Good morning and welcome to Monday. Today’s email is dedicated to everyone working their a** off in pursuit of a dream – you've got this, we’re all cheering you on.👏

To everyone else: Pizza rolls and Harry Potter marathon. When you coming over?

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.92 minutes to read.

“The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”

–Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

🇺🇦 Moscow installed a new mayor in the southeastern city of Melitopol on Saturday after its elected mayor, Ivan Fedorov, was abducted by Russian soldiers the night before.

• A Russian airstrike killed 35 people at a Ukrainian military facility ten miles from the Polish border yesterday; US officials warned that NATO would bring "the full force of [its] alliance to bear in responding" to any airstrike on Polish soil.
• Satellite images show the 40-mile-long Russian convoy that had stalled for a week on the way to Kyiv has now dispersed into the surrounding area, with artillery moving into firing positions.
• About 2.6 million people have fled Ukraine, per the UN's refugee agency, with a majority of them ending up in Poland; the UN also confirmed Russia has killed at least 549 civilians, but said the actual death toll is likely much higher.
• American journalist Brent Renaud was shot and killed by Russian troops yesterday while reporting in a suburb of Kyiv.

How the invasion is impacting…

📱 Social Media: YouTube blocked worldwide access to channels associated with Russian state-funded media, while Russia banned its citizens from accessing Instagram starting today.

• The White House has reportedly briefed the world’s most influential TikTok stars on the conflict so they can be more informed when talking to their followers, per WaPo.
• Russia has done something similar.

🌎🌾 Food: Wheat futures hit record highs early last week – then plunged, closing the week with their worst performance since 2014 (-8.5%). Still, the benchmark price remains 72% higher than at this same time last year.

• A UN report found global food prices hit an all-time high in February. US food prices rose 7.9% last month compared to a year ago.

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

🏀 The NCAA Selection Committee has officially revealed this year’s March Madness bracket for men’s college basketball.

• This will be the first “normal” tournament since 2019, with teams spread across eight cities this upcoming weekend and four cities for the Sweet Sixteen. The Final Four will be held in New Orleans.
• There are two play-in games scheduled for both tomorrow and Wednesday; the full first round begins on Thursday and Friday.
• The Big Ten leads all conferences with nine tournament bids, followed by the Big 12, SEC and Big East (all with six).
• The “first four out” were Dayton, Oklahoma, SMU and Texas A&M – and they’re all on standby in case any team is forced to make a late withdrawal due to Covid.

+Wanna play against the DONUT?... Join our bracket group on ESPN.

+One bracket, two bracket: Check out the women's March Madness bracket here; No. 1 seeds are Stanford, South Carolina, Louisville and NC State.

Opposition candidate Yoon Suk-yeol was elected president of South Korea last week in the country’s tightest race since restoring direct presidential elections in 1987.

But the contest also made headlines for an entirely different reason – the Yoon campaign’s embrace of AI.

✋ Wait, what?... In a concept straight out of Black Mirror, a local deepfake company used 20 hours of specially-recorded audio and video to create a digital avatar of Yoon. 

• The avatar was able to personally respond to questions on social media using replies written by Yoon’s campaign team, which said they would “try to come up with humorous and satirical answers" that weren’t always “politically correct.”
• And it appears to have worked – Yoon’s popularity amongst 20-somethings was above 40% near election time, up from around 30% in early January.

🤔 Is this legal?... Under South Korean law, AI candidates are allowed to campaign as long as they’re clearly identified as deepfake technology and don’t spread misinformation.

🇺🇸 Closer to home: The use of AI to influence elections isn’t a novel idea. In 2018, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele created a deepfake of former President Barack Obama that warned voters about trusting everything you see online.

• In recent years, a pair of federal laws have been passed instructing the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation to research deepfake technology and come up with solutions to authenticate content.
• A handful of states, including Texas and California, have outlawed AI-manipulated videos of candidates posted up to two months before an election, though most states don’t have any such regulations.

💬 What they're saying... “We want voters to see the human side of Yoon — not the stern image he projects on television,” the AI Yoon team’s head told the WSJ.

A strong set of wheels is an impressive feat. Whether hard-earned from cycling, sports or grueling leg days, they show you’ve put in the work. 🏋️‍♀️

However, they can pose issues when shopping for jeans that fit properly. And the solutions are few:

• Buy oversized jeans with a waist that’s too big.
• Go into an extreme calorie deficit and shed that precious muscle.
• Find a good tailor and pay a lot of money.

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Welcome to “Sleepy Monday,” a day where we can all expect more car accidents, cyberloafing and all-around irritability, according to University of Washington researcher Christopher Barnes.

What’s to blame? A little thing called “Daylight-Saving Time.”

📜 The backstory… As National Treasure taught us, Benjamin Franklin is usually credited with coming up with the idea for daylight-saving time, thanks to a satirical essay he wrote in 1784 during a trip to Paris suggesting the city might save an “immense sum” in candles by forcing party-loving Parisians to end their nights earlier.

During WWII, FDR established year-round daylight-saving time in the US to conserve energy. After the war was over, localities were again free to use DST – or not.

• This meant the country had a patchwork of cities who observed daylight-saving time, but surrounding rural areas that did not. On one 35-mile stretch between Ohio and West Virginia, buses passed through no fewer than seven time changes.😳
• Since this was more confusing than Inception the first time through, the Uniform Time Act was passed in 1966, making daylight-saving time an annual occurrence.

⏰ Big picture: Any state that wants to opt out of daylight-saving time entirely and stay in year-round standard time has the right to do so under the Uniform Time Act. Currently, Arizona and Hawaii are the only two states that use permanent standard time (i.e., keeping the hour behind and not springing forward).

Eighteen states have passed legislation or resolutions over the last four years making daylight-saving time permanent (i.e., keeping the hour ahead year-round) – though they can’t be enacted due to federal law.

• Legislation introduced by a bipartisan group of senators last year would allow those state laws to take effect, but it’s made little progress so far.

• ☝️ LA startup Venturi Astrolab unveiled a full-scale, working prototype for its next-gen lunar rover; the vehicle will be used in NASA’s Artemis program aimed at returning humans to the moon as early as 2025.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🇷🇺 The US, EU and G7 are moving to revoke Russia’s "most favored nation" trade status; this would allow countries to introduce import tariffs on Russian products; the White House also banned Russian imports of vodka, seafood and diamonds.
• 🚫🏧 The UK government is shutting down all crypto ATMs in the country.
• 🏢 CVS fired several employees – including executives – following an internal investigation into how the company handled sexual harassment claims against a regional store manager.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 The Batman earned $66 million domestically in its second weekend at the box office, bringing its running total to $238.5 million; the film passed Shang Chi to become the second-highest domestic earner of the Covid era.
• 🏒 Team USA's sled hockey team won its fourth consecutive Paralympic title, beating rival Canada by the largest margin ever in a gold-medal game (5-0).
• ⚾ NBC’s Peacock is finalizing a deal with the MLB for exclusive rights to stream games in a new Sunday time slot (pre-1 pm ET).

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 📱📽🎤 South by Southwest (SXSW) began on Friday; the 10-day tech/film/comedy/music festival returned in-person to Austin, TX, for the first time since 2019.
• 💬 Google’s Android texting app can now handle iMessage reactions, though the messages will still show up green.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia put 81 people to death on Saturday, its largest mass execution in decades.
• ⚖️ Texas’ Supreme Court upheld the state’s abortion law allowing private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected; this effectively ends all legal challenges to the law. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 🚫📺 YouTube removed a Nelk Boys podcast interview with former President Trump for violating its policies on election misinformation. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… "[T]here is an escalating level of rhetoric on the Russian side trying to accuse the Ukrainians and the US of potentially using chemical or biological weapons. And that's .... an indicator that in fact, the Russians are getting ready to do it and try and pin the blame elsewhere."

On CBS’ Face the Nation yesterday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned there’s growing evidence that Russia is preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.

🏈 Number of the Day: 40 – aka the number of days Tom Brady’s retirement lasted. The 🐐 revealed yesterday on Twitter that he’s returning to Tampa Bay for his 23rd NFL season and changing his name to Brett Favre. (Okay, we made the last part up.)

• OH, and get this. The ball Brady used to throw his “last TD pass ever” was sold at auction for more than $500,000... the day before his comeback announcement.

🤯 Did You Know? Oprah Winfrey’s real name is Orpah, a biblical figure from the Book of Ruth. She started going by Oprah as a child because “nobody really knew how to spell it… [and] people didn’t know how to pronounce it.”

📖 Worth a Read: Does My Son Know You? → (The Ringer)

📊 Friday’s Flash Poll Results: 56% of y’all consider the pandemic to be over, while 44% say the opposite.

Monday: Pi Day (3/14)

Tuesday: National Equal Pay Day

Wednesday: Fed expected to raise interest rates after its two-day meeting concludes; Purim begins

Thursday: The first official games of MLB Spring Training; St. Paddy’s Day (but Chicago’s already started celebrating)

Friday: Holi, a Hindu holiday also known as the “Festival of Colors”

It was the middle of the night when one Texas family's gas heater caught fire in their living room earlier this year.

The flames quickly grew as the family slept soundly; parents Nathan and Kayla Dahl were both still recovering from Covid and couldn't smell the smoke. 

🔥👶 Toddler to the rescue... Luckily, two-year-old Brandon Dahl was able to reach his parents' room and wake them up. Brandon is still learning to speak, but somehow managed to mumble, "Mama, hot." 

• Thanks to Brandon's efforts, the family of seven safely escaped before flames engulfed their entire home. 

🎶🎤 First up: A super-duper original game of… Finish the Opening Lyrics! Give us the word or phrase that completes the opening line of the song, as well as its name and the artist/group who sings it. Ya ready?!

1. “Somebody once told me…
2. “A long, long time ago…
3. “He was a boy, she was a girl…
4. “Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you…

🤔 Daily Trivia… How many countries in the world have an annual GDP higher than Walmart’s revenue ($572 billion)?

keep scrolling for the answers

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:

Song Lyrics:

1. …the world is gonna roll me.” The song is All Star by Smash Mouth.
2. …I can still remember how that music… used to make me smile.” American Pie by Don McLean.
3. …can I make it any more obvious?” Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne.
4. … I drink too much, and that’s an issue, but I’m okay.” Closer by the Chainsmokers ft. Halsey.

Trivia: 21