Good morning and welcome to National Donut Day! You've probably noticed this already, but we are the DONUT... so naturally, this is a pretty big deal to us.

That being said, please. Donut rain on our parade. Donut kill our vibe. Donut be jelly. Just celebrate along with us.🍩🥳🍾

What you'll know after reading today's email:

• 📊 The data on remote vs. in-person work
• 🖨👂 How a real human ear was 3D printed
• 🧪🥊🐶 Forget masks or vaccines: Dogs vs. PCR tests is the real Covid battle

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.49 minutes to read.

"Do or donut. There is no try."

–Yoda (896 BBY – 4 ABY)

More than two years after the pandemic first locked down offices, some large companies are starting to close the door on blanket remote-work accommodations.

🏢 A deeper dive… Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all sent out notices in recent months requiring corporate employees to return to at least three days of in-person work by this summer, while other companies like Tesla and Goldman Sachs are mandating the traditional five days/week (or 40 hours).

• A third bucket of companies, including Twitter, Reddit, 3M, Lyft and Spotify, have committed to policies allowing employees to work from home permanently, or come into the office as often as they’d like.

📊 What does the data say?... The research on the subject is mixed. 

A 2015 case study of a Chinese travel agency saw productivity increase by 13% among those who worked at home, and a separate US call center study found employees who went remote boosted their calls per hour by 7.5%.

• But that increased productivity also coincided with a rate of promotion that was roughly halved relative to employees who worked in person; in the US study, 23% of on-site workers were promoted, compared to just 10% of those working remotely.
• A recent peer-reviewed study examining the communication practices of 60,000+ Microsoft employees before and after the pandemic also found remote work may boost productivity, but it likely decreases collaboration and creativity.

🇺🇦 Russia has now seized 20% of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address to lawmakers in Luxembourg yesterday, adding that the front line of the battle stretches more than 620 miles.

• Ukrainian forces are currently holding less than ⅕ of Severodonetsk, the last remaining major city in the eastern Luhansk region under any form of Ukrainian control, per the regional governor.
• Moscow rebuked the US on Wednesday for its new $700 million weapons package that provides Ukraine with next-gen missile systems, saying the White House is “deliberately pouring oil on the fire."
• The Treasury Department expanded sanctions targeting Moscow’s access to yachts yesterday, blocking two ships it says were previously used to transport Russian President Vladimir Putin.

🛢️ Zoom out: OPEC and its allied oil producers agreed yesterday to boost oil production by 648,000 barrels/day – 200,000/day more than planned – in July and August. (For context, the US consumes nearly 20 million barrels per day.)

• The average US price for a gallon of gas reached a new all-time high of $4.72 yesterday, per AAA data; that’s up 12 cents from a week ago, and up 52 cents from a month ago.

LeBron James is the first-ever NBA athlete to become a billionaire before his playing days are over, according to a new report from Forbes.

💰 Let’s break it down… LeBron is currently the highest-paid player in the league, and has earned more than $385 million total from the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat, and LA Lakers.

• Off the court, he’s collected upwards of $900 million in income from endorsements and other business ventures, often structuring deals to give him equity in brands he partners with (like Lyft, Tonal, and Blaze Pizza).
• Roughly ¼ of LeBron’s net worth ($300 million) comes from his stake in SpringHill, the TV and movie production company he started alongside his business partner, Maverick Carter. Last October, outside investors including Epic Games and the group that owns the Boston Red Sox bought into the venture at a $725 million valuation.

📝 Zoom out: While net-worth lists are notoriously unreliable, most of them have Michael Jordan and Vince McMahon as the only other US athletes with net worths currently above $1 billion.

• PSG forward Lionel Messi topped Forbes’ 2022 list of Highest-Earning Athletes, collecting a total of $130 million.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a teenager I was NOT starting and operating companies... let’s just say other things got in the way.🎮

But these female teen entrepreneurs are a different story. You can see all their hard work in TheWmarketplace’s new Teen Collection, recently launched through The Startup Squad!

• Get awesome greeting cards from AnnaMade Design, or treats for your furry friend from Ava’s Pet Palace.🐶
• 🍪 If you’re the hungry one, spoil yourself with Mia’s Treats Delight and get an apron from Sarah Sews, Inc. for when you’re in the kitchen!
• Add some style to your accessories with Fresh’n Juicy or enhance your lip beauty with some Lip Bulbs!💋
• 🌎 Sustainabar has soap that’s good for your skin AND the earth, and spoil the kids in your life with Lyla Tov Monsters!🤪

🚺 A platform for change… every single dollar spent on TheWMarkeplace supports female entrepreneurs.🙌

There’s no minimum order amount, no membership fees, and shipping is included in every price. (We’re looking at you, Prime…)

Support female teen entrepreneurs and shop The Teen Collection at TheWMarketplace!

As we said yesterday, it’s been a big week for medical transplants… and it just got even bigger.

For what’s likely the first time in history, a UK biotech firm called 3DBio Therapeutics managed to reconstruct the ear of a 20-year-old Mexican woman using a 3D printed living implant made from her own cells.

👂 A deeper dive… 3DBio’s implant is specifically for patients with microtia, a rare birth defect where the external ear is underdeveloped or doesn't exist at all; the range of affliction varies, per the CDC, which says it affects about 1 in every 2,000–10,000 babies in the US.

• To create the new appendage, 3DBio conducted a biopsy on the patient’s affected ear and extracted chondrocytes, the cells responsible for creating cartilage.
• Those cells were then mixed with a collagen-based bio-ink before being 3D printed in a shape that precisely matched the patient’s right ear.
• 3DBio said the ear will continue to regenerate cartilage as the months pass, giving it the look and feel of its natural counterpart.

👀 Looking ahead… The procedure was part of an ongoing clinical trial that began last August, though doctors are continuing to enroll subjects. Pending the outcome, 3DBio will conduct a second, larger trial before seeking FDA approval.

• ☝️ New satellite imagery reviewed by the WSJ shows that after several years of work in the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, China’s third carrier, known as a Type 003, may be afloat in coming weeks or even days, analysts said.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 👖 Lululemon outpaced analysts' estimates for both profit and revenue last quarter, reporting strong growth online and in its men’s division (of which the athletic apparel maker is pushing to double sales over the next five years).
• 🧾 Restaurants are using new fees and surcharges to stick inflation into the fine print, the WSJ reports; service fee revenue more than doubled from April 2021- April 2022, per point-of-sale software provider Lightspeed.
• 🪙 Coinbase will extend its hiring freeze for both new and backfill roles for the foreseeable future as well as rescind some already accepted offers; the US’ largest crypto exchange cited market conditions and internal prioritization efforts.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆 The Boston Celtics defeated the Golden State Warriors 120-108 in Game 1 of the NBA Finals last night.
• 🏀 Nike founder Phil Knight and Alan Smolinisky, an entrepreneur and part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, have reportedly submitted a $2+ billion bid to purchase the Portland Trail Blazers.
• ⛪ Elvis is leaving the chapels: The licensing company controlling Elvis Presley's likeness sent cease-and-desist letters to Vegas wedding chapels using impersonators.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💰🚀 NASA plans to purchase five additional Crew Dragon missions from SpaceX to carry astronauts to the ISS.
• 🦠 Covid roundup: Trained dogs can identify 97% of positive cases through smelling human sweat samples, a new study purports (meaning the animals are just about as reliable as PCR tests😳). | Cases in the US could be 30x higher than official case counts show, an early survey suggests.
• 🔮 Two time crystals have been linked into a single, evolving system for the first time ever; it’s the next step towards potentially harnessing time crystals for practical purposes, such as quantum information processing.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 👩‍⚖️ Law & Order: Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction and prison sentence were upheld Thursday by a New York appeals court. | Attorney Michael Avenatti was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for defrauding former client Stormy Daniels.
• 🏥 Two orthopedic surgeons, a medical office staffer, and a patient visitor were killed in a shooting at a Tulsa health complex yesterday; the gunman targeted a specific physician who had recently treated him for back pain following a surgery, according to investigators.
• 👸 Here are some pics of yesterday’s Platinum Jubilee to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's 70 years on the throne.

💬 Quoted… “A staggering increase.”

Authorities seized 1.008 billion methamphetamine tablets in East and Southeast Asia last year, a new record, according to UN figures published this week.

• The number of tablets seized last year was seven times higher than the amount seized a decade ago.

🏫 Stat of the Day: More than 240,000 US students experienced a school shooting between the Columbine shooting in 1999 and 2019, according to a working paper by Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research.

🤯 Did You Know?... When deaf people experience stroke-related brain damage, they sometimes lose the ability to sign words in remarkably similar ways to non-deaf persons who lose the capacity to speak.

📖 Worth a Read: Gen Z Workers Want Mission-Driven Jobs. A Big Paycheck Would be Nicer. → (WSJ)

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week…

• Bees are legally fish in California, court rules → (Sacramento Bee)
• Woman is NYC bar hero after calmly removing possum that wandered inside → (NBC NY)
• Sodus Point man arrested again for too many wildlife feeders → (Finger Lakes Daily News)
• 388 don mermaid tails for Guinness World Record in Britain → (UPI)

A fugitive lamb was captured after wandering for a week through a South Carolina town.

🐑🎾 Unbaalievably lucky... The brave little lamb escaped a close encounter with alligators in a lagoon, but did get to play with a friendly golden retriever before it was finally corralled into a public tennis court after six days on the loose. 

"This is a first for my job.... Ye ole sheep on the court," Paul Tollefson, the court's director, wrote in a FB post. "If anyone can come catch it, I got him fenced in."

• The lucky lamb was turned over to an animal rescue organization when no one claimed the creature as their own. 

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make. Easy peasy! (The rules, at least.)

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Cocoa powder
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Vanilla extract
• Egg
• Sour cream
• Milk
• Vegetable oil
• Powdered sugar

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Active dry yeast
• Warm water
• Sugar
• Salt
• Flour
• Milk
• Butter
• Egg yolks

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Flower
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Nutmeg
• Salt
• Sugar
• Milk
• Sour cream
• Eggs
• Butter
• Vanilla extract
• Vegetable oil
• Powdered sugar
• Sprinkles

(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.

☝️ Recipe #1: Glazed chocolate donuts

✌️ Recipe #2: Sugar donuts

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Vanilla sprinkle donuts