Good morning and welcome to Thursday. You may have noticed the odd Simpsons gif/meme floating around the newsletter – and you probably won't be surprised to find out there is, in fact, a fan or two on the team (we call them the “DOH-nuts”).

Anyways, one of the aforementioned DOH-nuts dropped one of Homer's rare nuggets of wisdom into our Slack channel yesterday, and today we’d like to share it with you:

• “Don’t keep blaming yourself forever, blame yourself once and move on.”

We don’t know who needs to hear it, but hopefully someone out there does.💕

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.73 minutes to read.

"You win more from losing than winning."

–Morgan Wooten (1931-2020)

Lawmakers in the Central African Republic (CAR) unanimously voted to adopt bitcoin as legal tender yesterday, becoming the second nation in the world to do so behind El Salvador.

🪙🇨🇫 Driving the move... “The president supports this bill because it will improve the conditions of Central African citizens,” President Faustin-Archange Touadera's chief of staff told Reuters without elaborating. In a statement, he called it “a decisive step toward opening up new opportunities for our country.”

• Since gaining independence from France in 1960, the CAR has experienced few moments of peace, per Agence France-Presse; the country is in the midst of a 9-year civil war and currently ranks 188 out of 189 countries in the UN's Human Development Index, a benchmark of prosperity.

✋ Yes, but... Of the nearly 5 million people living in the country, roughly 11% have access to the internet, which is necessary to access crypto.

• Two of the CAR’s former prime ministers reportedly sent a letter last week expressing concern about adopting bitcoin without guidance from the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), calling it a "serious offense."
• The CAR is one of six countries that uses the CFA franc, a regional currency governed by the BEAC.

🌎 Zoom out: El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender last year, but adoption has been slow. A report published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “bitcoin is not widely used as a medium of exchange” within the Central American country.

… has major implications for the biggest sports league in America. Because starting tonight, thousands of players, agents, team personnel, and fans will converge on the Strip for the 2022 NFL Draft.

🏈 By the numbers...

• After quarterbacks went No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 overall last year, this draft could mark the first time since 2013 – and just the second time in the past 20 years – that zero QBs are selected in the top five.
• Of the 55 players ever drafted No. 1 overall, 33 have multiple Pro Bowl selections, 15 have a first-team All-Pro selection, and eight are in the Hall of Fame.
• The Jacksonville Jaguars have the No. 1 overall pick for the second straight year, with Vegas odds pointing to them picking Georgia defensive end Travon Walker. Overall, the Georgia Bulldogs are projected to have a record-tying four defensive players selected in the first round.

👀 Looking ahead... The first 32 picks will happen tonight starting at 8 ET. The second and third rounds begin tomorrow, and the fourth through seventh rounds are on Saturday.

+Bonus: What do I need to know about betting on the NFL draft? → (ESPN)

Get ready to work-in some new locations for your aspirational Zillow searches, because the most-recent WSJ/Realtor.com Emerging Housing Markets Index just dropped.

For those unfamiliar, the index identifies the top metro areas for homebuyers seeking an appreciating housing market and appealing lifestyle amenities – or in other words, the places that give off a “not super boujee yet but will be soon” kinda vibe.

🏆 The top five:

1. Rapid City, South Dakota
2. Santa Cruz/Watsonville, California
3. North Port/Sarasota/Bradenton, Florida
4. Santa Rosa, California
5. Naples/Immokalee/Marco Island, Florida

🤔 One interesting thing: The top 20 cities in the ranking have an average population size of about 600,000.

🏠 Zoom out: Pending home sales, a leading indicator of health for the housing market, declined for the fifth straight month in March. Per Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors’ chief economist, “The falling contract signings are implying that multiple offers will soon dissipate and be replaced by much calmer and normalized market conditions.”

• “As it stands, the sudden large gains in mortgage rates have reduced the pool of eligible homebuyers, and that has consequently lowered buying activity.”

It’s why moms love taking pictures! They take her back to a time and a place and allow her to relive happy moments.

But some things can’t be photographed. Things with a lot of meaning, like wise words spoken, or the details of a happy memory.

That’s why people love to journal. Instead of just seeing how they looked during those memories, they get to revisit how they felt and what they thought.

💐 It’s almost May!... and if you’d like to give mom a high-quality journal this Mother’s Day, you can do so while supporting students and teachers with ScribesForStudents, which donates one journal for every journal purchased.

• The Scribes have donated over ten thousand journals so far, with many of them going to impoverished areas of New York and Honduras. 👏

And The Scribes don’t just make regular journals – these feature weekly discussion prompts and conversations so mom can get the most out of her journaling experience.🙆‍♀️

🚨🍩📓 Awesome savings alert!… save $10 off your purchase with the code DONUT10!

Give mom the gift of memories with a journal from The Scribes!

Absolutely not, said the DOJ, which arrested the top two executives at Archegos Capital Management yesterday – founder Bill Hwang and CFO Patrick Halligan – and charged them with securities fraud, wire fraud, and racketeering. Both are alleged to have overseen the fund's multi-billion dollar rise and subsequent collapse.

💰 A deeper dive...

• Federal prosecutors accused Hwang of using Archegos’ portfolio to manipulate the stock prices of a handful of companies to grow the firm from $1.5 billion in holdings to $35 billion in a single year; both men pleaded not guilty, claiming they're innocent of any wrongdoing.
• Hwang allegedly used derivative securities with no public disclosure requirements, hiding the size of Archegos’ positions and leaving investors unaware that the firm was dominating the trading of a select few companies like ViacomCBS and Discovery.
• Archegos collapsed in March 2021 when the price of those stocks declined, leaving banks like Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley with more than $10 billion in losses and erasing more than $100 billion in stock market value in a matter of days.

📸 The big picture: In addition to federal criminal charges, the SEC also filed a civil lawsuit that names Hwang and Halligan as defendants along with William Tomita, Archegos’ head trader, and Scott Becker, its chief risk officer, both of whom have already pleaded guilty.

• ☝️ This 1,700-year-old leather sandal was discovered by a passing traveler in Norway thanks to melting ice; local archaeologists said it bears a striking resemblance to footwear from the Roman Empire despite coming from such a remote area.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 Shares of Meta rose 12+% in extended trading after the company reported ~30 million new daily users, reaching 1.96 billion globally; the company’s user base had declined by 2 million the previous quarter.
• 🥩 Cultivated meat startup Upside Foods raised $400 million to build a manufacturing facility in the US; though not yet approved for sale by regulators, the company said its products could hit the market later this year.
• 🚘 General Motors will tie executive compensation to EV sales targets moving forward.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎾 Wimbledon won’t require a Covid vaccine to compete this year, paving the way for world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to compete in the tournament (which begins June 27).
• 🎥💧 Disney unveiled the first trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar sequel along with a name: Avatar: The Way of Water.
• 🍿 The Batman is officially getting a sequel, with Robert Pattinson signed on to reprise his role as the caped crusader alongside director Matt Reeves; the original is currently the highest-grossing movie of the year ($759 million to-date).

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🔊 MIT engineers have developed a flexible, paper-thin loudspeaker that has the potential to turn any surface into a high-quality audio source.
• 🧠 Humans can live normally without sections of their brian, a new peer-reviewed study suggests; it examined a woman who’s missing her left temporal lobe – but had no idea it wasn’t there – and hasn’t been adversely affected by its absence.
• 🦖 One in every five reptile species globally faces extinction, according to a new ecological analysis.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 📝 A new report from the MN Department of Human Rights found the Minneapolis PD has exhibited a pattern of racial discrimination for at least a decade.
• 🇷🇺​​ A former Marine from Texas who had been detained in Russia since 2019 was freed in a prisoner swap yesterday.
• 🦠 NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said the US is “out of the pandemic phase” when it comes to Covid, but cautioned that the larger global pandemic is still going on. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 🎶 Do you like working to music, but are distracted by lyrics? Subscribe to Flow State, a newsletter that shares daily recommendations of music perfect for working.*

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💬 Quoted… ​​“Air Force One I’m just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn’t have taken.”

• Boeing disclosed yesterday that it's lost more than $1 billion so far in relation to its deal with the Trump administration to modify two 747 jumbo jets to serve as the presidential planes.

🎓 Stats of the Day: For the 2020-21 academic year, 130,000 prospective college students took gap years, according to the nonprofit Gap Year Association, up from between 40,000 and 60,000 before the pandemic.

• This year that number looks to be on pace or even higher, largely as a result of low college-acceptance rates, per the WSJ.

🌏 Around the World... Myanmar's military junta sentenced the nation's former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in jail after finding her guilty of corruption.

• The Nobel laureate is also facing more than a dozen similar charges – which she has denied – that could result in up to 190 years in jail.

🤯 Did You Know?... The reason why coffee usually results in a bowel movement is because caffeine activates contractions in your colon and intestinal muscles.

📖 Worth a Read: Nukes, Nubs And Coners: The Unique Social Hierarchy Aboard A Nuclear Submarine → (The Drive)

👍 It's good for Twitter and democracy (39%) – “Free speech means you should be able to say almost anything and allow it to be dealt with in the court of public opinion. It shouldn’t be tempered by truth claims, which are often subjective. Musk appears to believe it’s not Twitter’s job to filter.”

👎 It's bad for Twitter and democracy (30%) – “Musk’s claim of being an advocate of free speech for all doesn't include those who disagree with him, like whistleblowers at Tesla or journalists critical of his businesses. Twitter should be a public utility, and not under the control of a single individual.”

😬 It won't really matter that much/change anything (17%) – “While Musk will be able to exert a lot of influence, Twitter is still subject to the same business realities it always has faced.”

🤷‍♀️ Unsure/other (14%) – “It could go both ways. Depends on how it is managed and the changes that are implemented."

+Note on sample size: We received 7,150 responses. Some may have been lightly edited for grammar or clarity.

It’s said that no one likes the smartest person in the room – but what isn’t said is that we’re all secretly jealous of them.🤫

Do you find yourself always wishing you had something intelligent to say? It can be hard these days to find new things to talk about. Humans are routine and we often get locked in the same cycles of content, never learning anything new. 💡🚫

If you want to dive deeper into interesting topics and always have something interesting to say, follow these steps:

1️⃣ Go to Refind.com. 

2️⃣ Select 5 topics of interest. 

3️⃣ Rate a couple of sample links.

Done.

Every morning afterward, you'll be emailed 7 curated links to high-quality, life-enriching articles on the topics you selected.

Think of the knowledge you’ll gain from both Refind and the DONUT – you'll literally be unstoppable!!! 🦸

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A non-profit organization in Kansas City is transforming the way its residents connect with nature, community, and food – one little orchard at a time. 

Giving Grove has spent the last ten years transforming broken down or underutilized spaces around the city into lush gardens, "improving the urban environment through a network of sustainable little orchards." 

🌳🌳🌳 All for one... The orchards are tended by and for the community, giving purpose and nutritious food to many inner-city folks who may not typically have access to it. 

• “This is much, much bigger than food," CEO Rob Reiman told The Kansas City Beacon. "There will always be the need for green spaces in our communities. There will always be the need to create these safe destinations for people to reconnect with nature."

🎥🍿🍩 At the movies with the DONUT... Can you name these poorly-explained movie plots?

1. Giant monkey unsuccessful at love, loses temper in New York.
2. Great big shark do do do do do doo.
3. A teenage boy wakes up and realizes his body is changing.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. King Kong
2. Jaws
3. Spider-Man