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Good morning and welcome to Wednesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.22 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.36 minutes.)
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"The more one does, the more one can do."
–Amelia Earhart (1897 – sometime around 1940)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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The Nakamoto Decision
 Craig Wright arriving at court last month; Image: CNN
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🎁 A Miami jury ruled in favor of Australian computer scientist Craig Wright – the man claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of bitcoin – in a court case that pitted him against the family of his deceased former business partner, David Kleiman.
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At stake was a wallet containing the 1.1 million bitcoins mined by Nakamoto in the early days of his invention, currently worth ~$55 billion.
⚖️ The arguments… Both sides claimed to have evidence proving Wright is the creator of bitcoin. The dispute centered around whether or not he partnered with Kleiman on the project, entitling his family to half the bitcoins in Nakamoto’s wallet.
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The jury’s decision spared Wright from having to pay Kleiman’s family, but ordered him to pay $100 million in compensatory damages to a joint venture started by the two men over a breach in IP rights.
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“This has been a remarkably good outcome, and I feel completely vindicated,” Wright said in a Twitter video posted right after the verdict.
🧐 Word to the wise: To date, nobody has produced the exact string of 1’s and 0’s representing the 256-bit private key that grants access to the mega-wallet – the only piece of evidence that can conclusively prove the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.
👁️ Looking ahead… Prior to the verdict, Wright had promised to prove his ownership of the wallet and donate a chunk of the fortune to charity if he won at trial. Stay tuned.
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Wages Continue to Rise
 Image: Giphy
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🎁 Companies are setting aside an average 3.9% of total payroll for wage increases next year, the most since 2008, the WSJ reports.
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🚗 Driving the news: The data is taken from a survey of more than 229 U.S. companies – half of whom have 10,000+ employees – that’s set to be released later today. It was conducted by The Conference Board, a think tank.
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The survey shows companies are planning on raising salary ranges, which would result in higher minimum, median, and max salaries. According to the WSJ, this suggests pay raises could be broad-based and affect workers across the wage spectrum.
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If so, it would continue a trend. Compensation including wages and benefits rose faster in the third quarter than at any other point on record.
✋ Yes, but… Wages may be rising, but so is inflation – and at historic levels. Around 39% of survey respondents said inflation factored into their decision to increase pay.
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Watch out for the wage-price spiral, too. When companies raise wages to combat inflation, they're often forced to raise prices on consumers... which leads to more inflation.
📈 Zoom out: The job market is hot (newsflash!), and the ongoing labor shortage has led companies to sweeten the pot for new hires. Those who switched jobs between August and October saw a median wage increase of 5.1% versus 3.7% for those who stayed in their current jobs, an unusually large gap, according to the Atlanta Fed.
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Carmen Sandiego’s Got Nothing On Us
Over the next 52 seconds, let’s take a look at what’s happening around the world...
🇲🇲 Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s former leader who was deposed in a military coup earlier this year, was sentenced to two years in detention at an undisclosed location on Monday for incitement and breaching Covid protocols. The UN described the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s trial as a “sham.”
🇭🇹 Haiti: Earlier this week, three more hostages were released from the group of 17 missionaries and their children that were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang in October. Their release brought the total number of people freed to five. (Background on the situation.)
🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates: The country shifted its workweek to match a large amount of the world on Tuesday, implementing a 4.5 day workweek that starts on Monday and ends at noon on Friday (instead of Sunday-through-Thursday). It follows other culturally-shifting policy changes aimed at attracting talent from across the world in an attempt to ease the economy’s dependence on oil.
🇷🇺 Russia: President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for roughly two hours via video call yesterday. Immediately following the call, Biden hopped on a chat to debrief with other world leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (From the Left | From the Right | See the °360 View)
🇩🇪 Germany: Speaking of Angela Merkel, yesterday was her last full day as chancellor of Germany, a position she’s held for the past 16 years. She’ll be replaced by current Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who’s set to be officially sworn in today.
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
DOJ Challenges Texas’ Redistricting Maps
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 Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference announcing the lawsuit; Image: Andrew Harnik/AP
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🎁 The DOJ filed a lawsuit against Texas this week alleging GOP state lawmakers discriminated against Black and Latino voters when they approved new redistricting maps.
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🤔 What’s the deal?... Texas added more residents in the past 10 years than any other state, according to the 2020 census. As a result, the Lone Star State gained an additional two House seats, putting lawmakers in charge of dividing the state into 38 congressional districts.
Latino, Black, Asian-American, and other minority groups accounted for ~95% of the state’s population growth, and the lawsuit alleges Texas violated the Voting Rights Act during this process by deliberately diluting the votes of these newly-arrived peoples.
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It probably won’t be resolved ahead of next year’s midterms, as redistricting litigation can take several years to conclude, per the AP.
⚖️ On the other side… A spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) condemned the lawsuit. “We are confident that Texas’ redistricting plans will be upheld by the courts, and our office continues working with the Office of the Attorney General to ensure Texans are represented fairly.”
🇺🇸 Zoom out: Last year was a census year, which means states across the country are undergoing the once-in-a-decade process of redrawing their legislative districts.
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While the process for redrawing districts varies by state, Republicans currently control more state legislatures in charge of the mapmaking process than Democrats (20 vs. 11).
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The other states either have a single congressional district or rely on an outside commission to draw the maps.
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine… “There are not enough people. I can’t emphasize this enough, there are not enough people… If people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words.” –Tesla & SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a father of six, at a WSJ event on Monday, urging doubters to look at the data.
🔢 Stat(s) of the Day: Symptoms of depression and anxiety have doubled during the pandemic, with 25% of youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20% experiencing anxiety symptoms, according to a public health advisory issued yesterday.
📖 Worth a Read… 'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest company
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🍩 DONUT Holes…
 Image: MBARI
- ☝️ Scientists captured extremely rare footage of a giant phantom jellyfish.
- 🚫🌐 Amazon Web Services suffered an outage on Tuesday preventing users from accessing Disney+, Instacart, Roku, Coinbase, Tinder, Venmo, and other services. It even brought some delivery operations to a standstill.
- 🚨 Hawaii Gov. David Ige declared a state of emergency across the state after a seasonal cyclone caused power outages and flooding.
- 🏖 Outer Banks has been renewed for a third season.
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📣🗣💬 This Week's Poll Question
Last week, we covered arguments before the Supreme Court in a case that directly challenges the constitutional right to an abortion established in Roe v. Wade.
Our question: Do you think Roe v. Wade should be overturned?
Yes
No
Neutral/Unsure
+Note: Poll results and the best comments for each response will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter. A written response isn't required, all you need to do is click one of the links above and your vote is recorded.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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The Giving Tree
 A Manistee sequoia seedling undergoing micropropagation. After two months in a special solution, it’ll start growing roots; Image: Archangel
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🎁 A Michigan scientist and tree expert says the world can reverse climate change back to 1968 levels within the next 20 years by planting his cloned sequoia and redwood trees.
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🌳 Background: Giant sequoia trees are generally found on the western slopes of California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. But, for the past 73 years, three sequoias have survived and thrived along a bluff in Manistee, MI, after being planted by a couple returning from vacation out West.
- One tree in particular is still growing today, which many experts say is a marvel of nature.
🌎 Tree of Life… "That one tree may be the most important giant sequoia on the planet," said David Milarch, who co-founded a Michigan nonprofit called Archangel that preserves the genetics of old-growth trees.
- Over the past few years, Archangel used DNA from the Manistee sequoia and California redwood to clone, then grow trees using a process called micropropagation.
- The nonprofit has shipped the fledgling trees to countries all over the world, aiding reforestation efforts in England, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
👁️ Looking ahead… Archangel says in two years, it can make 2 million clones of sequoias and redwoods that can produce oxygen and absorb copious amounts of carbon dioxide.
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🤗 Dose of Positive
Dashing Through the Snow
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 Image: Facebook
Think there’s only one Santa Claus? Onlookers at the Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine would probably tell you otherwise.
⛷️🎅 Look out below-ho-ho!... Dressed as St. Nick from head to toe, an impressive 230 alpine enthusiasts made their way down the mountain last week to raise money for local education and recreation programs.
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With their red suits beaming against the pearly snow and beards blowing in the wind, the skiing Santas ended up collecting thousands of dollars for charity.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
One of These Things is Not Like the Others
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Which of the following cities is NOT a state capital?
A) Chicago
B) Boston
C) Phoenix
D) Atlanta
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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🍩 Share The DONUT, Win An iPhone 13 Pro
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From now through January 1, every person that signs up using your unique link will count towards our iPhone 13 Pro giveaway AND these dope prizes. 👇
Simply:
1. Copy your unique referral link below.
2. Post said link in your family’s group chat, drop in the company’s Slack channel, send it to your famous cousin, etc.
3. Watch the rewards roll in.
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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