Good morning and Happy Valentine's Day. 💖 Here's a pro-tip for all the couples without dinner plans: Super Bowl leftovers. Nothing says "I love you" like some spinach dip and a half-eaten charcuterie board.

On second thought – maybe that's why we're single.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 3.88 minutes to read. Then get ready to test your knowledge of celebrities and Super Bowl winners.

"Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude."

–Zig Ziglar (1926-2012)

One to report: You may have noticed there was no Dose of Discussion in Friday’s email. An error caused the curated opinions to be published on the website, but the actual section wasn’t included in the email or on the site. Apologies to those affected; due to the volume of responses we haven't been able to get back to everyone who wrote in – so please sit tight, we will at some point today. Thanks for your patience.

⚖️ Closing arguments in Sarah Palin’s defamation case against the New York Times were heard on Friday.

• The former Republican vice presidential candidate sued the Times in 2017 over an editorial suggesting her campaign rhetoric helped incite a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that severely wounded former Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others.
• In the editorial, the Times wrote that Palin’s campaign had circulated a map of electoral districts that put Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.
• The Times published a correction hours later clarifying that no such link existed between Palin’s campaign and the shooting, and that the map in question showed electoral districts under crosshairs, not individual politicians.
• Palin and her lawyers accused the Times of deliberately fabricating lies to hurt her image. She’s seeking unspecified damages for reputational and emotional harm.
• The Times claimed former editorial page editor James Bennet didn’t know what he wrote was false, and the entire situation was an “honest mistake.”

👀 Looking ahead… The trial now heads to the jury, which could render a decision anytime in the coming days or weeks.

+In the know: Defamation cases are notoriously difficult for plaintiffs (accusers) to win, since the burden of proof is on them to show clear intent of wrongdoing by the defendant.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🪙​​🐦 Cent, the company that enabled the NFT sale of Jack Dorsey's first tweet for $2.9 million, halted nearly all buying and selling on its platform earlier this month. The area specifically for selling NFTs of tweets, called Valuables, is the only part of the marketplace that’s currently active.

• CEO and co-founder Cameron Hejazi said the move was driven by three main problems: people selling unauthorized copies of other NFTs, people making NFTs of content that doesn’t belong to them, and ​​people selling sets of NFTs resembling a security.
• “It kept happening. We would ban offending accounts but it was like we're playing a game of whack-a-mole... Every time we would ban one, another one would come up, or three more would come up," Hejazi told Reuters. “I think this is a pretty fundamental problem with Web3.”

+Zoom out: NFT marketplace leader OpenSea last month revealed more than 80% of the NFTs minted for free on its platform were "plagiarized works, fake collections and spam."

The company initially attempted to limit the amount of free NFTs to 50 per user but reversed that decision in the face of public backlash, saying it would instead work on other solutions to deter bad actors.

🏈 The result: The Rams defeated the Bengals by a score of 23-20 thanks to a strong defensive performance and three TDs from QB Matthew Stafford (☝️ left); with the win, 36-year-old Sean McVay becomes the youngest Super Bowl-winning head coach in history.

📺 The commercials: This year’s crop of ads featured a wide range of celebrities – from Zendaya to Larry David to Scarlett Johansson to Peyton Manning – a handful of crypto promos, and a few scenes that felt straight out of theaters (looking at you, Austin Powers).

• Watch the full list of commercials

🎤 Everything else: The halftime show with Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and a surprise appearance from 50 Cent was a millennial's nostalgic dream come true (video); Rams WR Cooper Kupp (☝️ right) was named Super Bowl MVP after racking up 92 receiving yards, 7 rushing yards, and 2 TDs.

+Post-game recovery: In 2020, an estimated 17+ million people missed work the Monday after the big game.

Besides amazing hair and prolific minds in their respective fields, all three kept a journal.

🤯🧠 Did you know?... Our brain sends and receives information at an impressive speed of 268 MPH. And our inner dialogue can reach a blistering 4000 words per minute. That’s ten times faster than verbal speech.

With our minds moving so fast, it’s helpful to jot things down before they get lost in traffic.

👩‍🎓 And that’s why many of the brightest minds in history have kept a journal.

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🥇 Olympics recap… With less than a week to go, Norway is leading both the overall medal count and total golds. Here’s what else you may have missed:

• The Winter Games are on pace for their lowest viewership in history, pulling in just 12.3 million daily viewers (compared to 23 million for the 2018 edition).
• Snowboarder Shaun White finished his legendary career with a fourth-place finish in Beijing (video); Japan’s Ayumu Hirano took home the halfpipe gold.
• News broke that 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva failed a pre-Olympic drug test in December; as of this writing on late Sunday evening it’s unclear whether Russia will still get the gold in the team event or if Valieva will be allowed to compete individually on Tuesday.

🎮 High score… Korean MMO Lost Ark became the second most played video game in Steam history, amassing 1.3+ million concurrent players in less than 24 hours after being released on Friday.

🍿 If it bleeds, it leads… Disney’s Death on the Nile starring Gal Gadot led the domestic box office in its weekend debut, earning $12.8 million; Universal’s Marry Me with Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson opened to $8 million, narrowly placing third behind Jackass: Forever ($8.1 million).

💬 Quoted… "This is the first time that anything has been seen in the habitable zone of a white dwarf."

Researchers believe they’ve found a planet 117 light-years away from Earth that could potentially sustain life.

🔢 Stat of the day: According to the FBI, ~24,000 Americans lost ~$1 billion to romance scams over the past year, with even more losses likely going unreported.

• The agency says a romance scam is when a criminal adopts a fake online identity to gain a victim’s affection, trust, and eventually, money.

🤯 Did you know?… Uber made more revenue last quarter delivering food ($2.4 billion) than people ($2.3 billion).

📖 Worth a read… How Bagel Bites Took a (Tiny) Bite Out of Snacking History → (MEL Magazine)

• 👆 NASA published the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, including a ‘primary mirror selfie’ (right). Fun fact: All of the dots in the left image are the same star, just captured by different mirror segments.
• 💰 Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, announced a $200 million strategic investment in Forbes; the money will reportedly help the news org execute on its plan to go public via SPAC later this quarter.
• 🦠 The FDA on Friday granted emergency use authorization for bebtelovimab, a new monoclonal antibody drug manufactured by Eli Lilly that’s been shown to be effective against omicron.
• 🌉 The Ambassador Bridge between the US and Canada fully reopened yesterday after nearly a week of closure due to a Canadian trucker protest; it came after an Ontario judge gave law enforcement permission to forcibly remove the protesters starting Friday evening. (From the Left | From the Right)

+Update: The astronomer who spotted what he thought was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a crash course with the moon now says it's actually an old Chinese rocket.

Monday: Valentine’s Day

Tuesday: MLB pitchers and catchers were originally supposed to report to spring training; the ongoing lockout is now threatening to push back Opening Day (March 31)

Wednesday: Fed publishes minutes from its latest meeting; The first part of Jeen-yuhs, Netflix's three-part Kanye documentary, premieres; women's hockey gold medal game (the men's is on Saturday)

Thursday: Women’s single figure skating medal event; women's ski halfpipe

Friday: NBA All-Star Weekend tips off; Men’s curling bronze medal match; gold medal is determined on Saturday

Facial recognition technology is increasingly common throughout society. We can unlock our phones with our faces, smart doorbells let us know who’s outside our home, and services like Clear let us attend events or fly on airplanes using our face as an ID.

But everyone isn’t on board with this new trend – just ask the IRS, which came to that conclusion this week after announcing a program that would’ve required taxpayers to verify their identity using facial recognition software from ID.me.

• The agency reversed course in the face of backlash from lawmakers and privacy groups, some of whom cited research showing the technology is less accurate when identifying people of color.

🤿 A deeper dive… Proponents of facial recognition argue it would significantly increase cybersecurity, keeping out fraudsters who’ve become adept at stealing other information like common passwords.

• The technology has been shown to work with a 99.8% accuracy rate under good conditions – and even that requirement is slipping away. Apple’s next iOS update will allow you to unlock your iPhone even while wearing a mask.

✋ Yes, but: Many critics warn that there’s no guarantee hackers won’t become just as proficient at stealing facial images. And faces can’t be changed like passwords once they’ve been compromised.

• What’s more, the federal government has yet to impose any regulations governing how facial recognition companies should store and use their data.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: Nine other federal agencies besides the IRS are already using ID.me services, along with 30 states’ unemployment offices.

For its part, ID.me this week announced it would no longer require facial recognition, instead offering the option for users to verify their identity in a video call with a human agent.

Popular YouTuber Meir Kay has been throwing Super Bowl Sunday parties for as long as he can remember. Though it wasn't until 2017 that he realized his gatherings had the potential to change people's lives.

🏈 Come together... It all started as an impromptu celebration, with Meir asking a few men on the streets of New York if they'd like to come to his Super Bowl party.

• The day was a resounding success, so Meir decided to make it a tradition. Year after year, he uses the big game to reach hundreds of homeless individuals.
• Yesterday the Super Soul Movement took place in 35 different locations across the country.

😎❤️ A helping hand: Not only do the parties have food, refreshments, and football – as any Super Bowl get-together would – but they also feature free toiletries, hair cuts, financial planning resources, and more.

Each of the names on the following list is the real name of a celebrity. Match the people below with their famous pseudonyms. (I.e, Theodore Geisel → Dr. Seuss)

1. Jacob Cohen
2. Jarad Anthony Higgins
3. Scott Thompson
4. Norma Jeane Mortenson
5. Belcalis Almanzar

(answers at the bottom of the email)

Besides the Patriots, which NFL team has won the most Super Bowls?

A) Green Bay Packers

B) Pittsburgh Steelers

C) San Francisco 49ers

D) Dallas Cowboys

(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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Dose of Knowledge:

B) Pittsburgh Steelers

The Patriots and Steelers have six Super Bowls apiece. The 🐐 himself, newly retired QB Tom Brady, has seven.

Today's Puzzle:

1. Rodney Dangerfield
2. Juice WRLD
3. Carrot Top
4. Marilyn Monroe
5. Cardi B