announced new efforts to stem a national rise in violent crime in a speech yesterday afternoon. (Full address.)
All together, the White House said its new violent crime strategy would:
Image: White House Fact Sheet
📸 The Big Picture
Violent crime has spiked in large cities in America during the pandemic, while non-violent crime appears to be trending downwards, according to the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.
Image: NCCCJ
The commission’s March 2021 report found the number of homicides in Q1 2021 was 49% higher than in the first quarter of 2019, while also noting homicide rates “remain well below historical highs.”
🎁 DONUT Headline: The Biden administration unveiled a plan to combat the rising violent crime levels in America. Will it work/what other solutions are out there (besides Batman)? Click the link below.
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📣🗣💬 This Week’s Poll Responses
Yes – Collegiate athletes should be able to market themselves just like any other student - using their skills to earn income or find endorsement partnerships to capitalize on their notoriety - by third parties only, though. Many athletic scholarships are worth tens of thousands of dollars, between tuition, fees, room, board, clothing, and spending allowances. That should count as compensation enough from the university.
No – Student athletes are already receiving scholarships for their “services”. In addition, many schools have tutors for athletes who miss class due to traveling or practices. In my experience, student athletes also receive allowances for missed assignments and are given extra grace in many areas. Student athletes are already treated very well. Universities should use the money they make from their sporting events to fund scholarships for all students.
Unsure – I think athletes should be able to profit off their own name, image, and likeness. I also feel that an available revenue stream reduces the odds of them being paid to throw a game. But I am concerned it will serve to further the gap between top tier athletic programs and the rest of the league.
+Note on Sample Size: We received 567 responses. 👏🥳 Some may have been lightly edited for grammar or clarity.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🇻🇪The Beat Goes On…
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Image: Instagram (@andreynahf)
Andreyna Hernandez has always loved to dance. By her early twenties, the Venezuelan was an advanced salsa dancer spending multiple hours each week at her dance school.
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Five years ago, that all changed.
The salsa dancer was sitting outside her dance studio when a nearby tree suddenly fell, leaving her crushed for more than six hours while bystanders and medical professionals tried to free her.
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The doctors at the hospital were able to save Andreyna’s life, but they were forced to amputate her left leg.
Fearing she would never be able to dance again, Andreyna got to work…
Find out what happens next.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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💾 Self-Driving: The Next Generation…
Image: Tesla
While other automakers are investing in lidar and radar technology for the development of autonomous vehicles, Tesla is stepping away from it.
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CEO Elon Musk claims vision-based autonomous driving, which relies on using high-quality optical cameras to respond to obstacles, will someday be a faster and more reliable method of guiding self-driving cars than lidar and radar.
On Monday, Tesla’s head of AI revealed a new supercomputer equipped to process the vast amounts of video data needed to achieve a vision-only autonomous driving system.
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The newest gen supercomputer, which may be the fifth most powerful in the world, has 10 petabytes of storage (1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes) and runs at 1.6 terabytes per second.
Keep reading.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🪙 Master of Coin
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Before Thomas Jefferson, what animal was on the nickel?
A) Eagle
B) Bison
C) Bear
D) Turkey
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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B) Bison
The “buffalo nickel” design, which actually features a bison (image), was minted from 1913 until 1938, when it was replaced by the Jefferson nickel.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“The fool tries to convince me with his reasons; the wise man persuades me with my own.”
–Anonymous
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