Good morning. Let’s cut to the chase: it’s been a tough week for world news. With everything going on, it’s easy to feel pessimistic or anxious.

That’s exactly why we have another free newsletter called Positive DONUT. Think of it as your weekly reminder that there is still good in the world – but, like, in a classy, enjoyable and non-cheesy way.

Check out yesterday’s edition here… and sign up to receive next week’s Positive DONUT here.

More positivity = a better world. We’re here for that

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.51 minutes to read.

"Wrong turns are as important as right turns. More important, sometimes."

–Richard Brach (b.1936)

☝️ Satellite images show the Russian convoy converging on Kyiv is now 40 miles long – up from 17 miles yesterday afternoon and around 3 miles the day before – though a senior US defense official said their advance on Ukraine’s capital city is currently stalled out amid food and fuel shortages.

🇺🇦 On the ground: Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s two largest cities – Kyiv and Kharkiv – with heavy shelling yesterday, mainly focused on civilian areas. Ukrainian officials said at least 22 civilians and 70+ soldiers were killed and hundreds more wounded as a result of Russian airstrikes.

• Ukraine’s central TV channels were temporarily disabled after the TV tower in its capital city was struck by a missile.
• The UN’s refugee agency said at least 677,000 Ukrainians have fled the country since last week.
• The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible Russian war crimes being committed in Ukraine, where the UN estimates 400+ civilians have been killed in the past six days.

How the invasion is impacting…

⛽️ Oil & Gas: Oil prices rose back up to $100+ per barrel yesterday to reach their highest level since 2014, while benchmark European natural-gas prices jumped more than 24%. The Biden administration released 30 million barrels of crude oil from the federal strategic reserve – enough to fuel all of America for less than two days – in an effort to drive down gas prices.

🍞 Food: Before trading even opened yesterday, US wheat futures rose 5.4%, hitting the exchange limit for how far up or down prices can rise; together Russia and Ukraine account for almost 30% of all global wheat exports. Prices are at their highest level since 2008.

📉 📈 Markets: The Moscow Exchange remained closed for a second straight day. In the US, all three major indexes had a rough day despite strong performances from energy companies and retailers. (Dow: -1.8% | S&P: -1.6% | Nasdaq: -1.6%)

+The latest news: From the Left | From the Right

🧬 The US Patent and Trademark Office ruled this week that the Harvard-MIT Broad Institute – not UC Berkeley – was the first to invent CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology for use in animals, including humans.

• This decision invalidates claims made by a pair of researchers who won the 2020 Nobel Prize for developing the tech – Jennifer Doudna from UC Berkeley and Emmanuelle Charpentier from the University of Vienna.
• Several biotech companies, including Intellia, Caribou Biosciences and CRISPR Therapeutics, currently license CRISPR technology from a company formed by the Nobel researchers’ universities.
• Monday's ruling invalidates those patents, meaning the biotech companies must now license the gene-editing tech from the Broad Institute.
• Editas Medicine Inc., which holds an exclusive CRISPR licensing agreement with the Broad Institute, saw its shares rise 17% overnight Monday.

✋ Yes, but: Biotech companies are already pursuing other gene-editing technologies that wouldn’t be covered under existing patents – like using an enzyme other than Cas9 to edit the genome, or trying a different technique called base editing.

• “’[The court’s ruling] will be really, really important for a short period of time then not so much anymore,” ​​Jacob Sherkow, a professor of law at the University of Illinois, told Bloomberg.

👀 Looking ahead... The UC Berkeley group said it’s “considering various options to challenge this decision,” which can be appealed one step further to the federal circuit court.

+Dig deeper: Read the details of the case.

Two weeks after catching fire, the Felicity Ace – a mammoth cargo ship carrying more than $400 million worth of brand-new cars – sank yesterday.

🚗🐠 The manifest… All in all, the ship was carrying around 4,000 electric and non-electric vehicles including:

• 1,000+ Porsches
• 200 Bentleys
• An unknown number of Volkswagens, Audis and Lamborghinis

🔥 More deets: A fire broke out in the ship’s cargo hold six days after it departed from Germany for Rhode Island; the company that managed the vessel hasn’t said how or why the fire started. Nearby commercial ships and a helicopter rescued all of the ship’s 22 crew members.

🚢 Zoom out: In December 2018, another similarly-named carrier, the Sincerity Ace, caught fire in the Pacific Ocean while transporting about 3,500 Nissan vehicles from Japan, according to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

+Fun fact: The value of the Felicity Ace’s cargo is roughly equivalent to the amount of money it cost to build the Titanic.

🔢 By the numbers...

• 57% of all discarded clothing ends up in landfills and what can't be landfilled is incinerated.
• Cheaper clothes are often made mostly out of synthetic materials, which account for 35% of microplastic pollution globally.
• The destruction of unsold clothing results in $150B in losses annually.
• If the industry doesn’t change, its greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 50% within 10 years.

👖 An ultra-sustainable solution…

unspun is a denim brand committed to flipping the script. They make bespoke jeans, tailored to your exact shape and size.

Their award-winning tech designs you a perfect-fitting pair of jeans made with sustainable fibers. Because each one is made-to-order, they don't have any inventory, meaning they don't produce what they can't sell.

unspun also collaborates with other brands, helping them adopt on-demand (and therefore lower-waste) manufacturing by sharing their technology.

⚙️ How it works…

• Shop - design your perfect pair. Custom select your fit, fabric, wash, and more.
• Scan - take a quick 3D body scan through their iPhone app.
• Wear - your perfect fit. Guaranteed.

👖 unspun is so confident in their product, they’ll give you a full refund if these aren’t your favorite jeans. They also cover tweaks and adjustments at no cost.

Click here to sign up as a beta tester for 20% off your order!

🏛️ President Biden gave his first State of the Union address yesterday. (Full speech | From the Left | From the Right)

We’re more than a month into the second year of his administration – and what does America think of Biden’s presidency so far?

🔢 By the numbers... A new NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll found that a majority of Americans (56%) think Biden’s first year in office was a failure, while 39% think it was a success. 30% of respondents said they think the US is headed in the right direction.

• The survey also found Biden with record lows in his handling of the economy (36%), the pandemic (47%) and overall approval rating (39%).

☝️ Polls, polls & more polls: RealClearPolitics’ polling average shows Biden’s approval rating near record lows, while his disapproval rating is near record highs.

Similarly, FiveThirtyEight’s polling numbers show the gap between Biden’s approval and disapproval ratings are near an all-time high. Both sites combine data from hundreds of independent polls.

🗳️ Zoom out: Presidential approval ratings are usually a good indicator of what will happen in the midterms, which officially kicked off with a statewide primary in Texas yesterday.

• There's plenty of time for things to change between now and November – but if elections were held today, 47% of registered voters would support a generic Republican congressional candidate in their district versus 43% for Democrats, per RCP.

• ☝️ New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras yesterday after the city’s signature event was canceled last year due to Covid.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🛒 Whole Foods opened its first store in DC with Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” tech; shoppers can scan their hands or a QR code to charge groceries to their Amazon accounts.
• 🍎 Apple halted all product sales in Russia.
• 📉 Zoom has lost over three-quarters of its value since October 2020; shares fell another 7.4% yesterday following the company's earnings report.
• 📱 Uber released a new feature that lets you book restaurant reservations and concert tickets through the app.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📽🏒 Four of the “Big Five” film studios – Disney, Warner Bros., Sony and Paramount – paused the releases of upcoming movies in Russia; The NHL also suspended all business ties with Russia.
• 📺 Euphoria is now HBO’s second-most-watched show since 2004, behind only Game of Thrones.
• ⚾ The MLB officially canceled the first two series of the 2022 regular season after failing to reach a new collective bargaining agreement before yesterday's deadline.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🏫 A peer-reviewed study published in the American Sociological Review found that gay men, on average, outperform all other groups on an array of academic measures; it also found the inverse was true for lesbian women.
• 🛰️ NASA is exploring ways to keep the ISS in orbit without Russian help; officials said SpaceX and Northrop Grumman could assist in the event Moscow withdraws from the collaboration.

BEST OF THE REST

• 🇨🇦 A Canadian teen solved 211 Rubik's cubes while hopping on a pogo stick.
• 🤖 Good news everyone! Hulu’s Futurama revival will see John DiMaggio, who voices Bender and other characters, join the rest of the cast for a new 20-episode season.
• ⚖️ The ACLU is suing to block a Texas directive that would have a state agency investigate parents for child abuse if they seek gender-affirming care for their children. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “While we cannot directly correlate these overdose deaths to the stress and emotional toll these individuals may have experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, South Carolina’s overdose death data follows national trends that substance misuse has increased since [its] onset.”

Drug overdose deaths in South Carolina rose by more than 50% in 2020 compared to before the pandemic, claiming the lives of 1,734 people; nearly two-thirds of the fatal overdoses involved fentanyl.

🏠 Stat of the day: Home prices in January were 19.1% higher year-over-year, according to a report published yesterday by CoreLogic.

• That’s the highest annual growth since the firm began tracking prices 45 years ago.

🤯 Did you know?… There were never 57 varieties of Heinz ketchup. It was a marketing gimmick thought up by the brand’s founder, H.J. Heinz.

📖 Worth a read… Jeff Bezos is looking to defy death – here's what we know about the science of aging → (The Conversation)

Question: What should the US do about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Deploy troops to Ukraine and defend it from further invasion

Stay out of any military conflict, but keep imposing sanctions on Russia

Nothing, it’s not our problem

Unsure/Other

+Note: A written response isn’t required for your vote to be recorded – all you need to do is click one of the links above. Poll results and the best comments for each response will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.

+Yesterday's flash poll results: Weren't a great sign for TikTok...

There's nothing like a homemade gift from a loved one. And Jill Volarich prefers to give rather than receive.

• She can be found crocheting around the clock in her free time, creating everything from children's hats to big cozy blankets with her hook and yarn. 

🧶 Crochet away... Jill isn't just making cozy creations for her friends and family. The mom of three has donated more than 750 items to her community, bringing a little homemade comfort to the homeless, hospital patients and children in need. 

• “Crocheting is definitely my passion,” Jill told Good Morning America. “I love to make things, I love being a creator. I love that it’s something you can give to someone else.”

🤡 And Here. We. Go… In preparation for The Batman’s premiere, we’ve compiled a list of superhero movies below. Put the films in order of their global box office haul, lowest to highest.

Iron Man

Black Panther

Spider-Man: Homecoming

The Dark Knight

🤔 Daily Trivia Question: What’s the newest country in the world?

A) South Sudan

B) Serbia

C) Kosovo

D) Montenegro

keep scrolling for the answers

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Superhero movies: Iron Man ($586M), Spider-Man: Homecoming ($880M), The Dark Knight (~$1B), Black Panther ($1.3B)

Trivia: A) South Sudan; the country declared its independence from Sudan in 2011.