Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US has created REPO (Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs), a task force dedicated to... well... repo’ing Russian oligarch’s stuff.

• Yesterday, REPO agents repo’d a 254-foot, ~$100 million yacht in Spain thought to belong to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and close Putin ally – the first seized yacht of the task force's short life.

The Russian oligarch group chat rn: “Beware the REPO, man.”

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.25 minutes to read.

"It is easy to love your friend, but sometimes the hardest lesson to learn is to love your enemy."

–Sun Tzu (544 B.C. – 496 B.C.)

🇺🇦 President Biden on Monday called for evidence to be gathered to put Russian President Vladimir Putin on trial for war crimes over civilian killings documented near Kyiv, but stopped short of calling the actions a genocide.

• Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were removed from the towns surrounding Kyiv after Russian troops withdrew; the Pentagon said it couldn’t confirm local reports, but it couldn’t dispute them either.
• Ukraine’s military reported retaking several villages in the northern Chernihiv region, while the governor of the neighboring Sumy region said Russian forces no longer occupied any settlements there.
• Over 4.2 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, per UN data, equivalent to 10% of the country’s population.

🌍 Zoom out: Germany and France expelled dozens of Russian diplomats yesterday in response to alleged war crimes committed near Kyiv, while the US is working with Ukraine and other European nations to vote Russia out of the UN Human Rights Council.

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

A new report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says meeting the most aggressive target from the 2015 Paris Agreement – curbing global warming to 1.5ºC (2.7ºF) above pre-industrial levels – would require greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest.

📝 The deets: The IPCC’s report is the third chapter in a broader assessment of climate science. The previous two examined the causes and impacts of climate change, while this one focused on how to mitigate its effects.

• The report found average annual greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history over the past decade – and even if all the climate-related policies that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world would still warm by 3.2ºC this century.

🌬️☀️🔋 Reality check… The news isn’t all doom and gloom, though. The IPCC’s report cites the increasing affordability of renewable energy, noting decreases of up to 85% in the cost of solar, wind and batteries since 2010.

• But it does call for a "substantial reduction" in the use of fossil fuels in the near future. Low-carbon options like solar and wind would need to supply a majority of the world's energy by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5ºC, per the report; the two energy sources currently make up just over 10%.

💬 What they’re saying: “This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies. We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree limit,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a video message accompanying the report.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🐦📈 Twitter’s stock rose 27% yesterday after news broke that billionaire Elon Musk is now the company’s largest single shareholder.

• According to SEC filings, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO purchased a 9.2% stake in Twitter on March 14 for around $2.5 billion, based on that day’s closing price. It’s now worth $3.7 billion.
• For context, co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey owns 2.25% of Twitter (with no special super-voting shares).
• Musk's ownership of Twitter is classified as a passive stake, meaning the shareholder isn’t involved in the day-to-day operations of the company.
• Musk recently told his 80 million followers that he’s giving “serious thought” to creating a social media platform to rival Twitter, which he’s criticized for “failing to adhere to free speech principles.”
• He’s also taken aim at the software algorithms Twitter uses to serve up content to users, which are commonly optimized to drive engagement. In addition to the above poll, Musk asked his followers on March 24 if the Twitter algorithm should be open source (83% said ‘Yes’).

🥊 One interesting thing: Musk vs. the SEC... The billionaire famously tweeted himself into hot water in August 2018 by claiming he had “funding secured” for Tesla to go private at $420 per share; in this instance, Musk was supposed to report his Twitter purchase no more than ten days after the fact, but waited over 20 days to do so.

As the saying goes, we believe what we want to. It’s no wonder our kids believe a giant rabbit comes every year to hide chocolate eggs!

But they won’t believe in the Easter Bunny forever, so it’s important to make it count while they do.

🐰 Make this year extra special… whether you’re decorating the place for the kids or hosting family, make sure to check out The Easter Collection at TheWMarketplace.

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• Easter egg hunt signs
• Bunny decorations
• Easter pillow covers
• Easter table cloth runners and a whole lot more to make a memorable holiday.

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Earlier this year, the US Mint began to circulate quarters featuring impactful women on the back as part of its American Women Quarters Program, a planned series of coins featuring different notable women from US history for each of the next four years.

🪙🤔 Why we're telling you this: The women you'll carry around in your pocket for 2023 were just officially announced.

1. Edith Kanakaʻole was an indigenous Hawaiian composer, chanter, dancer and teacher whose works helped preserve aspects of her culture’s history, customs and traditions that were at risk of disappearing.
2. Bessie Coleman was the first African American and first Native American woman to hold a pilot license. After being rejected from US aviation schools, she studied French to enter a pilot program abroad.
3. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most renowned and influential First Ladies in history, using her 12 years in the position to champion causes like racial justice, women's suffrage and disability rights. After the White House, she went on to chair the UN Human Rights Commission and help write the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights.
4. Maria Tallchief was a Native American dancer regarded as the first American prima ballerina, though many dance companies rejected her because of her heritage. She refused to change her last name despite obvious discrimination.
5. Jovita Idár was a journalist and activist who spoke out against racism experienced by Mexican Americans in the early 1900s, refusing to give in even when the Texas Rangers came to shut her newspaper down over an article criticizing President Woodrow Wilson.

• ☝️ Lightning struck the launch pad of NASA’s 'Mega Moon rocket' during tests over the weekend at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• ☕ Interim Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz suspended billions of dollars in planned share buybacks on his first day of returning to the leadership role.
• 💼 About 3,000 UK workers will take part in the largest ever four-day workweek trial across 60 different companies beginning in June.
• 📝 JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said the US economy is currently in strong shape in his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, but warned the war in Ukraine combined with rising inflation could slow the pandemic recovery.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 No. 1 Kansas beat No. 8 North Carolina 72-69 to clinch its fourth men’s basketball national championship; the Jayhawks overcame a 16-point deficit to win, the largest in title game history.
• 🎤 Kanye West pulled out of his headline slot at Coachella later this month.
• 📺 Roku reached a multi-year extension with Amazon to host the Prime Video and iMDb TV apps on its devices.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🐝 Israeli startup Beewise, which develops robotic beehives, raised $80 million to fund its automated solution aimed at saving global bee populations.
• 👶 Survival rates for premature infants born in the US at 22 and 23 weeks of gestation improved from 7% to 30% and 32% to 56% between 2013 and 2018, respectively, according to new research.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🏛️ A bipartisan group of senators agreed on a $10B spending package to provide Americans with Covid tests, treatments and vaccines.
• 🇭🇰 Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam will not seek a second term; her five years in office coincided with massive pro-democracy protests against China's takeover in 2019 and Covid shutdowns in 2020.
• ⚖️ Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is headed to the full Senate after a vote along party lines in the Judiciary Committee yesterday. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “"The [SEC] won't let me be or let me be me so let me see; They tried to shut me down…"

• Lawyers for Tesla CEO Elon Musk quoted Eminem’s “Without Me” in the billionaires' latest legal effort to overturn an SEC agreement requiring him to gain pre-approval for certain tweets.

🎮 Stat of the Day: Fortnite raised a total of $144 million for Ukraine relief after developer Epic Games pledged to donate all proceeds to humanitarian efforts over a period of two weeks.

🤯 Did You Know?... The city of Cancun was founded by the Mexican government using computer models. Their goal was to choose the perfect spot for tourists out of the country’s 6,000 miles of coastline.

📖 Worth a Read: Life Advice from NYC Chess Hustlers → (CAFÉ ANNE)

Allison Marois wanted to do something special for her retired-firefighter dad's birthday. Hoping to collect a firefighter t-shirt from each of the 50 states, the Iowa woman posted on TikTok asking for help. 

• “He really is passionate being a firefighter," she told CNN. "That’s the one thing that he’s loved. If someone was born to do something, my dad was born to be a firefighter." 

🚒 Firemen to the rescue... Allison's goal was to make the 50 T-shirts into a quilt for her dad. She only had around 10 states when she posted the video.  

• Alison's video quickly racked up over 200,000 views, and soon enough, she was overwhelmed by responses from around the country – all willing to send in shirts from their local fire department. 

👕 The result: Today, she's just seven states away from achieving her goal.

🌍 GeoGuessr, DONUT style… How many of the numbered countries can you name?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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

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1. Egypt
2. Kazakhstan
3. Algeria
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Pakistan
6. Iran
7. Afghanistan
8. Libya
9. India
10. Spain