Good morning. If we asked, “who are the founders of Apple?,” most everybody would answer Steve Jobs.

Some might also be able to name Steve Wozniak.

But few people know of the tech giant’s third founder, one Ronald Wayne, who, and we’re not joking here, sold his 10% stake in the company for $800.

Now, that 10% would be worth $250 billion (not accounting for dilution).

But honestly, Wayne seems to be thriving! He’s 88 years old and blogging regularly, so, ya know, maybe money isn’t everything?

$250 bil would sure be nice though…

Anyways. It's Friday, and you know what that means: THE FRIDAY NEWS!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.90 minutes to read.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

–Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration proposed extending a controversial law that restricts public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity to all grades K-12, instead of just grades K-3. The change was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday.

🏫 Some quick background: The state’s initial Parental Rights in Education law – referred to by some as "Don't Say Gay" – placed “age appropriate” restrictions on sexual orientation and gender identity lessons in grades K-3 starting last spring, giving parents the right to sue teachers they believe to be violating the law.

• It also codified parents’ rights to information about their childrens’ lesson plans and health records, and required schools to give updates on changes in students’ mental, emotional, and physical health.

🤔 So, what’s in the new bill?... The amendment, proposed by the state Education Department, would explicitly ban all classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools from grades K-3. It would also add a clause that reads:

• “For grades 4 through 12, instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards… or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student's parent has the option to have his or her student not attend."

🗣️ The arguments: DeSantis and other Florida Republicans have repeatedly said that parents, not teachers, should be in charge of teaching subjects like sexual orientation and gender identity to their children.

Critics argue that the legislation would stifle all classroom discussion on LGBTQ+ topics (since teachers won’t want to risk getting sued), with the effect of marginalizing LGBTQ+ people and their presence in society.

👀 Looking ahead… The amendment, which doesn’t require legislative approval, is scheduled for a vote next month before Florida’s Board of Education.

📊 Flash poll: How do you feel about the Florida Education Department’s new proposal to restrict teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity from K-12?

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🇺🇦 Ukraine’s military said Russia is experiencing heavy losses in its assault of Bakhmut. After four months of intense fighting over the eastern Ukrainian city, Kyiv officials said Russia’s offensive is “running out of steam.” They also signaled that Ukraine’s military is poised to launch a counteroffensive to take back some of the territory it previously lost. Elsewhere, UK officials said Russian troops had made further gains in Ukraine’s north this month, while intense battles are currently underway in the south.

🇸🇦🇸🇾🇷🇺🇮🇷 Saudi Arabia is in talks to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria, as part of a Russia-brokered deal. Experts said the turning point for the Saudi-Syria deal was the restoration of diplomatic relations earlier this month between Iran and Saudi Arabia – both of which since 2011 have supported rival groups in Syria’s ongoing civil war – as well as last month’s devastating earthquake. Separately, Iran’s finance minister announced yesterday that Russia has become the country’s largest source of foreign investment, accounting for two-thirds of the $4.2 billion invested in Iran over the past year.

🇲🇪 Terraform Labs co-founder and crypto fugitive Do Kwon has reportedly been arrested in Montenegro. Interpol issued a “red notice” for Kwon, who oversaw a $40 billion cryptocurrency wipeout last May, pertaining to accusations of fraud by the US and Korean governments. Montenegro’s minister of interior tweeted yesterday that Kwon was detained at an airport with falsified documents, though Interpol has yet to confirm the arrest.

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“Apple is going to the movies.” That’s a headline from 2019, when the tech giant released its first three movies in theaters. By 2022, one of its films, CODA, had won the Oscar for Best Picture.

So what’s next for Apple and movie theaters?

From the looks of yesterday’s news, it’s looking a lot like – to steal a line from Casablanca – “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” According to a Bloomberg report, Apple is planning to invest $1 billion/year into releasing 12-15 movies theatrically, each for at least a month.

• This will likely include three high profile films already slated for a 2023 Apple TV+ release: Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon (starring Leonardo DiCaprio), Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (starring Joaqin Phoenix), and the spy thriller Argylle (starring Henry Cavill and Dua Lipa).

🍏🍿 Behind the move: Apple hopes to drive awareness to its streaming platform, Apple TV+, by turning movie releases into cultural events – a strategy the company’s definitely had success with before (anyone remember the “1984” ad Apple ran for its original Apple Macintosh computer?).

And Apple’s not the only streamer getting into the theater game. Amazon, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount have also committed to increase their theatrical output in the years to come. Though notably absent from the theatrical homecoming is Netflix, which has only ran limited theatrical releases, even for its biggest films (ex: Knives Out: Glass Onion).

The 11th season of the National Women’s Soccer League kicks off (heh) tomorrow – and when it does, much like stashing a wad of cash on a high wire, a lot of money will be on the line.

The league’s existing media rights deal is set to expire at the end of this year. And under new commissioner Jessica Berman, the NWSL is looking to capitalize on its recent growth by negotiating a new (and lucrative) deal for 2024 and beyond… and they just might get it.

The NWSL’s current negotiating position is a far cry from its early days over a decade ago, when games were streamed almost entirely on YouTube for free and typically drew just a few thousand viewers at a time.

• In 2022 – the second year of the NWSL’s current three-year, $4.5 million deal with CBS – the league drew an average of ~400,000 viewers per regular-season match, and nearly 1 million viewers for the championship game.
• By comparison, the male-only Major League Soccer averaged 343,000 viewers for its 2022 regular season, and drew 3.6 million viewers for its title game (including international broadcasts).

✍️ Bottom line: Berman and other NWSL officials are hoping to secure a media rights deal with a similar framework to the MLS’ 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement with Apple TV, which was inked last summer.

💬 Quoted… “If this committee has its way, TikTok’s time is up.”

• In five-plus hours of testimony before a House committee yesterday, TikTok CEO ​​Shou Zi Chew sought to reassure members of Congress that the social media platform doesn’t pose a threat to US national security. Though it appeared many lawmakers weren’t convinced.

🇺🇸 Stat of the Day: 42% = the percentage of US adults who are obese, per a new analysis from NORC at the University of Chicago.

🤯 Did You Know?... Gordon Ramsay’s tongue is insured for $10 million.

📖 Worth a Read: The Joy of Letting Loose → (NY Times)

• ☝️ You’re looking at a series of hyper-realistic animal portraits created by Spanish artist Andoni Bastarrika, who used a combination of beach sand, colored stone powder, and other tools when necessary.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board (S&P: +0.3%; Dow: +0.2%; Nasdaq: +1.0%).
• 📉 Cash App parent company Block's stock fell by ~15% yesterday, after a report from Hindenburg Research that accused the company of facilitating fraud.
• ⬇️ Weekly jobless claims dropped to a three-week low of 191,000.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚔️🐶 John Wick: Chapter 4 opens nationwide this weekend.
• 🖼 A Jackson Pollock painting was found in Bulgaria earlier this week during a police raid of art smugglers; the previously unknown work is estimated to be worth over $50 million.
• 🏀 The Men’s Sweet Sixteen tipped off yesterday; No. 3 Kansas State, No. 4 UConn, No. 9 Florida Atlantic, and No. 3 Gonzaga all won and will move onto the Elite Eight; the other four games are tonight.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 OpenAI said it has added support for plug-ins to ChatGPT, giving the chatbot access to live data from the internet for the first time; before now, ChatGPT could only pull information from its training data, which ends in 2021. | Character.AI, a chatbot startup founded by former Google employees, raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation.
• 🌐 Bob Metcalfe, a researcher for the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, won the 2022 Turing Award for his invention of Ethernet; the award is often called the “Nobel Prize of computing.”
• 🧠 Animals like jellyfish, which lack a centralized structure that can be recognized as a brain, are still able to form memories and perform some of the same learning functions normally associated with brains, per a new study published in PNAS.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🌌 The Northern Lights are projected to appear in the skies over some northern US states tonight.
• 👁️ Federal health officials are investigating a recent outbreak of drug-resistant infections across 16 states that have been linked to eye drops; at least three people have died and 68 others have been infected, with some reporting vision loss.
• 🏳️🐝 Utah has a new state flag: Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation this week approving a new design, which features a beehive in front of mountains; it’ll take effect in March 2024.

CLICKBAIT

• 👈 Are left handed people more creative? Brain scans reveal why these individuals might be wired differently.

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The DONUT’s weekly news quiz is back. In just two minutes or less, see how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

In the small city of Szczecin, Poland, lives the "Kim Kardashian of the cat world" – Gacek the tuxedo cat. 

😎🐱 No papparazzi, please... Gacek rose to fame a few years ago, when a local news station shared a story about the friendly street cat online. Now, thousands of tourists come to see him and his little house each year.

• Gacek became the #1 rated tourist attraction in Szczecin last month, where people gave the stray feline 5 out of 5 stars in more than 4,000 reviews.
• “I flew from Oslo with transit in Gdańsk to see Gacek,” shared one reviewer. “As expected, he didn’t pay any attention to me, which made the experience fully wholesome. If I could have a dinner with anyone in the world, I would fly again in an instant to feed him.”

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Lamb shoulder
• Salt
• Shallots
• Celery
• Carrot
• Green garlic
• Dry white wine
• Hot water
• Potatoes
• Peas
• Lemon juice

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Olive oil
• Flour
• Baking powder & soda
• Onion powder
• Salt & pepper
• Milk
• Chives
• Greek yogurt
• Egg
• Honey
• Goat cheese

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Red lentils
• Mung dhal
• Water
• Onion
• Garlic
• Chillies
• Rapeseed oil
• Salt
• Tumeric
• Cumin seeds
• Coriander

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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☝️ Recipe #1: Spring lamb stew

✌️Recipe #2: Goat cheese and chive muffins

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Panjabi dhal

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