Good morning and welcome to Thursday. Here's the Groundhog Day scoreboard: (Quick reminder: shadow = winter, no shadow = early spring)

• Punxsutawney Phil of Punxsutawney, PA: Shadow
• Jimmy the Groundhog of Sun Prairie, WI: No shadow
• Staten Island Chuck of Staten Island, NY: No shadow
• Thistle the Whistlepig of Cleveland, OH: Unknown; if any of you know please write in, we searched for about an hour and couldn’t find anything.

All that to say – sucks to suck, Pennsylvania readers (enjoy your six more weeks of winter!! 😜☃️). But there is some good news: when comparing Phil’s prediction with weather records over the past fifty years, he’s only right 36% of the time.

And if you get sick of the winter you can always come join us in Austin. 🙃☀️

⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 3.82 minutes to read. Then it’s the fun stuff.

"The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people."

–Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

🤖🚖 Cruise, GM’s self-driving subsidiary, is offering free rides to the public in its fully-driverless taxi for the first time. The company is initially only accepting a “small number” of riders via waitlist, but plans to expand the program as more cars become available.

• To anyone hoping for a test drive, two things: 1) The program is only live in San Francisco and 2) you should be prepared for unusual hours.
• A Cruise spokesperson told TechCrunch the service will initially only operate from 11 PM – 5 AM as part of the company’s strategy to “start where it can have the best impact and expand methodically from there.”
• The news came alongside an additional $1.35 billion in funding from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which had previously committed the money to Cruise on top of its initial $900 million investment in 2018.

+Zoom out: In July, Ford and Lyft announced the debut of its self-driving taxis in Miami using tech from autonomous driving startup Argo AI. Months later, Intel subsidiary Mobileye revealed plans to start a similar commercial fleet in Germany this year.

Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo has been chauffeuring passengers in Phoenix since 2020, and recently announced expansions into San Francisco and NYC.

+Charge while you drive: The state of Michigan finalized a contract this week to build the US’ first wireless EV charging road system in Detroit, which will allow cars to drive and charge at the same time.

🚀📉 The White House unveiled the Cancer Moonshot program yesterday. Originally conceived and launched by President Biden in 2016 (when he was VP), the initiative was created with two goals in mind:

1. Reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years
2. Improve the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer

+Zoom out: The US death rate from cancer has dropped 32% over the past three decades, according to the American Cancer Society’s 2021 annual report. Put another way, ~3.5 million deaths have been prevented since 1990.

The long-term drop can be attributed to earlier diagnoses, better access to care, higher screening rates, and improved treatments. But the biggest contributor is pretty simple – people just aren’t smoking as much. Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer overall, and per government numbers there’s been a 50% decrease in adult long-term cigarette smoking and a 68% drop in smoking rates among youth.

+A solid foundation: The Cancer Moonshot initiative plans to build upon all of these👆 and the $1.8 billion 21st Century Cures Act passed with bipartisan support five years ago to “end cancer as we know it.”

+Go deeper: Read the White House fact sheet.

📉 The Facebook parent saw its shares plunge more than 20% in after-hours trading following yesterday's less-than-stellar earnings report. If Meta’s stock stays at the same level when trading opens this morning, it would wipe more than $175 billion from its market cap.

• CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta is being hit by a combination of factors, including inflation, supply chain issues, privacy changes to Apple's iOS, and stiffer competition for its users’ time.
• Zuckerberg also said the company is seeing a shift in time spent within its services toward video-heavy features like Reels, which are less profitable than older staples like its News Feed or Stories.
• Meta reported financials for Reality Labs – its AR and VR unit (better known as the metaverse unit) – for the first time, noting a $10 billion annual loss on $2.3 billion in revenue.
• Daily active users on Facebook were slightly down in Q4 compared to the previous quarter, marking the social media giant’s first quarterly decline on record.

+Looking ahead... Meta expects slower revenue growth in the upcoming quarter due to "headwinds to both impression and price growth" in its advertising business.

🐕 It’s not easy to raise a well-trained doggy. Besides leash walking, there are so many bases to cover:

• Crate training
• Impulse control
• Recall mastery
• Potty training
• Barking solutions

… and the list goes on.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed trying to get your pup up to snuff, there’s no better time to check out Pupford Academy!🐾

🎓 Pupford Academy includes access to premium materials and courses to help you shape your pup into the well-behaved dog of your dreams.

Besides helping with everything listed above, Pupford Academy also has courses that cover dog first aid, grooming, separation anxiety, and everything else you need no matter the age, breed, or size of your best buddy.

💰 Join thousands of other happy dog owners today and get your first month of Pupford Academy for just $1 by using the code JUST1.

Check out Pupford Academy and help your dog be their best self!

🏈 The Washington Football Team has been officially renamed the Washington Commanders following a 20-month process.

• The franchise spent the last two seasons as the Washington Football Team after retiring its previous nickname, the Redskins, in the summer of 2020.
• In June of that year, a letter signed by 87 investment firms and shareholders worth a combined $620 billion was sent to sponsors FedEx, PepsiCo, and Nike, asking them to stop doing business with the team unless its name was changed. Less than ten days later, the team announced its name and logo would be retired.
• Team president Jason Wright said the new name is “​​something that broadly resonated with our fans in this process and something that embodies the values of service and leadership that characterizes the DMV [D.C., Maryland, Virginia region]."

+Spoiler alert: There was some debate over which name out of the eight finalists the team would select. But much of that disappeared after franchise legend Joe Theismann predicted that fans would embrace “Commanders” as the team's new nickname — two days before the announcement was due.

+Uniform watch: A closer look at Washington’s new drip.

💬 Quoted… “I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, and I believe the only responsible thing to do with a fortune this size is give it away—as thoughtfully and impactfully as possible.”

• Context: Melinda French Gates is no longer pledging the bulk of her vast fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, instead opting to to spread it among other philanthropic endeavors, per the WSJ.

🔢 Stat of the day… A 477-mile-long bolt of lightning that lit up the sky across three states last year has been confirmed as a new world record.

🤯 Did you know?… 70% of the world's macadamia nuts can be traced back to a single Australian tree that was repeatedly cloned.

📖 Worth a read… ​​How One Company Took Over The NFT Trade → (The Verge)

• 👆 Get ready for a new Girl Scout cookie. ‘Adventurefuls,’ brownie-inspired bites topped by caramel-flavored creme, will be available once deliveries start this week.
• 📺 CNN president Jeff Zucker resigned on Wednesday, saying he was wrong not to disclose a consensual office relationship before it came up during an investigation into former anchor Chris Cuomo.
• 📉 PayPal notched its worst one-day stock performance on record (-25%) after the company lowered its profit outlook for 2022, citing factors like the effect of inflation on personal spending.
• 🌐🛰️ SpaceX announced a new ‘premium’ Starlink satellite internet product; it offers speeds of up to 500 Mbps and the ability to connect from anywhere; the package costs $500/month.
• 🪖 The US deployed 3,000 troops to its NATO allies in Eastern Europe but said the soldiers wouldn’t enter Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion, which the Biden administration has stopped referring to as “imminent.” (From the Left | From the Right)

+Nothing in life is free… except Wordle: This article explains how you can right-click to save the whole game.

Undeniable – “The research and evidence are clear. Sure, there are other factors that are also contributing, but those are contributing in addition to climate change, not instead of climate change.”

Strong – “I think it's unquestionable that climate change plays a significant role, but I’m always hesitant to say: ‘It’s absolutely the reason for this specific storm.’"

Weak – “I don’t think there’s enough data to support a direct correlation – however, there’s no doubt that we are/will have an impact at some point in time.”

Nonexistent – “I think it has nothing to do with recent weather. That’s just an excuse to scare people and get them on board with a certain agenda.”

Unsure/Other – “I feel that we don't have enough of a historical record to truly judge.”

+Note on sample size: We received 4,608 responses. 👏🥳 Some may have been lightly edited for grammar or clarity.

Try your hand at the three riddles below.

1. Which direction is the bus traveling?👆 (Hint: the only answers are “left” or “right”)

2. What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years?

3. Fans of the show “8 Out of 10 Cats” know this game well. Obtain the desired result by adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing the numbers provided below. Each provided number can be used only once, and you don’t necessarily have to use each one.

Numbers: 3, 9, 20, 25

Result: 152

(keep scrolling for answers)

When no one showed up to his birthday party, eleven-year-old Harry Brinkworth was devastated. The schoolboy from the UK has autism and often struggles to make friends. 

But when his mom asked why his two invited guests didn't come to his party, she was surprised to hear it was the parents who didn't approve. 

• Shocked by the snub, Harry's mom took to Instagram and asked her followers if anyone would be willing to send her boy a simple birthday card to make him feel a little better.

🎂 You've got mail... Responses came flooding in from around the globe. Harry received well-wishes from adults and children alike, many of whom also live with autism and other neurological conditions. 

• After opening hundreds and hundreds of cards, Harry told Wales Online: “It was the best birthday I have ever had." 

1. Per Sharp Brains, “When pre-school children in the US are shown this brain teaser, they often answer ‘left’”... which is the correct answer.

Why? Because you can’t see the door.

(This works in countries where you drive on the right side of the road, like the US and continental Europe; it would be the reverse in countries where you drive on the left side, such as the UK)

2. The letter “M”.

3. Answer: 9 x 20 = 180... and 3 + 25 = 28... which leads to → 180 - 28 = 152

Who is the only president confirmed to have had a tattoo?

A) James K. Polk

B) Andrew Jackson

C) Theodore Roosevelt

D) Dwight D. Eisenhower

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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

Here’s your unique link to copy & send to anyone you think would like the DONUT:

C) Theodore Roosevelt

While similar rumors surrounded a handful of other presidents (including the other three options in our question), Teddy is the only one with a confirmed tattoo – his family crest across the chest.