Good morning. To everyone who saw The Batman this weekend, what’d you think?

✋✋✋Now we’re gonna let you finish… but Christian Bale is still the best Batman of all time.

+Random but kinda cool: Leading up to its release, the Robert Pattinson-led superhero noir was described as having a vibe similar to Se7en. As of this writing, The Batman is currently rated 8.6/10 on IMDb, the exact same rating as – you guessed it – Se7en.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.68 minutes to read.

"Opportunities don't often come along. So, when they do, you have to grab them."

–Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)

🇺🇦 Russian airstrikes in Ukraine intensified over the weekend as their troops pushed towards Kyiv and Kharkiv, killing dozens of civilians according to the WSJ.

• Local authorities said plans for humanitarian corridors to evacuate Mariupol and Volnovakha in the south collapsed for the second straight day on Sunday due to Russian shelling in the area.
• The number of Ukrainians fleeing the country has topped 1.5 million in ten days, per the UN – nearly 3.5% of its total population.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly evaded three assassination attempts last week, per the Times of London.
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s State of the Union yesterday that he’s “seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians [by Russia], which would constitute a war crime.”
• More than 4,300 antiwar protesters were arrested in Russia yesterday, the highest single-day total during the conflict so far.
• Several news orgs suspended or canceled operations in Russia after its parliament approved a new law that would imprison journalists for up to 15 years for publishing "fake" information about the invasion.

How the invasion is impacting…

🛢️ Oil & Gas: The national average for a gallon of gas rose above $4 yesterday for the first time since 2008. It’s jumped nearly 50 cents over the past ten days.

🌾🌽 Food: Ukraine and Russia combine to account for nearly 30% of global wheat exports and over 17% of global corn exports. Over the past month, wheat futures have climbed to a 14-year high and corn prices have risen 21%.

• Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of fertilizers like potash and nitrogen, and its internal ministry recommended suspending all exports on Friday.

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

Dua Lipa has been hit with another copyright infringement lawsuit regarding her song “Levitating,” the second one concerning the smash hit over the past week. (One might say she was hit with dua-lawsuits…)

⚖️ One suit, two suit:

1. The first suit against Dua Lipa was filed last Tuesday by reggae band Artikal Sound System, who say the British pop star stole her song from their 2017 track “Live Your Life.” The complaint was mostly boilerplate but said the two tracks were so similar that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.”
2. Then, in a lawsuit filed on Friday, songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer accused Lipa of copying their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and 1980 song “Don Diablo,” saying the opening melody of “Levitating” was a duplicate of the melody to their songs. This is particularly relevant, the accusers claim, because the “signature melody” from the beginning of Lipa’s song (“If you wanna run away with me…”) helped turn it into a viral sensation on TikTok.

🎤 Zoom out: “Levitating,” which has spent 68 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and is the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the chart, isn’t the only massive track to face a copyright dispute.

Others include “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas, “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry, and “Good 4 U” by Olivia Rodrigo.

🎧 Take a listen for yourself…

“Levitating” by Dua Lipa

“Live Your Life” by Artikal Sound System

“Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and “Don Diablo”

+Flash poll:

"Levitating" is free & clear

It’s pretty sus, I think there’s a case

📚 Fantasy/sci-fi author Brandon Sanderson recently broke the Kickstarter record for the most successful crowdfunded project of all time, raising almost $25 million over a period of just three days.

• He initially set out to raise $1 million to self-publish four new books that he wrote in secret during the pandemic... and reached that number within the first 35 minutes, according to the NY Times.
• As of late Sunday, Sanderson’s campaign had raised more than $24.8 million with 105,000+ backers – and there’s still 24 days left to contribute. The previous record of $20.3 million was set in 2015.
• Sanderson is best known for his Cosmere collection – a massive, interconnected fantasy plotline made up of different sub-series of books, similar to projects like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Three of the four new books are set within the Cosmere, which now features almost 30 different novels.
• The prolific fantasy author is famous for the sheer speed at which he writes new novels, and is also widely known for finishing the final three books of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series after the author’s death.

👀 Looking ahead... As with all Kickstarter campaigns, there’s a risk the product won’t materialize – though Sanderson’s company already ran a successful $6.7 million campaign for a leather-bound edition of one of his books.

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For years, proponents of bitcoin have been calling it “digital gold,” claiming the world’s oldest cryptocurrency can serve as a hedge against global economic uncertainty – just like the precious metal.

🪙 The argument in favor: Unlike fiat currencies or stocks, bitcoin can’t be diluted in times of crisis since there’s only a finite number of coins in existence (its supply is capped at 21 million). Theoretically, this means holding bitcoin is a way to hedge against inflation or a stock market crash, both of which are currently happening in Russia as a result of global sanctions.

🔢 By the numbers… When Moscow attacked Ukraine on February 23, bitcoin immediately fell ~10% before regaining all of that value within a day. On the other hand, gold quickly spiked ~3% before losing all of that value over the next day. 

Since the war began, bitcoin has gained 2.6% while gold is up 3.1%.

• Bitcoin trading activity in Russia and Ukraine’s local currencies reached its highest levels in months last week. Crypto donations to Ukraine have now surpassed $83.5 million, with more than half of that sum going directly to the country’s government.

✋ Yes, but… While it appears crypto has seen a resurgence due to the conflict in Ukraine, many are still hesitant to call bitcoin "digital gold." Instead, they argue that it’s acted more like a tech stock in recent years.

• Despite US inflation being at historic highs, bitcoin has lost more than 40% of its value since a recent peak in November, mirroring falls seen in stocks like Meta and Netflix. The price of gold has increased nearly 10% over that same period.

• ☝️ The difference in price between organic and regular fruit has fallen over the past year, with inflation hitting regular food (11%) harder than organic items (2% to 4%).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💼 The US economy added 678,000 workers in February, the strongest job growth in seven months; unemployment fell last month from 4% to 3.8%, the lowest since the start of the pandemic.
• 🚗 Honda and Sony will form a joint venture to develop EVs that could go on sale as early as 2025.
• 🛢️ Carl Icahn has reportedly fully exited his stake in Occidental Petroleum and will relinquish his board seats; the activist investor owned 10% of the company at one point.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📺 Disney will launch an ad-supported tier for Disney+ later this year.
• 🦇 The Batman earned $128.5 million at the domestic box office this weekend, making it the second-most successful opening of the pandemic era behind Spiderman: No Way Home ($260 million).
• 🇷🇺 Netflix and TikTok suspended services in Russia due to fallout from its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☢️ How far away you would need to be to survive a nuclear blast, according to science.
• 🔬 A new type of cancer treatment eradicated advanced-stage ovarian and colorectal cancer in mice in as little as six days.
• 🛰️ The head of Russia’s space agency tweeted out an… interesting video showing the Russian section of the ISS detaching from the rest of the space station.

BEST OF THE REST

• 🚩 Ten red flags that could trigger an IRS audit in 2022.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence for one of the Boston Marathon bombers on Friday. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 🚚 A convoy of vehicles drove around the Washington, DC, beltway Sunday morning in protest of Covid restrictions, drawing inspiration from similar trucker protests in Canada. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “Dear stock market, you were close to us and interesting. Rest in peace, dear comrade.”

Alex Butmanov, CEO and founder of Russian hedge fund DTI Algorithmic, raised a toast to the death of the country's stock market in a live interview with a Russian financial channel last week.

🔢 Stats of the Day... Tickets for Coach K’s final home game as Duke head coach were going for up to $27,000 on secondary market before tipoff, with the cheapest seats costing more than a ticket to the Super Bowl ($4,700).

• The No. 4-ranked Blue Devils lost to unranked rival North Carolina 94-81.

🤯 Did You Know?… The most common car model involved in DUIs is a Dodge Ram; 1 in every 22 owners has a DUI on their record, while the national average is 1 in every 56.

📖 Worth a Read… The animals that detect disasters → (BBC Future)

📊 According to Friday’s flash poll... a >$2 increase per movie ticket would impact the decision to see a movie for 56% of you.

Monday: NYC ends vax mandate for indoor businesses

Tuesday: International Women's Day; "Peek Performance," Apple’s first event of 2022, takes place

Wednesday: Getting over the hump 🐪

Thursday: Consumer Price Index for February

Friday: The two-year anniversary of the WHO declaring a global pandemic

Over the weekend: Daylight Savings Time begins, meaning we lose an hour of sleep Saturday night – plus, it's Selection Sunday for March Madness

When art teacher Arina McAllister walked into school last week, she was met with a hallway full of sunflowers. 

The beloved teacher is an immigrant from Ukraine, and, with a war going on in her home country, Arina's students and coworkers decided to shower her with positivity in the best way they knew how – through art.

🌻 Here comes the sun(flowers)... Arina was overwhelmed when she stepped out to a hallway covered with hundreds of handmade sunflowers, the national flower of Ukraine.

✍️📚 We talk a lot about movies... but books are pretty dope, too. The following excerpts are taken from the opening passages of famous novels — can you guess which ones?

1. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
2. "When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold."
3. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
4. ""Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."
5. "I'm pretty much f***ed."
6. "Call me Ishmael."

🤔 Daily trivia question... Which two body parts never stop growing? (Hint: They’re both above neck-level)

keep scrolling for the answers

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Opening passages:

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. The Martian by Andy Weir
6. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Trivia: Your nose and ears (okay, technically it’s three)