Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. We hope your morning is painless and the coffee (or matcha) is strong.☕️🍵💪

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.26 minutes to read.

"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice."

–William James (1842-1910)

Austin, TX, the home of DONUT HQ, announced a pilot program late last week that'll send checks of ~$1,000/month, no strings attached, to 85 local households at risk of losing their homes.

💸 A deeper dive... Mayor Steve Adler said the program is intended to benefit local taxpayers “because it will be a lot less expensive to divert someone from homelessness than to help them find a home once they're on our streets."

• To carry out the program, Austin is partnering with nonprofit UpTogether, which ran a similar privately-funded initiative for low-income residents in Austin and D.C. that ended in March.
• UpTogether said more than half of the recipients in its pilot program were able to slash their household debt by 75+%, with more than a third eliminating their debt entirely.

✋ Yes, but… Some Austin city council members have voiced concerns about the relative lack of details about the program, and the idea to use local tax dollars instead of seeking federal or private funds.

📸 Big picture: Austin joins at least 28 other major US cities that have implemented a similar program targeting low-income residents, including LA, Chicago, Atlanta and NYC; it’s believed to be the first such publicly-funded program in the state of Texas.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

Lordstown Motors, a publicly-traded EV startup with a peak value of $5.2 billion (currently sitting at $350 million), announced yesterday that it would delay the sale of its Ohio manufacturing plant to Foxconn by four days.

🤔 Why are we covering this?... To put it bluntly, if the deal isn’t completed then Lordstown is in BIG trouble. Like, closing-up-shop-for-good big trouble.

• The factory sale was set to be finalized in April, but both companies agreed on a slight deadline extension. The deadline has now been extended once again from May 14 to May 18.
• If the May 18 deadline isn’t hit and the parties don’t agree to another extension, Lordstown would be forced to pay back $200 million in down payments it’s already received from Foxconn. The company doesn’t have the cash to do so.

👀 Looking ahead… Assuming a successful closing, Lordstown will still likely have to raise $150 million or so by year-end in order to ramp up production of its Endurance pickup, its CFO said yesterday.

• The EV startup is also under SEC and DOJ investigation over its deal to go public, as well as potentially false or misleading statements from previous management.

🚘🔌 Zoom out: It hasn’t been a great week for EV startups. Shares of Rivian dropped 21% yesterday as major investor Ford offloaded 8 million shares following the expiration of its IPO lockup period.

🌐 The Biden administration announced yesterday that 20 major internet service providers – including AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon – have agreed to offer basic low-cost plans that’ll end up being free for millions of low-income Americans after a federal refund.

• Starting immediately, the ISPs will all provide at least one plan that offers a minimum of 100 Mbps of service for no more than $30/month, covering more than 80% of the US population.
• The White House says 40% of Americans – about 48 million households – are eligible to sign up for the Affordable Connectivity Program, which covers any household making less than 200% of the federal poverty level ($55,500 for a family of four).
• The program is funded by a portion of the $65 billion set aside for high-speed broadband internet in the ~$1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law last November.

✋ Yes, but… Notably absent from Monday’s announcement are many smaller ISPs that collectively cover ~50% of the rural US, meaning Americans who live in those areas and qualify for the Affordable Connectivity Program may continue to face slower internet speeds or plans that aren't fully covered by the $30 refund.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🤯 Did you know?... While art therapy has long been used for its mental health benefits, a recent study discovered that you can improve your mental health just by – wait for it – looking at art?

• Furthermore, a 2020 study found that observing abstract art specifically gives us the ability to think, well, more abstractly.

💭 How it works: When we look at an abstract painting, our brains enter into a different, exploratory state of mind in order to find meaning in the composition. That cognitive state of mind takes us away from detail-based thinking to more of a big-picture thought process, which can be applied to other areas of our life.

🎨 Julie Pelaez is one artist who understands both the link between art and mental health, and the rich symbolism that abstract expressionism provides.

🖌️ She believes in creating conceptual art that connects with others through positive themes of empowerment. In light of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, Julie Pelaez Studios is offering 10% off all original artworks this month with the code ‘BEWELL’.

Want to try it for yourself? Julie Pelaez Studios also equips others to use art as their own therapeutic outlet through her e-course.

Visit Julie Pelaez Studios today!

🇺🇦 Russian President Vladimir Putin largely stuck to defending Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in his Victory Day speech yesterday, despite rumors he would make a major announcement; Putin also repeated his claims that the ongoing war is a continuation of Russia’s WWII fight against Nazis and fascism.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked Victory Day with a videotaped address in which he recalled Ukraine’s history of fighting against Nazi Germany.
• President Biden signed a bill to streamline the lengthy process of supplying Ukraine with military equipment; his administration also lifted tariffs on US steel for the next year.
• The House is planning to vote early this week on a bill directing nearly $40 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, which Biden has said will be signed into law if it reaches his desk.
• The Pulitzer Board awarded a special citation to the journalists of Ukraine for their work reporting on the Russian invasion of their country as part of its awards announcement yesterday.

📺 We interrupt this broadcast: Russian state-run news channels and smart TVs were hacked yesterday and forced to display an anti-war message as millions of citizens tuned in to the Victory Day parade.

• ☝️ Russia’s ambassador to Poland was doused in red paint by anti-war protesters yesterday on his way to pay respects to Soviet soldiers who died during WWII at a cemetery in Warsaw.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US stocks fell across the board yesterday, with all three major indexes falling to their lowest levels of 2022. (Dow: -2.0% | S&P: -3.2% | Nasdaq: -4.3%)
• 🚘 Uber announced plans to cut spending on marketing and scale back on hiring; the company is focused on reaching profitability on a free cash flow basis rather than adjusted EBITDA.
• ​​📱 Some Instagram creators will be able to share NFTs on the platform starting this week.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 Utah Jazz forward Nikola Jokic won the NBA MVP award for a second straight season, becoming the first second-round pick in league history to do so; Suns head coach Monty Williams was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year.
• 🎭 The nominees for the 75th annual Tony Awards were announced yesterday; A Strange Loop was the most-nominated play of the season with 11, including Best Musical.
• 📰🏆 The 2022 Pulitzer Prize winners were revealed yesterday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀 Here's what it's like to be hurled into space by a giant centrifuge at 1,000 MPH, an idea popularized by startup SpinLaunch; the company aims to send payloads to orbit without the need for chemical propellant.
• 🦕 A new documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough purportedly contains new evidence that fossils discovered in North Dakota died on the exact same day the meteor that wiped out the dinos struck the Earth 66 million years ago (a claim that has yet to be peer-reviewed).
• 🌌 After nearly 13.8 billion years of nonstop expansion, the universe could ‘soon’ grind to a halt, then slowly start to contract, per new peer-reviewed research.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 💻 Remote working doesn’t appear to have a negative effect on productivity, according to a new study from Texas A&M researchers who analyzed a Houston-based oil and gas company.
• 🇵🇭 Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won the Philippines’ presidential election yesterday; it’s the first win by a majority since a 1986 revolution that toppled a two-decade dictatorship led by Marcos’ late father.
• 🖼💰 Andy Warhol's iconic silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe was purchased for $195 million at Christie’s last night; it's now the most expensive work ever sold by a US artist at auction.
• ⛰️ The view from the highest point in the world: Kami Rita Sherpa of Nepal broke his own world record by ascending Mount Everest for a 26th time; Full Circle, a group attempting to become the first all-Black team to summit Everest, will attempt to reach the peak “in the next few days.”

💬 Quoted… ""Musk holds all the cards."

In a report published yesterday, notorious short-seller firm Hindenburg Research revealed a short position in Twitter, warning there's a significant risk that Elon Musk’s bid to acquire the social media company could be repriced lower. 

• Per the firm, Twitter’s market value would drop ~50% if Musk’s bid vanished overnight. Its stock closed the day down 3.7%.

🍼 Stats of the Day: The median age at which women gave birth in the US shifted from 27 years old in 1990 to 30 years old in 2019, according to a recent Census Bureau report. 

• Over that period, fertility rates of women ages 20-24 declined by 43%, while those of women ages 35-39 increased by 67%.

🤯 Did You Know?... There are more pets than children in Japan.

📖 Worth a Read: I Lived the #VanLife. It Wasn’t Pretty. → (NY Times)

Alexandra Kerlidou has a passion for music, but the 21-year-old isn't your typical musician. She's been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which gives her severely limited mobility.

• The workaround? Alexandra uses her eyes to play, thanks to an innovative instrument called the Eyeharp, which was developed by computer scientist and musician Zacharias Vamvakousis. 

🎶👀 Please don't stop the music... Using a computer system that monitors eye movements to play "notes," the Eyeharp allows people with disabilities to play music across dozens of different instruments. 

• For Alexandra, it means finally achieving one of her lifelong dreams. 

📠 True or False?… The fax machine was invented before the telephone.

🦖 Trivia: What was the largest meat-eating dinosaur?

👠 Riddle Me This… What always goes to sleep with shoes on? 

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

📠 T/F: True

🦖 Trivia: Spinosaurus

👠 Riddle: A horse