Good morning. Not only does today happen to be Friday (🥳), but it’s also Jerry Seinfeld’s birthday – and we got a sneak peek at his schedule.

1. Wake up
2. Hang out with a comedian and get coffee

What’s the deal with birthdays, anyway?

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.38 minutes to read.

"Genius is the ability to act rightly without precedent – the power to do the right thing the first time."

–Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

Southern California declared an emergency water shortage earlier this week, imposing restrictions on water use for millions of residents in response to record-breaking drought conditions.

💧 A deeper dive... The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California said it's implementing a program that calls on residents to reduce their water usage by 20% to 30%.

• Roughly 6 million people in Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Bernardino counties will be restricted to outdoor watering to one day a week, which the district called an “unprecedented” move.
• This January, February and March – typically the wettest months that provide enough rain and snow for the remainder of the year – were the driest start to any year on record. 
• And that’s after both 2020 and 2021 saw the least rainfall in California history. At the moment, 95% of the state is experiencing severe to extreme drought.

📸 Big picture: Peer-reviewed research published in February found the drought enveloping the American Southwest over the past two decades is the driest megadrought in more than 1,200 years, and has been exacerbated by human-caused climate change.

👀 Looking ahead... SoCal’s water restrictions are set to take effect June 1, after which any violator will be fined $2,000 per acre-foot for any water that exceeds limits. The district said if conditions worsen later this year, “outdoor watering could be eliminated altogether… and limitations could be placed on indoor use.”

At least that’s what a group of researchers led by Elinor Karlsson, director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, argue in a study published in the journal Science yesterday. The question they set out to answer: is a dog’s breed predictive of their behavior?

🐶 Background… Humans began breeding dogs at least 2,000 years ago. But most of the breeds we’re familiar with came about in the Victorian era (~160 years ago), when it was fashionable to breed dogs to create certain aesthetics and adhere to pure lineages, Scientific American reports.

In this study, the researchers examined the correlation of breed and traits including how comfortable dogs were around humans, the way they interacted with toys, whether they liked to cuddle with their owners and how well they obeyed commands.

• To investigate how genetics aligns with breed characteristics, scientists sequenced the DNA of more than 2,000 purebred and mixed-breed dogs. 
• This, coupled with ~18,000 owner surveys (again half-purebred, half-mutt), was used to map genes associated with behavioral and physical traits.
• Quantified: At least 80% of a dog’s appearance can be tied to its DNA… but breed only determines 9% of personality, the researchers concluded.

👩‍🔬📝 Zoom out: A separate analysis of death records from over 30,000 dogs in the UK was published yesterday in Scientific Reports. It suggests a dog’s breed can be used to draw some conclusions about its nature, but characteristics like body type and gender seemed more predictive of certain traits (like life expectancy) than breed.

More than five years after releasing Spectacles, its first hardware product, Snap is back for hardware round two with an automated mini drone called Pixy. The devices officially went on sale yesterday in the US and France for $230 a pop.

🛸🎥 The deets… How Pixy works is fairly simple.

1. Turn it on and stretch out your palm. The device will automatically take off and follow you around, streaming the footage wirelessly to the Memories section of Snapchat (though it’ll be without sound; the drone doesn’t capture audio).
2. When you’re done, just stretch out your palm and Pixy will land in your hand. Per Alex Heath at The Verge, “I found this to be the most impressive part of using the drone; it just works and induces a rare “wow” moment the first time it happens.”

👓🌐 Zoom out: Snap announced Pixy alongside a suite of AR products – which overlay filters and visual effects on the real world – at its annual event for developers and advertisers.

+Bonus: Watch Pixy in action.

It’s no secret that the evolution of video games has been super impressive. But this has come at the cost of accessibility and simplicity.

Meaning, there just aren’t many games that you can pick up and play anymore – they require at least a rundown of gameplay and controls… until now.

💡🏓 Introducing, Light Pong… a game console that operates on a single beam of light, aka 1-dimensional gaming. Anyone can pick up a controller and intuitively start playing; Light Pong is easily accessible whether you’re 6 or 106.

⚙️ How It Works…

• Turn it on
• Grab a friend (or select solo mode)
• Select one of the multiple game modes
• Commence endless fun 🎉

🌊 Making waves… Light Pong has amassed 50 million views on TikTok and Instagram, while managing to break into the 98th percentile of Kickstarter Campaigns (over $150k raised).

🎮 When can we play?... Light Pong is currently in development and is expected to ship in late 2022!

Subscribe for free to the Light Pong email list and stay in the know.

The US economy shrank at a 1.4% annual rate in Q1, according to Commerce Department figures published yesterday, well below analysts’ expectations of a 1% gain.

🔢 By the numbers... It marks the weakest quarter for US GDP since spring 2020, and a sharp reversal from the 6.9% annual growth rate seen in Q4 2021.

• The US imported far more than it exported last quarter, with trade subtracting 3.2 percentage points from overall GDP growth – a reflection of America having significantly stronger domestic demand compared to the rest of the world.
• Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, rose 2.7% in Q1, while prices increased by 7.8%.
• Consumer spending on goods stayed essentially flat, while services spending rose sharply – a sign that the long-awaited post-pandemic transition away from physical goods is underway, per Axios.

💼 Over in jobland… Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, have remained near historic lows for months and fell last week to 180,000, the Labor Department revealed yesterday. The unemployment rate currently stands at 3.6%, nearly back to the half-century low it reached just before the pandemic.

👀 Looking ahead… Fed Chair Jerome Powell has indicated the central bank will likely raise interest rates by a half-percentage point after its meeting next week in an effort to reduce inflation, which hit 8.5% last month (the highest annual rate since 1981).

• ☝️ The West Japan Rail Company is using a giant Avatar-style robot piloted by a human wearing a VR headset to fix remote railway power lines.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US stocks closed up across the board, led by an 18% gain in Meta’s share price. (Dow: +1.9% | S&P: +2.5% | Nasdaq: +3.1%)
• 🇷🇺 Russia has made ~$66 billion in fossil fuel sales since its invasion of Ukraine began, according to a new study by an independent research group.
• 💰 Earnings: Amazon shares dipped ~9% after reporting its slowest revenue growth since 2001 and first quarterly loss since 2015; Twitter disclosed a 16% yearly bump in users in what could be its last report before going private; Apple reported its best March quarter in history revenue-wise, but warned that Covid-related supply constraints could hurt sales by $4 billion to $8 billion.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Georgia DE Travon Walker was selected as the No. 1 overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the first round of the NFL draft.
• 🏌️ Tiger Woods reportedly played a practice round at the location of next month’s PGA Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• 🍿📺 James Corden is leaving The Late Late Show ahead of summer 2023. | Schitt’s Creek is leaving Netflix for Hulu starting October 3.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦷 Archaeologists discovered a broken tooth belonging to one of the largest carnivores ever to stalk the Earth: a species of giant ichthyosaur – a flesh-eating marine reptile – that measured nearly 50 feet long.
• ☀️🪟 Scientists have created transparent solar panels that could one day replace windows in buildings.
• 🗑️ Researchers at UT Austin used a machine-learning process to develop an enzyme that can quickly break down plastic waste into its component molecules.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🙏 The number of Latin Americans who identify as Catholic dropped from 70% in 2010 to 57% in 2020, according to a recent survey.
• 🚭 The FDA published proposed rules for a national ban on menthol cigarettes, which could take effect as early as 2024.
• 🏛️ President Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion in funding to support Ukraine. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… ​​"I am considering dealing with some debt reduction. I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction [per borrower]... I'll have an answer on that in the next couple of weeks."

• President Biden clarified his comments earlier this week about potentially forgiving some amount of federal student loan debt; roughly 40 million people owe ~$1.6 trillion in federal student debt, which makes up about 90% of outstanding student debt.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🏦 Stat of the Day: If the Fed announces a half-percentage point hike in May, as expected, consumers with credit card debt will spend an additional $3.3 billion on interest this year alone, according to a new analysis by WalletHub.

🤯 Did You Know?... 67% of all firefighters in the US were volunteers as of 2020.

📖 Worth a Read: Netflix's Big Power Clash and Rivalries Behind the Crash → (The Hollywood Reporter)

DONUT HQ is located in the city of Austin, which has a motto: “Keep Austin Weird.” In celebration of that sentiment, we bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week…

1. Crimes on the moon could soon be added to Canada's Criminal Code → (CBC News)
2. Anonymous Buyer Pays Over $1 Million for a Piece of Invisible Art → (Smithsonian Magazine)
3. Tropicana creates cereal to be mixed specifically with orange juice → (EconoTimes)
4. 'A gravity defying act': Man Stacks 7 M&Ms to Break Previous World Record of 6 → (USA Today)

TobyKeith was only a puppy when his elderly owners had to give him up. The tan chihuahua was then adopted by Gisela Shore, a Floridian with a massive heart for animals. 

• That was back in 2001. Now, more than two decades later, TobyKeith has claimed the Guinness World Record title for the oldest living dog in the world.

🧓🏻🎉🐶 Let's celebrate... TobyKeith was treated to a puppy spa day to celebrate his exciting accomplishment, complete with a bath and nail trim. The 21-year-old doggo also went for a ride in the car – one of his favorite pastimes. 

How it works: We give you a list of ingredients. You give us the completed dish they make. Easy peasy! (The rules, at least.)

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Breadcrumbs
• Oil spray
• Chicken breasts
• Salt & pepper
• Swiss cheese slices
• Ham slices
• Mayonnaise
• Dijon mustard
• Egg
• Flour
• Dijon cream sauce

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Salt
• Potatoes
• Butter
• Onions
• Mixed vegetables
• Ground beef
• Beef broth
• Worcestershire sauce
• Pepper

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Granulated sugar
• Brown sugar
• Peanut butter
• Eggs
• Vanilla

(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. Chicken cordon bleu

2. Shepherd's pie

3. Peanut butter cookies