Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. Today's email is a little on the longer side so let's dive right in.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.83 minutes to read.

"The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority."

–Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

Twitter announced yesterday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, for ~$44 billion (a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1).

🐦 So, what’s next?... Not much is known about who will run the company or what it will actually look like. But upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company entirely at Musk’s disposal.

📱💬 Some of his proposed changes… Pieced together from tweets, regulatory filings, and an interview at a TED conference over the past few weeks:

• Twitter should soften its stance on content moderation.
• Create an edit feature for tweets.
• Make its algorithm open source and put the code on GitHub to increase trust.
• Give users who pay for Twitter Blue authentication check marks.
• Rely less on advertising.
• Implement more effective anti-bot and spam measures.

🤑 Money talks: The San Francisco-based social-media company was expected to rebuff the offer, which Musk initially made on April 14 without saying how he would pay for it, but changed its posture after the Technoking of Tesla detailed elements of his financing plan for the takeover, per the Wall Street Journal. On April 21, he said he had $46.5 billion in funding lined up. Twitter shares rose sharply, and company execs opened the door to negotiations.

• The $44 billion final price tag makes this the largest deal to take a company private in at least two decades, according to data compiled by Dealogic.

🇮🇩 Indonesia is facing a cooking oil shortage. The world's largest exporter of palm oil is banning all non-crude exports effective April 28 to ensure domestic availability, as the Russia/Ukraine war – featuring two major sunflower producers – has led to higher local food prices. Palm oil is the most produced, traded, and consumed cooking oil in the world, and Indonesia produces more than half of the global supply (exporting much of it to India and China).

💨🇸🇮 The winds of change are blowing in Slovenia. Political newcomer Robert Golob's Freedom Movement party won 40 out of 90 seats in Sunday’s parliamentary election, ending incumbent Prime Minister Janez Janša’s two-year tenure. Turnout was higher than usual for the small Central European nation – about 67% of Slovenia’s 1.7 million voters cast their ballot, compared with 52% in the previous election in 2018.

🇺🇸➡️🇺🇦 US diplomats are returning to Ukraine. The resumption of American diplomatic operations in Ukraine this week was among the key steps announced after a high-level visit between US officials and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also unveiled over $300 million in foreign military financing, along with plans to nominate the first US Ambassador to Ukraine since 2019 – Bridget Brink, the current ambassador to Slovakia.

A team of researchers led by Boston University created a miniature heart replica that behaves like a living organ and can be used to test experimental treatments, according to a new peer-reviewed study published in Science Advances.

🫀 Why it’s a big deal: Heart disease has been the leading cause of death globally for the past 20 years. In America, a person dies of heart disease every 36 seconds, according to CDC figures.

• So as you can imagine, scientists are very interested in studying the human heart as it goes about its job. The problem? There hasn’t been a safe and consistent way to do so... until now.

⚙️ How it works... The researchers used nanoengineered parts and human tissue to create a 3-square-centimeter replica of a heart ventricle, called a miniPUMP, that beats on its own without any springs or external power sources.

• The miniPUMP can be used to track how the heart grows in embryo, examine how its tissue is affected by certain diseases, and try out new treatments – all without needing a living organ.

💬 What they’re saying: “We chose to work on heart tissue because of its particularly complicated mechanics, but we showed that, when you take nanotechnology and marry it with tissue engineering, there’s potential for replicating this for multiple organs,” according to Alice White, a Boston University chair of mechanical engineering.

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⚖️ A Texas court of appeals granted a stay of execution yesterday for Melissa Lucio, 53, who was set to die via lethal injection tomorrow on a charge of capital murder over the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah in 2007.

• Lucio, her family and her attorneys say she was wrongfully convicted, pointing to new evidence they claim shows Mariah died from falling down the stairs.
• Prosecutors at her original trial said Lucio physically abused the toddler, who had bruises on her body, signs of a head injury, and an untreated broken arm when she died.
• Five jurors in the initial case now say they have "grave concerns about evidence withheld from them" and support relief, according to Lucio’s lawyers, who claim the medical examiner provided false testimony.
• A number of high-profile celebrities and criminal justice advocates have voiced their support for Lucio in recent weeks, including a bipartisan majority of the Texas House of Representatives.
• The case now heads back to the trial court to review Lucio’s claims that her execution should be stopped, including her assertions of new scientific evidence proving her innocence.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: The death penalty is currently legal in 27 states and American Samoa, and can also be administered by the military and federal government. The overall number of executions in the US in modern times peaked at 98 in 1999, and has fallen somewhat steadily ever since; just 11 people were put to death last year, the lowest total in 30 years.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

• ☝️ NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover recently captured this video of a solar eclipse featuring Phoebe, one of the red planet’s two moons.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏎️🔌 General Motors will produce an electrified Chevy Corvette next year, followed by an all-electric version of the iconic sports car sometime in the future.
• 🏘️ Blackstone agreed to buy real estate investment firm PS Business Parks for $7.6 billion, less than a week after announcing a $12.8 billion deal to acquire student housing operator American Campus Communities.
• 🌐✈️ SpaceX announced a deal with Hawaiian Airlines to provide in-flight WiFi using its Starlink internet service, days after reaching a similar agreement with charter carrier JSX; both airlines said they plan to offer the service for free.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚖️ A four-day cross examination of Johnny Depp in his $50 million defamation trial against Amber Heard concluded yesterday morning.
• 🌍 British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough was officially recognized as a "Champion of the Earth" by the United Nations Environment Program, becoming just the fifth person ever to receive the lifetime achievement award.
• 🏈 The Virginia AG’s office is opening an investigation into the NFL’s Washington Commanders over allegations of financial impropriety after a House committee sent a letter to the FTC earlier this month. (The story | Background from the DONUT)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🔊👁️ Scientists at the University of South Carolina are exploring a non-invasive solution that could allow blind people to see via sound with an ultrasound wearable lens.
• 🌊 New peer-reviewed research details the largest known earthquake in human history: a 9.5-magnitude megaquake in Chile that caused a 5,000-mile-long tsunami and prompted humans to abandon nearby coastlines for a millennium.
• 🚀 The astronauts/customers who went on the first all-private mission to the ISS splashed down off the coast of Florida yesterday.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 👵 The world's oldest person, Kane Tanaka, died in Japan at age 119.
• 📚 The Brooklyn public library is allowing any American aged 13 to 21 to apply for a digital library card, giving them access to their entire ebook collection.
• ⚖️ A judge held former President Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents to the NY AG's investigation of his business dealings; Trump must pay $10,000 for every day he continues to withhold the documents. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 💊 The FDA approved remdesivir as the first Covid treatment for children under 12; it will be available for kids who test positive, are at least 7 pounds, and are hospitalized or at high risk. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH."

• Former President Donald Trump told Fox News yesterday that he has no intention of returning to Twitter after being banned indefinitely last year, despite the company’s new ownership.

⚰️🔥 Stats of the Day: 56% of Americans who died in 2020 were cremated, more than double the level of two decades ago (27%), according to the Cremation Association of North America.

• By 2040, 4 out of 5 Americans are projected to choose cremation over casket burial, per CANA and the National Funeral Directors Association.

🤯 Did You Know?... The tradition of having candles on a cake dates back to the Ancient Greeks, who often burned candles as offerings to their many gods and goddesses.

• Putting candles on a cake was a special way to pay tribute to the moon goddess Artemis, with the round, shining object representing the moon.

📖 Worth a Read: How To Criticize Coworkers → (Alex Turek)

💭 Imagine this... you're a zookeeper who's devoted your life to helping and caring for animals, but even after all your studies, there's one species that makes you nervous to be around: the sloth. 

• And just your luck, you get assigned to work in the sloth enclosure at your zoo. *Gulp*

It's not just a nervous dream; this was the case for Amelia Jones, a zookeeper in Sussex, England. 

• Initially very nervous around the sloths, Amelia was surprised when she seemed to hit it off with a male named Gordon.
• "Gordon took a very gentle approach with me," she shared. "Like he knew I was nervous, and would slowly come to where I was, peer at me sweetly, and patiently watch me work.”

🦥❤️ A happy ending... Over time, Gordon and Amelia developed a daily routine of morning cuddles and a stroll around the zoo. Now the two are inseparable – Gordon refuses to get out of bed each day until he's visited by his bestie. 

Name the numbered South American countries.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. Just copy your unique link below, and then send to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

1. Brazil
2. Argentina
3. Bolivia
4. Peru
5. Colombia