Welcome to the 57th edition of The Daily Zap — A Daily Newspaper (Kind of 🙏). Here, you'll get links to all of the latest news and updates mostly from the last 24 hours, divided in Sections (much similar to pages on a newspaper).
Let's unfold!

~Bitcoin News of the Day

  • According to an announcement released on Tuesday, Genius Group is committing to hold 90% or more of its current and future reserves in bitcoin (BTC). The strategy also includes acquiring an initial target of $120 million in bitcoin, launching a Web3 education series for students, and enabling bitcoin payments on the company’s edtech platform.

Global Trade & ~Econ

  • The average price for a car in the U.S. is nearly $50,000, an increase of close to 30% in the past five years, according to Kelley Blue Book. Monthly payments are also near an all-time high. A record number of owners are underwater — paying more than the vehicle is worth — according to Edmunds.

~Politics_and_Law

  • Mr. Smith, who since taking office two years ago has operated under the principle that not even a powerful ex-president is above the law, now finds himself on the defensive as he rushes to wind down a pair of complex investigations slowed by the courts and ultimately made moot by Mr. Trump’s electoral victory.

~Stacker_Sports News

  • South African soccer chief Danny Jordaan, who helped bring the first-ever FIFA World Cup tournament to Africa, has been arrested on fraud and theft charges. Jordaan is accused of using about R1.3 million ($72,372) of South African Football Association (SAFA) funds to hire a PR firm and a private security company for his personal benefit.

~Tech & ~Science

  • The iMicro Q3p is the newest, remarkable addition to the fingertip microscope family, which has so far garnered quite the fan base across the globe. And once more, the team behind the tiny wonder has made it incredibly affordable, with a crowdfunding launch price of CA$49, or about US$35.

~History with Mystery

  • Before then, Roman leaders had avoided building permanent entertainment buildings. Combat events took place at funerals, the Circus Maximus, or bleachers would be put up around the Forum. Romans didn’t want to “become lazy and addicted to shows like the Greeks,” explains Gregory Woolf, the Ronald J. Mellor Chair of Ancient History at University of California, Los Angeles. Romans saw themselves as agrarian, hard-working and militaristic, and thought the Greeks wasted their time in theaters.

~Entertainment World

  • Timothy West, a British star of stage, film and TV and the husband of Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, has died, his family said Thursday on social media. He was 90. His career ranged from Shakespeare plays and such films as The Day of the Jackal to famous soap operas EastEnders and Coronation Street..
Thanks for reading 🙏
I've read about Roman bloody games in past. They had games for various animals. They took great pleasure in killing animals for fun. In parts, It's a sport till now. Being an animal lover I hate the Romans and modern Romans.
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Stacker Sports in the days of Ancient Rome would have been epic.
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Yupp. It would've been to much fun. Do you know they had a game 'Felix Sex'? I stead of NFL survivor Pool, you might be running a pool for this game?
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Haha I didn't know that. I am sure they bet on stuff like that in the stands so it kind of would be like the early version of betting pools.
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Before you share this interesting game with someone. Let me clarify.
The name “Felix Sex” translates to “lucky sixes” and is poetically descriptive of what the board actually looks like. The board is made up of six separate lines of six spaces arranged in two columns and three rows. In most cases, the spaces were actual letters which would spell out a witty saying or something poetic, but gameboards have also been found without letters and just empty playing fields.
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Hahahaha. I assumed it was some big cat (feline) sex game where they predicted which cats would mate or something like that.
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Hahha! I knew this outcome from your thinking so I only mentioned the name of the game in the first comment.
Why not discuss it for fun in the POD? You mist have a little space for ancient games.
The other one I remember is 'Chaupar' (The Roll of Dice) from the Mahabharata which cost Pandavas (5 brothers) their land, themselves and even their one and only wife, Draupadi to their step Brothers known as Kaurvas (Kauravas mean 100 brothers and they were 100 for real).
You can read the whole epic game here.
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I see my WBBL pick lost. I guess I need to root for you to lose as well.
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You would've lost, had I picked Hurricanes. I was seriously giving it a thought to end the pool today. But I changed my mind for nothing. You picked strikers and you didn't know that they are reeling at the last place. Hurricanes are doing much better. But it's what it is. If my team loses tomorrow, we move to the next round. If this keeps going, their will be a tie breaker in the last round where we need to tell the total runs as well.
It's impossible to make inexpensive cars in the US, or to import them, because of the conflict between safety and environmental regulations.
In short, safety regs require cars to be heavier while environmental regs require them to be lighter, Squaring that circle requires very expensive engineering.
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You must hve listened about Global NCAP for safety. An Indian brand is making 5 star rated cars in less than $ 10k. Cars here also comply to the environmental norms. No car below $50k can't be true. Or is it?
The car that I have weighs 1300kg with a 1200 CC engine a mid size SUV (as they call it here)
I've this one with the exact same colour and it's called India's safest car.
It's not more than 10lac InR which is not more than 11 k usd. The varient I've is manual transmission top so it's around 9.5 k usd. You can see the prices and specifications here.
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There are also a bunch of protectionist measures on car production that boost the cost. I'd wager that they car you own is illegal in the US, for one reason or another.
My biggest hope for the Trump administration, even beyond gutting the bureaucracies, is eliminating all the useless regulations that have driven up the cost of living and reduced consumer choices.
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To be honest, I can't come with any bogus reasoning of questioning the safety of the car I have. Yes, because it's cheap m, it doesn't boast the quality of Mercedes or BMW. But quality is a choice and it shouldn't be heavy on someone's pocket.
I also have another big car which cost me 5 times more but I don't use it that much and I think I didn't actually require it. I bought it because I could. If USA allow these cheap but highly safe cars enter in their market, I don't think those much highly priced brands would survive. The money that people would save in cars can be applied in another cause like buying a home or some investment.
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It's not just cars, either. Cost of living could be dramatically lower in the west, if they'd get over the urge to regulate everything out of existence.
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