“I’d Like One Doctor’s Appointment Please”

Image: Tenor

🚘 Driving the move: The pharmacy chain used to be the go-to destination for makeup, lotion, and cold medication – but as e-commerce boomed and the company began to shift its focus to healthcare, competitors like Target, Walmart, Ulta Beauty, and Sephora have stolen some of its traditional business.

🏬 Details, details... CVS will create three new store formats designed to increase interaction with customers:

1. Primary care services. While pretty self explanatory, you can think of this store format like a doctor’s office or urgent care center with a CVS logo out front.
2. HealthHub. These locations sell a wider variety of medical products, offer more services from therapy appointments to screenings for chronic conditions, and have other wellness features like yoga rooms.
3. Traditional stores that fill prescriptions and sell things like deodorant and birthday cards.

📝 Bottom line: In recent years, CVS has been making a push away from retail and towards healthcare, acquiring insurance provider Aetna in 2018 and launching ~1,100 MinuteClinics, which administer flu shots (or vaccines) and provide urgent care for common illnesses like strep throat.

• Turning more of its stores into healthcare destinations could drive more foot traffic and drum up more claims for its insurance business.

🎁 A decentralized autonomous organization called ConstitutionDAO narrowly lost out on purchasing one of only thirteen existing copies of the U.S. Constitution at Sotheby’s auction house yesterday evening.

We Mustache You A Question...

Do you wear sunscreen every day?

If you said no and are part of the male portion of our species, you just called attention to a more widespread issue – unless something changes, melanoma will be the #1 cancer among men by 2040.

🌍🧴 Be the change you want to see… Founded by a top dermatologist and skin cancer surgeon and her daughter, Get MR. is on a mission to be that something. Their flagship product, the Daily 3-in-1 Lotion, blends non-greasy moisturizer, sunscreen, and aftershave (for the months after November, of course) into one easy step.

• Think of it like a healthy smoothie for your skin, combining antioxidants, niacinamide, safe non-nano mineral sunscreen (without benzene!), and age-defense plant stem cell extract designed to moisturize, soothe, and make a dent in men’s skin cancer numbers.

Don’t just take our word for it. Get MR. is used by Katie Couric (technically she gets it for her husband, John Molner) and tennis legends Brad Gilbert and Mike Bryan, plus it has hundreds of five-star reviews from people just like us.

Unlock 25% off your first order by using the code DONUT at checkout – and to sweeten the deal even more, Get MR. is donating 15% of all sales this month to Movember, the leading charity changing the face of men's health. Skin cancer, prepare to meet a 1-2 punch.

Take control of your (or your man’s) skincare today.

🎁 Scientists have identified the second known person to have eradicated HIV from their system without the use of drugs or any type of medical intervention, according to a study published earlier this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Migrants staying in a tent camp near the Bruzgi checkpoint on the Polish border; Image: Leonid Shcheglov/BelTA/TASS

🤿 A deeper dive… The EU and U.S. have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of luring thousands of migrants and refugees – most of them from the Middle East – to his country with easily-obtained travel visas, and then encouraging them to cross into the EU via the Polish border and claim asylum.

• In a statement published yesterday, the G7 ministers characterized the actions of the Belarusian regime as “an attempt to deflect attention from its ongoing disregard for international law, fundamental freedoms and human rights.”

📜 Background: Lukashenko, who has held power in Belarus for over 25 years, returned last year for a sixth term as president in a vote widely seen as fraudulent.

• In the aftermath of a violent crackdown on anti-government protests following the disputed election, many Western nations – including the U.S. & EU – ceased recognizing Lukashenko as Belarus’ rightful leader and imposed a series of sanctions on his regime and its supporters.

🇷🇺 Zoom out: Russian President Vladimir Putin, the only world leader who publicly supports Lukashenko, has been accused of masterminding the crisis – a claim Russia denies.

• Last week, the Biden administration briefed European allies about the potential for a new Russian military operation in Ukraine after Moscow reportedly gathered tens of thousands of troops at the neighboring border. (Russia invaded & annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.)

👁️ Looking ahead… Yesterday, Belarus said it would fly some of the thousands of migrants back home on repatriation flights and moved the migrants from encampments at the Polish border, though it's unclear where they'll end up.

Power Move

The Kemmerer, WI, power plant TerraPower plans to convert into a nuclear reactor; Image: TerraPower

🔢 By the numbers: Once built, TerraPower says the plant will provide a baseload of 345 megawatts of clean energy, with the potential to expand its capacity to 500 megawatts. The company said its reactor should provide power for 60 years.

• For reference, a small town can operate on 1 megawatt, while a mid-sized city requires roughly 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt). The U.S. has an overall capacity of about 1,000 gigawatts.

🦺 Safe & sound… The Kemmerer plant will be the first to use an advanced nuclear design called Natrium, which is safer than a conventional nuclear plant and carries less risk of melting down.

👁️ Looking ahead... TerraPower still has to clear several regulatory hurdles before becoming operational – for one, the fuel they plan to use, known as high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), is not yet available at commercial scale.

• The Kemmerer coal plant is scheduled to close in 2025, and the new facility is due to open in 2028.

Images: Facebook

When Blue the pitbull went missing from his Tennessee home in the middle of the pandemic, his owner searched desperately for months.

• He was absolutely distraught when his job relocated him to Texas and Blue was still nowhere to be found.

🤖 AI to the rescue… Luckily, Blue had been scooped up by Washington County Animal Rescue. In an attempt to get the “stray” adopted, the rescue posted a video of Blue on Facebook; somehow, in a stroke of luck (or algorithm magic), it landed on his owner’s feed.

• “That’s my dog.” he immediately commented. After the shelter confirmed Blue belonged to him, the devoted owner made the 1,200-mile road trip to reunite with his boy after more than six months apart.

What animal’s name translates from Arabic as “fast walker”?

A) Zebra
B) Elephant
C) Antelope
D) Giraffe

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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D) Giraffe

The name giraffe has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarafah, meaning – you guessed it – "fast walker."