Good morning and welcome to Thursday. 160 years ago today, the Mexican army pulled off one of the biggest underdog victories in history, decisively thwarting a French army that was twice the size, better equipped, and hadn’t been defeated in 50 years.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone. 🎇🥳🍾

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.06 minutes to read.

"To get angry is like to revenge yourself for the guilt of others."

–Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Yesterday, the EU officially proposed a complete ban on Russian crude within the next six months, as well as on refined oil products by year’s end.

🚫🇷🇺🛢️ More deets... 

• The EU’s executive body also proposed cutting Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, and two others off from the global Swift financial-messaging system, and banning three state-owned Russian broadcasters from the EU.
• Both measures can only be adopted with unanimous approval from the bloc’s 27 member-nations.
• Earlier this week, Hungary and Slovakia – two countries heavily dependent on Russian oil – said it’s physically impossible for them to switch away by the end of the year; the EU’s new proposal would reportedly carve out an exception for those two countries, granting them a total of 20 months to stop imports, sources told the WSJ.

🇪🇺 Big picture: Russia is the EU’s main energy supplier, accounting for nearly 27% of its crude oil imports in 2019 – far more than second-place Iraq (9%). It also supplies 30% of the EU’s natural gas, though the bloc isn’t currently considering banning such imports (which rose by 20% during the war’s first two months).

☝️ One thing to note: Top US officials have warned the EU to tread carefully when it comes to Russian oil and energy sanctions; Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last month cautioned that moving too quickly could force up prices, offsetting the loss of revenue for the Kremlin.

• Global oil prices jumped yesterday on the EU’s announcement, with the Brent crude index closing up nearly 5%.

🏦 The Fed’s Open Market Committee voted to raise interest rates by 0.5% following the conclusion of its two-day meeting yesterday afternoon, the largest rate-hike since 2000. Bank officials also released a plan to shrink its $9 trillion balance sheet, which has nearly doubled since the pandemic began.

• The central bank raised rates by a quarter-point (0.25%) last month, the first of seven increases expected this year.

📸 The big picture: These moves👆 mark a contrast from the easy-money policies the Fed had pursued through most of the pandemic, and its decision to raise the overnight rate on lending between banks will continue to have a domino effect on borrowing costs throughout the entire US economy.

You can expect to see higher rates on mortgages, credit cards, student loans, saving accounts, corporate debt and more. How much those rates increase will depend on how investors, businesses and households respond.

• The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage hit 5.55% on Monday after starting the year at 3.29%, according to Mortgage News Daily.

+Dig deeper: What exactly is the role of the Federal Reserve?

Nearly half of all new Fortune 500 board appointments last year were women (45%), an all-time high, per a new report from executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.

💼🏢 Who's in the boardroom?... Overall, the share of women on public boards has steadily increased from 19% in 2015 to 29% last year. 

• 43% of all new public board seats in 2021 were filled by first-time directors – a record high, per the report.
• Similar to recent years, roughly two-thirds of public board seats were filled by people aged 50-65. The average age of new appointees last year was 57.
• The share of Black directors held relatively steady at 26% in 2021 after a “sharp uptick” the previous year; 9% of new public directors were Asian, and 6% were Hispanic.

🇺🇸 The big picture: Last month, a California judge struck down a law requiring publicly-held companies HQ’d in the state to have at least one minority member on their board, declaring it unconstitutional. 

• On a broader level, the SEC has approved a Nasdaq rule, set to go in effect this year, requiring companies listed on its exchange to disclose the ethnic and gender makeup of their boards. They're also required to have at least two “diverse” members – or explain why they don’t.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🚨 This is your 10,000th official reminder that Mother’s Day is this Sunday.🚨

And if you’re still on the fence about what to get her, just remember that it’s better for everyone if she writes down all those delicious recipes sooner rather than later. You know, just as a precaution.

🔖👩‍🍳 What a transition... My Secret Ingredient from The Scribes is meant to inspire each of us to create a cookbook of our own. This soon-to-be family heirloom will be cherished by all, as it reminds us of the treasured time spent in the kitchen with one another.

🍪📓 Besides being able to capture all of your favorite recipes in My Secret Ingredient, you'll also have a place to "rate" the dishes and elaborate on what inspired you to cook a particular dish.

🧑‍🎓 And every time you make a purchase from The Scribes, you're helping students in impoverished areas through the ScribesForStudents initiative. 🙌

➡️ Preorder My Secret Ingredient today and get $10 off with code DONUT10. (Ships May 15th)

NFT sales fell to a daily average of about 19,000 this week, a 92% decline from its peak in September, according to data gathered by the WSJ.

🔢 By the numbers... A grand total of 9.2 million NFTs had been sold to 1.8 million buyers by the end of April, per analytics firm Chainalysis.

• The number of weekly active wallets fell to ~14,000 last month, down 88% from its all-time high in November.
• The number of NFT-related internet searches peaked in January, per Google Trends, and has fallen about 80% since then.

✋ Yes, but… One part of the NFT market that continues to hold up are 'collectibles' – like the Bored Ape Yacht Club (pictured above☝️) – that routinely trade for $500,000+ and double as membership cards to exclusive groups.

• Trading volumes in Bored Apes and other high profile projects have stayed elevated, according to Chartr, with an average of ~$15 million worth of Bored Apes changing hands each day last month.

🪙 Zoom out: Since reaching an all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November, the price of bitcoin – a general proxy for the entire crypto market – has fallen more than 42% to under $40,000; over that same period, the tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen over 23%. The S&P has dipped roughly 9%.

• ☝️ An excerpt from high-resolution drone footage of a tornado that touched down in Andover, Kansas, last Friday. The storm destroyed ~100 buildings, but thankfully no lives were lost.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 Shares of Lyft closed down nearly 30% yesterday after the rideshare company posted a lackluster earnings report late Tuesday.
• 💰 TurboTax-owner Intuit will pay $141 million in restitution to 4.4 million low-income customers who were charged for using the TurboTax Free Edition.
• ⚖️ NYC officials filed a lawsuit accusing Activision CEO Bobby Kotick of rushing to secure a takeover bid from Microsoft in order to escape liability for misconduct at the company.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 The Seahawks and Buccaneers will play the first regular-season NFL game in Germany this upcoming November.
• 🎸 Dolly Parton and Eminem will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022.
• 📺 Disney released a new trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will premiere on Disney+ on May 27.
• ⚾ Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker became the 12th manager in MLB history – and the first-ever Black manager – to win 2,000 games.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖🎶 SoundCloud acquired audio AI company Musiio, which makes tech that can “listen” to new music and purportedly identify which songs will be hits.
• 🚀 Aerospace company Rocket Lab recovered a launched rocket in mid-air using a helicopter – a world first.
• 🧠 MIT scientists discovered evidence that a single memory is stored across “many” different regions of mammalian brains.
• 🌎🏫 Venture capitalist John Doerr is donating $1.1 billion to Stanford University to create a new school for climate change and sustainability studies.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🏆💡 See the 39 winners of Fast Company’s annual World Changing Ideas Competition.
• 🌐 A recent analysis found Microsoft Edge is now the second-most popular desktop browser after Google Chrome.
• ✍️ California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing state officials to explore using crypto blockchain solutions in state operations.
• 🎶 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.*

*Sponsored

💬 Quoted… “Was that Will Smith?”

• Chris Rock cracked a joke on stage at an LA comedy festival Tuesday night after Dave Chappelle was tackled by a man with a concealed knife while performing his set; Chappelle’s attacker, a 23-year-old man, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

🏘️ Stat of the Day: American homeowners have gained more than $6 trillion in housing wealth over the past two years.

🤯 Did You Know?... There’s no such thing as ‘teacup pigs.’ They’re simply regular potbellied pigs that have been underfed to stunt their growth or sold while young under false pretenses; the animals eventually grow to reach 100-150 pounds.

📖 Worth a Read: Understanding Twitter Conversations: A Wordle Case Study → (Twitter Engineering)

👍 Yes (30%): “Every person with a uterus should have the right to choose whether or not their body will be used to carry out a pregnancy, which often comes with serious health issues. Child-rearing isn’t for everyone and shouldn’t be forced on everyone. Yes, adoption is an option, but our foster care system is already drowning.

👎 No (61%): “Roe’s constitutional grounds have always been thin. It’s better to overturn Roe and return the abortion question directly to the states. If popular opinion is strong enough, Congress can always pass a measure codifying abortion into law.”

😬 Unsure/Other (9%): 

1. “I want to vote ‘yes,’ but only if there’s also a promise to further the improvement of healthcare for those women. We can’t expect change if there aren't other resources for these women after they choose life.”
2. "First things first: I'm a man and when it comes to the legal part of Roe v. Wade, I'm WAY out of my depth – but my opinion for abortion as a whole is tied to whatever women vote to do. It concerns their bodies after all."

+Note on sample size: We received 9,147 responses.👏🥳 Some may have been lightly edited for grammar or clarity.

John F. Kennedy Montessori Elementary in Louisville, KY, has created a very special club with one goal in mind: to spread kindness far and wide. 

Stefany Bibb, a long-time teacher at the school, founded the Kindness Crew to encourage her students to pay it forward whenever they can. 

• The club has taken off and now includes students from every grade level. The members take turns holding doors, greeting students and parents at drop off, and going above-and-beyond in the classroom. 

🪨😃 Happiness pebbles... Most recently, the Kindness Crew created a rock garden full of hand-painted stones decorated with encouragements. 

• Students can browse through the garden and take a stone home for up to a week. If they want to keep the rock, they can paint their own kindness stone to replace it. 

💬 What they're saying: "Nothing you've heard from any of the students, nothing they do, is because of me," Stefany told WDRB. "I just gave them the outlet to do what they naturally do. They're naturally kind." 

🤔 Riddle me this… What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?

❓ Trivia: What’s the national animal of Scotland?

⚖️ True or false… There's an uninhabited island in the Bahamas that's populated with swimming pigs. 

(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.

🤔 Riddle me this: Carrot

❓ Trivia: Unicorn (Positive DONUT subscribers saw it first)

⚖️ True or false: True