Good morning and welcome to Friday. We’ve got a jam-packed email waiting:

• Are you ready for sports in space?
• Peloton’s not doing so hot
• And we take a deep dive into genetic engineering

⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 4.70 minutes to read. Then it’s the fun stuff.

"In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher."

–Dalai Lama XIV (b. 1935)

🚲 The connected fitness company will temporarily halt production of its exercise bikes and treadmills, CNBC first reported yesterday. Its stock closed the day down 24%, falling briefly below its IPO price and wiping $2.5 billion off its market value.

• Starting in February, Peloton will make zero new bikes or treadmills for at least six weeks – and will hold off even longer for products like the Bike Plus, Tread, and Tread Plus (which has had some big safety issues).
• Peloton essentially misjudged consumer demand for its products. It currently has thousands of cycles and treadmills sitting in warehouses or on cargo ships, and it needs to reset its inventory levels.
• When gyms closed earlier in the pandemic, the company couldn’t manufacture enough bikes to meet its demand. But now it has the opposite problem – gyms have reopened, and people just aren’t buying at-home fitness equipment like they used to.
• On Tuesday, CNBC reported that Peloton hired consulting firm McKinsey to help it slash costs. Some of the top execs at the home workout empire have reportedly discussed laying off 41% of the sales and marketing teams, slashing underperformers in the e-commerce department, and closing retail locations.

👁 Looking ahead… There may be more trouble on the horizon. Peloton’s latest forecast doesn’t take into account any impact it might see when it begins to charge customers hundreds in delivery and setup fees later this month (inflation strikes again).

+A slight contrast: Peloton’s stock increased more than 440% in 2020, but dropped ~80% last year.

+For those wondering what time the news broke: If you squint and look close, you just might see it. 👇

🇺🇦 The Biden administration sanctioned four individuals yesterday accused of working on behalf of Moscow to destabilize Ukraine, where ~100,000 Russian troops have surrounded the country on three sides.

• A day after saying he believes Moscow will invade, President Biden told reporters yesterday that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion​​, and Moscow would "pay a heavy price" for doing so.
• The Biden administration last week accused Russia of sending operatives into Ukraine to stage a "false-flag operation" that would give President Vladimir Putin the pretext to invade.
• Other countries have also echoed pessimism about a possible Russian invasion. Top NATO diplomats met in Berlin yesterday to discuss the potential attack, while the UK's armed forces minister said war with Russia could be "weeks away."
• Yesterday, US officials gave approval for three Baltic NATO members to send American-made weapons to Ukraine.

+Go deeper: From the Left | From the Right

✈️ Just like our moms always threatened to do, American Airlines yesterday turned around a London-bound plane about an hour into the flight to go back to Miami, its point of origin. The reason? One of the passengers refused to wear a mask, the airline said.

• Police officers met the flight in Miami, but the female passenger was not arrested. She was put on American's internal no-fly list pending further investigation and banned from flying on the airline indefinitely.
• There were 129 passengers and 14 crew members on the plane. Pilots turned the Boeing 777 around a little less than an hour into the transatlantic flight, according to tracking service FlightAware.

+Zoom out: As we've previously covered, the pandemic has seen a rise in unruly flight incidents. A national survey of nearly 5,000 flight attendants found over 85% of respondents had dealt with unruly passengers as air travel picked up in the first half of 2021.

+In the know: The FAA has civil authority to propose fines up to $37,000 per violation for unruly passenger cases, but it doesn't have the authority for criminal prosecution.

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🛰️ Space Entertainment Enterprises, the company co-producing Tom Cruise's upcoming space film, unveiled plans to construct a film production studio and sports arena 250 miles above Earth.

• Named SEE-1, the module is being built by Axiom Space, which won approval from NASA last year to develop a commercial wing on the ISS called Axiom Station.
• The plan is for the wing to open for business in late 2024 and break away from the ISS – along with Axiom Station – in 2028 when the older station is retired.
• SEE says its module will eventually host film, television, music, sports events, and other commercial ventures, including space tourism. Its on-site audience capacity is TBD.

+If you ain't first… SEE was also revealed as the production company behind sending Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman to the ISS this year to film what will now be the second movie ever shot in space (after a Russian crew beat them to orbit last year).

💬 Quoted… "It was printed on the spot… We see a savings right now of about 10 to 15 percent versus traditional, stick-built homes," Alquist 3D CEO and founder Zachary Mannheimer told Fox Business on Wednesday.

• The news: Last month, Mannheimer's company assembled the US' first 3D-printed home in just 22 hours. Alquist 3D is partnered with Habitats for Humanity.

📊 Stat of the day… 9 million Americans – about 6% of the total US workforce – took sick leave in early January, the highest number on record.

🤯 Did you know?… False pregnancy, clinically termed pseudocyesis, is the belief that you're expecting a baby when, in fact, you're not carrying a child.

• Women experiencing pseudocyesis have many, if not all, symptoms of pregnancy – including a swollen belly – except for an actual fetus. Fortunately cases are rare, ranging from 1 to 6 in 22,000 pregnant women in the US.

📖 Worth a read… "The secret MVP of sports? The port-a-potty" → (ESPN)

• 👆 Radian Aerospace unveiled plans to build one of the holy grails of spaceflight – an airplane-like vehicle that can take off from a runway, ignite its rocket engines, spend time in orbit, then return to Earth and land on a runway; the Washington-based company recently closed $27.5 million in seed funding. (Question: What would you call your spaceship?!)
• 📉 Shares of Netflix fell more than 20% in after-hours trading as the company disclosed slowing subscriber growth in its earnings report.
• 🏬 Amazon will open its first physical clothing store later this year in Glendale, California.
• ⚖️ The Justice Department dropped its case against a MIT professor accused of concealing ties to the Chinese government on Thursday. (Read more | Background from the DONUT)
• 🧠 The CIA said the majority of Havana Syndrome cases were not caused by foreign interference or a global sabotage campaign. (Read more | What is Havana Syndrome?)

+It’s settled: If you’re one of the 1 in 4 Americans with a financial account connected to an app with Plaid, you may be eligible for a recent $58 million class-action settlement. Plaid is integrated into over 5,000 apps including Venmo, TD Ameritrade, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and more – search the full list.

Science and innovation continue to force us into facing big, tough questions – so buckle up. Today, we're looking at some ethical concerns associated with recent advances in three main areas of genetic engineering: plants, animals, and humans.

🌽 Plants: One of the most prominent applications of genetic engineering is in agriculture – specifically, genetically modified (GMO) crops.

• GMO crops are created when scientists and farmers manipulate the genetic material of plants for a specific purpose, like ​​increased resistance to disease or environmental stressors, or increased yield. Scientists worldwide have found no evidence they cause adverse health effects, per Harvard.
• But GMOs aren't without their share of critics. Those opposed paint a picture of an almost oligarchical control over patents by just a few corporations and the potential threats to small-scale farmers.

🐷 Animals: Scientists' work here mostly focuses on adapting pig organs for humans, as they're anatomically similar to us, and the risk of cross-species disease is low.

• Earlier this month, doctors carried out the first pig-to-human heart transplant using a genetically modified pig to decrease the likelihood of organ rejection. The 57-year-old man is still alive-and-well two weeks later.
• Yes, but: Not everyone is all aboard the transplant train. PETA condemned the recent pig heart transplant as "unethical, dangerous, and a tremendous waste of resources," while UK-based Animal Aid said it opposes animal-to-human transplants or modifying animal genes "in any circumstances."

👶 Humans: The invention of the gene-editing tool CRISPR, which is cheap and easy to deploy, has turned the possibility of "designer babies" into a reality.

• In November 2018, a Chinese scientist created the first genetically-edited human babies, altering their genomes in an attempt to resist possible future infection with HIV.
• Following international outcry, Chinese authorities sentenced the scientist to three years in prison for "illegal medical practices."
• The incident prompted calls for a global ban on all related experiments, though some scientists predicted it could help accelerate public adoption of human gene editing.

👇 Click for some curated thought leadership on the morality of genetic engineering.

DONUT HQ is located in the city of Austin, which has a motto: "Keep Austin Weird." In celebration of that sentiment, we bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall, and occasionally laugh-out-loud stories from this week…

Stranded dog saved from rising tide after rescuers attach sausage to drone

Fans at Disney World reportedly wait almost 7 hours for dragon-shaped popcorn bucket

Lay's Reveals New Potato Chips Made from Potatoes Grown in Dirt Taken from NFL Stadiums

​​Bono Says He's "Embarrassed" By Most U2 Songs, Only "Recently" Learned to Sing

TV Reporter Hit By Car During Live Report, Then Finishes The Broadcast

+Update: The Chinese woman who was stuck with her date for more than 20 days amid a Covid lockdown told state media that the two are getting engaged.

🐶 Texas Children's Pawsitive Play Program is just as cute as it sounds. Designed to "enhance the emotional well-being of patients and families in the hospital," the four resident pups are celebrities around the hospital. 

• For the holiday season this year, golden retrievers Elsa, Pinto, Pluto, and Bailey paraded through the halls with their handlers in matching flannel PJs, bringing smiles to the young patients and families admitted. 
• According to animal therapy coordinator Katherine Galanski, the dogs are working hard to make the hospital a bit more bearable for young patients. "There’s a lot of growth happening in our program," she shared. "And we're beyond excited to widen our ability to pawsitively impact more patients and families." 

Can you order these Monopoly properties from least to most expensive?

A) Pennsylvania Ave.

B) St. James Place

C) Connecticut Ave.

D) Marvin Gardens

(keep scrolling for the answer)

Check out our referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to this newsletter. 👇

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Connecticut Ave. → St. James Place → Marvin Gardens → Pennsylvania Ave.

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