💬 Quoted…​​ “If it were an athlete, people would call it ‘The GOAT.’”

Jim Crotty, deputy chief of staff at the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2019 to 2021, speaking on fentanyl to the WSJ. The synthetic opioid is cheaper and simpler to produce than heroin, leading Mexican cartels and other illicit organizations to build their operations around it.

• A record ~108,000 Americans died of a drug overdose last year, the majority due to fentanyl (~71,000).

😳 Stat of the Day: A new YouGov poll found that 43% of US adults believe a civil war is at least somewhat likely within the next decade.

🌎 Around the World: Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader before its fall, died yesterday at 91. As Soviet president, he presided over the Iron Curtain’s removal and helped bring about the end of the Cold War – but was unable to prevent the country’s collapse in 1991.

🤯 Did You Know?... Pirates aren’t the only ones who bury treasure. Squirrels are responsible for planting millions of trees each year, simply because they can’t find previous acorn stashes.

📖 Worth a Read: Wild Secrets I Never Knew About Fitness Trainers Until I Worked as One → (Bloomberg)