🎮 Action at Activision

Image: Zoe Schiffer/The Verge 

Hundreds of Activision Blizzard employees staged a virtual and in-person walkout on Wednesday over the company's reaction to allegations made in a recent lawsuit from the state of California.

• Over 3,000 current and former Activision employees (as of late Tuesday) also digitally signed a letter to company leaders in which they condemned its response to the suit, calling for "immediate corrections ... from the highest level of our organization."

Activision Blizzard, the largest U.S. videogame publisher by market value, is best known for creating Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. According to court documents, it has ~9,500 employees worldwide, 20% of which are women.

🤿 A deeper dive... Last week, CA's Department of Fair Employment and Housing accused Activision of creating a culture of “constant sexual harassment” and gender-based discrimination.

• The lawsuit alleges the company paid females less than their male counterparts and provided them with fewer opportunities to advance.
• It also accuses top executives of ignoring complaints by female employees of blatant sexual harassment (including groping and unwanted advances), discrimination, and retaliation.

🗣️ Activision responds... The video game publisher pushed back on the lawsuit's claims in its initial response, calling them "distorted, and in many cases false."

• Its chief compliance officer later said the suit relied on "factually incorrect, old, and out of context stories."

✋ Yes, but... On Tuesday, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick published an open letter calling the company's initial responses "quite frankly, tone deaf."

• He also said Activision hired a law firm to conduct a review of the company's policies and procedures “to ensure that we have and maintain best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace.” 

👁️ Looking ahead... The involved Activision employees said the latest note from executives, while encouraging, does not go far enough.

• They are reportedly asking the company to take forced arbitration out of employee contracts, overhaul its hiring and promoting process, publish salary and promotion data, and hire an outside firm to audit the executive team.

🎁 DONUT Headline: Hobby Lobby forfeited a 3,500-year-old tablet containing a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh to the DOJ after a federal investigation revealed it was illegally imported into the U.S.

Image: Sergei Bobylev/Getty Images

Simone Biles withdrew from the U.S. women's team gymnastics final on Tuesday, citing her mental health.

• During the meet's first rotation, Biles appeared to lose herself in midair while performing a vault, completing only 1½ twists instead of 2½ as planned.

Biles told reporters she was not physically injured but would have risked such an outcome if she continued to compete because her head was not in the right place.

• She later also withdrew from the individual all-around event scheduled for today, where the top two gymnasts from each qualifying team compete in all four women's gymnastics events. She'll be replaced by Jade Carey.

✋ Yes, but... Critics of the decision said Biles withdrawing from the event on such short notice placed even more pressure on her younger, less-experienced teammates. Several had to compete last-minute in events for which they had not prepared.

• The U.S. team took home the silver medal behind gymnasts from the Russian Olympic Committee, who won gold. (Russia is technically banned from this year's - and next year's - Olympics due to a doping scandal.)

📸 The big picture... Athletes are increasingly becoming more open about their mental health issues.

• Tennis star Naomi Osaka pulled out of two of four Grand Slam events this year to focus on her mental wellbeing and has made public statements about her struggles with depression.
• Twenty-three-time gold medalist Michael Phelps has shared his own personal struggles with anxiety and depression throughout his career.
• NBA star Kevin Love revealed he once experienced a panic attack in the middle of a game, which inspired him to work on his own mental health and create a foundation to help others to do so as well.

👁 Looking ahead... Biles could still compete in next week's individual competition but has not yet announced her decision.

🌊 Turning The Tide

Image: Orbital Marine Power

Anchored off the coast of Orkney, Scotland, the turbine - called the Orbital O2 - floats on the surface of the water, its rotors spinning to produce electricity as the tide ebbs and flows.

• The nearly 750-ton turbine is connected by a subsea cable to a local onshore electricity network, and has the capacity to power 2,000 homes each year.
• The O2 also sends energy to a land-based electrolyzer - a system that uses electricity to break down water into its molecular components to produce “green” hydrogen.

👁 Looking ahead... The turbine is expected to operate for the next 15 years.

• Orbital Marine Power, the company behind the O2, now plans to commercialize its technology as the UK aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Keep reading.

Image: Yoko Sen

Yuko Sen is an electronic musician and pianist that began her music education at the age of three – and it was pretty clear she was musically inclined.

• Yuko’s music has been compared to “listening to a dream,” and her unique approach to writing has landed her in lecture halls and TedX talks around the world.

When the musician fell ill and landed in the hospital five years ago, she was overwhelmed with the amount of noises berating her in her small room.

• The four different machines she was attached to all beeped in her ears around the clock, and, to add insult to injury, were all resonating at different pitches. She couldn't think straight or get a solid night’s sleep.

Thankfully, Yuko made a full recovery. But she came out of the hospital with a new mission: to change the sounds of our hospitals (and hopefully save lives).

Keep reading.

What were chopsticks originally used for?

A) Hairpins
B) Divination
C) Cooking
D) Calligraphy

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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C) Cooking

Early chopsticks in China were used mainly for reaching deep into boiling pots of water or oil while cooking.

• It wasn’t until 400 A.D. that people began using them as utensils after a population boom across China sapped resources and forced cooks to develop cost-saving habits.