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Good morning and welcome to Wednesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 3.34 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.15 minutes.)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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🥤🚫 Milkshake Woes
Image: Giphy
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🎁 DONUT Headline: In what may come as a huge surprise to anyone who’s ever tried to order an ice cream cone or McFlurry, McDonald’s has run out of milkshakes in the UK.
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But for once, it’s not because the machines are down – rather, it’s due to a driver shortage and pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions.
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Last week, the extremely popular Nando's was forced to close about 50 of its restaurants after running out of chicken. Rival KFC also warned recently that supply chain issues meant it was unable to stock some menu items.
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Dairy giant Arla has had to cut back on milk deliveries to supermarkets because of a shortage of drivers, while sweet producer Haribo also reported problems resulting from a shortage of drivers.
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Oil giant BP temporarily closed a "handful" of its UK sites because not enough unleaded petrol and diesel had been delivered.
🇺🇸 Over to the U.S…. Many businesses are still struggling to cope with broad shortages of key supplies and skilled labor even as customer demand climbs above pre-pandemic levels.
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A recent Gallup poll found 7 in 10 Americans have been unable to get a product they wanted in the past two months because of shortages or have experienced significant delays in receiving a product they ordered, while 46% have had both.
👁️ Looking ahead: The pandemic has led to disruptions in manufacturing, shipping, and labor supply. Supply shortages are likely to continue into 2022 and shipping container prices are projected to remain elevated into 2023, per ING.
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In the U.S., job openings are at an all-time high (outnumbering the amount of people unemployed) and the pace of hiring in July was its highest in 11 months.
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🇦🇫 Afghanistan Update
Image: U.S. Air Force/Reuters
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🎁 DONUT Headline: We last covered the situation in Afghanistan in Monday morning's newsletter. Here's what's happened since. 👇
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📅 Monday: CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with Taliban co-founder and de-facto leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, according to multiple sources (CBS, NBC, WaPo, WSJ). Details of the meeting weren't immediately available.
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A Taliban spokesperson reiterated the militant group plans to hold the U.S. to an August 31 deadline for withdrawing all troops from the country, warning that failure to do so would "provoke a reaction."
📅 Tuesday: The Taliban announced it will prevent Afghan citizens from accessing Kabul's airport, where there are ongoing flights to evacuate thousands of people who worked with Western governments and organizations and now fear reprisals from the Taliban.
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In public remarks yesterday afternoon, President Biden said he will stick to the withdrawal deadline of next Tuesday following a virtual meeting with G7 leaders.
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About 21,600 people were evacuated out of Afghanistan over the past 24 hours according to Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, vice director for logistics of the Joint Staff.
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Separately, Airbnb announced plans to start housing 20,000 Afghan refugees around the world free of charge.
From the Right: NY Post
From the Left: CNN
A 360º Look At Afghanistan
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🍩 DONUT Holes…
Image: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
+Bonus: Including the newly sworn-in New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the U.S. has nine female governors — tying records from 2004, 2007, and 2019.
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine… “When the attacker withdraws those funds from the exchange, that’s not a transaction that you can take back,” a management and program analyst at the FBI told CNBC.
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They were referring to a growing number of Coinbase customers reporting that money is disappearing from their accounts and that the company's customer service has been inadequate in responding.
🔢 Stat(s) of the Day… Unvaccinated individuals are five times more likely to become infected with COVID-19 and 29 times as likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 as fully vaccinated individuals, CDC data out of Los Angeles County shows.
📖 Worth Your Time… The Surprising Reason There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🏛️ The House's Big Day
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Image: Shawn Thew/EPA/Shutterstock
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🎁 DONUT Headline: The House approved a procedural measure yesterday advancing both the $3.5 trillion budget framework and bipartisan ~$1 trillion infrastructure bill in a 220-212 vote strictly along party lines.
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🤿 A deeper dive... The $3.5 trillion budget resolution blueprint appeared in danger late Monday when a group of nine moderate Democrats said they would vote against the measure unless the House voted first to send the infrastructure package to President Biden's desk.
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Members of the group eventually approved the measure after a procedural rule was added setting a September 27 deadline for a final House vote on the infrastructure package, which has already been approved by a 69-30 majority in the Senate.
📝 What's in the bills?... We've previously written about the contents of both pieces of legislation, including proposals to cover their cost. You can find them here: $1 trillion infrastructure bill | $3.5 trillion budget resolution blueprint.
👁️ Looking ahead... The relevant Senate committees will now start preparing legislation to carry out the directives outlined in the $3.5 trillion budget resolution blueprint.
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Party leaders said they hope to finish that work shortly after the House infrastructure vote deadline of September 27.
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📣🗣💬 This Week's Poll Question
Background: In yesterday’s Dose of Discussion, we covered the latest public polling on the relationship between government and online misinformation.
Our question to you: Do you think the government should take steps to restrict false content online, even if it limits freedom of information?
Yes
No
Unsure
+Note: Results and the most thoughtful responses will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🧠 Magic Touch
Image: BanksPhotos
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🎁 DONUT Headline: Neuroscientists successfully tested a small electrode brain implant that can restore sensation in people experiencing numbness due to nerve damage.
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Peripheral neuropathy - nerve damage in bodily extremities such as the hands and feet - is a condition affecting millions of people around the world.
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Its toll can be both logistical (i.e. difficulty buttoning a shirt) and emotional (i.e. inability to feel the touch of a loved one).
A new, minimally invasive procedure studied by the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research promises to relieve the effects of peripheral neuropathy.
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By implanting electrodes in historically hard-to-reach areas of patients’ brains (called sulcal areas) neurosurgeons were able to elicit tingling feelings and “a sensation of electricity” in patients hands and fingertips.
The institute’s study, which marks the first in-human test of the procedure, indicates the method may one day be able to restore function to the numb extremities of those who have experienced spinal cord injuries or strokes.
Keep reading.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🌲🌲 Lost Little Lyuda
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Images: SPO Salvare/East2West News
Russian toddler Lyuda Kuzina, who will be two years old in the fall, wandered away from her mother last week while playing in their garden. In a blink of an eye, the toddler was nowhere to be found.
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Nearly 500 volunteers went looking for the tiny tot, though hope was fading fast. Miraculously, Lyuda was found three days later without any major injuries, telling her rescuers "I'm a princess."
Known for its wild brown bear and wolf populations, it's a miracle the young girl survived the dense forest for as long as she did.
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“Everyone cried – experienced and first time volunteers, local residents, everyone was sobbing.”
Keep reading.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
☢💣 The Big Three
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What was the third country to develop an atomic bomb?
A) USSR
B) China
C) France
D) Britain
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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🍩 Share The DONUT
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Simply:
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) Britain
The United Kingdom was the third country to develop and test a nuclear weapon, after the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
–Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
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