🏦 “We’re Going Down, Down, May Need A Bailout Round”

Y-axis is in Hong Kong dollars

• Evergrande stocks have plummeted nearly 80% this year, and its bonds have also tumbled – and now Chinese authorities have told major lenders to the company not to expect interest payments due next week on bank loans.
• In recent days, protests by angry home buyers, investors, and some employees have broken out in various cities in China.

🤔 Why it matters: Evergrande owns more than 1,300 real estate development projects in more than 280 cities.

• The company also has investments in electric vehicles, an internet and media production unit, a theme park, a soccer club, and a mineral water and food company, among others.

📅 How we got here… Evergrande was founded in 1996 and expanded largely by borrowing. According to CNBC, the company committed “two cardinal sins”:

1. They’ve simply borrowed too much money. Evergrande is the world's most indebted property developer, currently holding more than $300 billion in liabilities.
2. The firm has “questionable corporate governance.”

“So when you have the two together, it’s like having a really dry forest and the tinder to really ignite,” said Matthews Asia’s head of fixed income, Teresa Kong, who is also a portfolio manager.

👁️ Looking ahead… For now, Evergrande is in talks to extend payments or roll over some loans, as well as sell off some assets. China’s government is assembling a group of accounting and legal experts to examine its finances, a potential precursor to a restructuring.

• Some rating agencies and analysts think Beijing will intervene, since allowing a big, interconnected company to collapse would reverberate across the financial system and affect millions of Chinese homeowners. This discontent could weaken the CCP’s control.
• Other analysts think Beijing will at least step in to make sure any homes under construction do get finished.
• Yet another camp believes a bailout would condone the type of reckless borrowing that’s gotten one-time high-flyers like Anbang Group Holdings and HNA Group into trouble, too.

Quite the dilemma. Stay tuned…

🎁 Lisa Byington was named as full-time play-by-play announcer for the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks, making her the first female ever to fill that position for a major men’s professional sports team.

The Home of Your Dreams, But Make It Affordable

Whether you have an impeccably decorated Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs, an empty apartment, or a mansion on the Intercoastal (hey, a girl can dream), the interior of your home says a lot about you.

Which begs the question... What do you want it to say?

• And whatever that is, there’s only one place to turn for inspiration and the right products to upgrade your living space: Bellacor.

With more than 200,000 choices of lighting, furniture, and decor from designer-preferred brands, a price-match guarantee, and free shipping on orders over $25, Bellacor delivers the premier consumer online shopping experience for products, styles, and price points within each category.

This gets even better: Bellacor is currently in the midst of its Anniversary Sale, where you can save up to 80% off select items.

• Seriously – we usually negotiate a discounted price for our readers but these prices actually can’t get any lower. Which usually equates to low quality ish… but this is designer-preferred brand quality, y’all !

There’s never been a better time to redecorate living spaces/homes, aka the place where we now spend almost all of our time – and you’ll be hard-pressed to find better deals.

So live your dream today.

Image: Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor for Rolling Stone

• Under the legislation, possession and use of psychedelics produced by entheogenic plants and fungi - including psilocybin, DMT, ibogaine, mescaline, and psilocyn - would be decriminalized (while commercial production and sales remain illegal).

📜 Background… Many researchers believe humans worldwide have been using “magic mushrooms” and other psychoactive substances since prehistoric times.

• In recent years, scientists have studied psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin as potential treatments for depression or neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s or dementia.

✋ Yes, but… Research in this field has historically been limited since the drugs are illegal on a federal level. Scientists still aren’t sure exactly how psychedelics work in the brain or their long-term effects.

🇺🇸 Zoom out… Oregon became the first state to legalize psilocybin in November 2020.

• The drug remains illegal in the other 49 states, but has been decriminalized or legalized for personal use in several cities since May 2019 (including Denver, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Ann Arbor, & D.C.).

👁️ Looking ahead… There’s proposed legislation to decriminalize psychedelics in five states (CA, IA, NJ, NY, & VT) and nearly 100 U.S. cities – but no real movement at the federal level.

• Like marijuana, the federal government considers psychedelics to be Schedule 1 drugs under the Controlled Substance Act, defined as having a high potential for abuse and holding no accepted medical treatment in the U.S.

💩🚽 Holy Cow!

Image: The Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology

On farms where cows relieve themselves as they graze, the accumulation and spread of their waste can contaminate local soil and waterways.

• The alternative - keeping them in a barn - not only means unhappier cows, but also results in their waste combining to form ammonia.
• Although ammonia produced from cow waste does not directly contribute to climate change, it gets transformed into nitrous oxide, the third-most significant greenhouse gas, by microbes when it leaches into the soil.

💡 The innovation... A new peer-reviewed study published in “Current Biology” this week found that cows can be toilet-trained. Over the course of a few weeks, the research team successfully trained 11 out of the 16 calves in the experiment to use the “MooLoo.”

• The special toilet enables waste to be collected and treated – keeping barns clean, reducing air pollution, and creating more animal-friendly farms.

Images: Facebook

A local church group in Minneapolis has pulled up their chairs to one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city.

• Setting up lawn chairs on street corners in the cities highest-crime neighborhoods, these “violence interrupters” are taking a (seated) stance and proclaiming safety over Minneapolis as part of their “21 Days of Peace” project.

📉 The result: Their efforts appear to be working. According to the local police unit, the neighborhood has already “seen a reduction in violent crimes in those areas.”

• Keep reading.

Where was the coldest temperature recorded by humans on Earth?

A) Greenland
B) Siberia, Russia
C) Antarctica
D) Nunavut, Canada

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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C) Antarctica

The southern continent is home to the lowest recorded temperature on Earth.

• In July 1983, thermometers reached a low of -128.6°F at Vostok Station in central Antarctica.