Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. In today’s news you probably didn’t need to know, Coca-Cola is launching a “pixel-flavored” drink.🤔

• According to the company, it “brings the flavor of pixels to life in a beverage that transcends both the digital and physical realms.”

If anyone knows what that actually means, you get 100,000 Whose Line Is It Anyway points.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.15 minutes to read.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

–Aristotle (384 B.C. – 322 B.C.)

In yesterday's intro section we misplaced an apostrophe; we wrote "oligarch's" when it should've been "oligarchs'"....

We don’t usually run grammatical corrections – only factual ones – but we got hammered so much for this yesterday that here we are. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR APOSTROPHES, PEOPLE (though some of you need no reminders😉).

On Friday, an LA county judge struck down a state law requiring publicly-held companies HQ’d in California to have at least one minority member on their board, ruling it to be unconstitutional. It’s unclear whether the decision will be appealed.

📝 The deets… Under the 2020 law, companies were required to have from one to three board members who self-identify as a member of an "underrepresented community." This applied to:

• Asian, Black, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander individuals,
• As well as those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Companies in noncompliance faced fines.

💬 From the judge’s mouth…er, pen: In a 24-page ruling, LA County Superior Court Judge Terry Green found lawmakers didn’t have state-specific stats about discrimination against qualified director candidates. They also hadn’t tried identity-neutral methods, like requiring board members to be selected publicly.

• “If demographically homogeneous boards are a problem, then heterogenous boards are the immediate and obvious solution. But that doesn’t mean the Legislature can skip directly to mandating heterogenous boards.”

🇺🇸 Zoom out: California previously passed a law in 2018 requiring companies to have a certain number of women on each corporate board (it’s currently undergoing legal challenges). Other states, including Maryland and New York, require companies to disclose board diversity statistics, but none have enacted mandatory quotas.

• On a broader level, the SEC has approved a Nasdaq rule, set to go in effect this year, requiring companies listed on its exchange to disclose the ethnic and gender makeup of their boards and have at least two “diverse” members – or explain why they don’t.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🎓💰 It's because the Biden administration is planning to once again extend the moratorium on federal student loan payments, this time through the end of August, per multiple sources; an official announcement is expected later today.

• The news comes as the current pause on payments, initially issued in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, was set to expire on May 1.
• It’ll be the sixth time the White House has extended the moratorium – twice under Trump and four times under Biden.
• Borrowers with private loans, which make up less than 10% of outstanding student debt, haven’t been eligible for the pause in payments – though some lenders and servicers offered flexibility to those who requested a suspension.

🇺🇸 The big picture: Over 40 million Americans owe a combined ~$1.6 trillion in federal student debt, a sum larger than credit-card or auto debt.

• Student-loan borrowers had been spared $195 billion in federal payments during the pandemic, per a Fed report published last month, which found nearly 80% made no payments during that time.
• Prior to the pandemic, more than 7 million borrowers had defaulted on their loans, meaning they were at least 270 days late on payments.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

Yesterday, Amazon announced a multibillion-dollar investment into Project Kuiper, its satellite internet business.

🚀🛰️🌐 The deets... Project Kuiper has inked deals with three rocket companies to deploy more than 3,000 satellites across 83 launches over the next five years; it’s the biggest space-launch order in history.

• Among the rocket companies is founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which agreed to provide at least 12 of the launches (with the potential for 15 more).
• French company Arianespace is tasked with 18 launches.
• United Launch Alliance – jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin – is expected to conduct 47 launches in a rocket with engines built by Blue Origin.

☝️ One interesting thing: Notably absent from the list is SpaceX, whose Starlink internet service is expected to be a direct competitor with Project Kuiper.

• Starlink is well ahead of everyone else in the industry, having already deployed nearly 2,000 satellites and amassing around 250,000 global subscribers.

👀 Looking ahead… Project Kuiper hasn’t sent up any satellites yet, but plans to launch two prototypes later this year. Per its FCC permit, half of the planned 3,236 satellites must be operational by July 2026 or else Amazon could lose the right to send up more.

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🇺🇦 Russia appears to be shifting its focus and redeploying a significant portion of its troops to eastern and southern Ukraine as the war approaches its seventh week; NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg predicted that Moscow will attempt to take control of the entire eastern Donbas region over the next few weeks.

• Ukraine cyber officials said they identified 65 different attacks from Russia between March 23 and March 29, which was five times more than in the previous week.
• The US ambassador to the UN introduced a proposal to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council following a video message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (more on that further down).
• The EU proposed a broad new sanctions package against Russia that includes a blanket ban on coal imports and individual restrictions against oligarchs, including two of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughters, sources told the WSJ.
• Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Spain joined Germany and France in expelling dozens of Russian diplomats over reports of civilian killings in Bucha, a town near Kyiv.

• ☝️ Two stolen notebooks written by Charles Darwin worth millions of dollars have been mysteriously returned to Cambridge University 22 years after they were last seen.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🐦 Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors after becoming its largest shareholder last month; he currently owns 9.2% of the company.
• 👔 White-collar workers are spending 250% more time in meetings than they were pre-pandemic, according to Microsoft’s research manager.
• 🚘 GM and Honda announced a new partnership to develop a series of affordable EVs priced below $30,000.
• 💰✈️ JetBlue made an unsolicited $3.6 billion all-cash offer for Spirit Airlines, raising questions about Spirit's planned merger with rival Frontier Airlines.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏌️ Tiger Woods said yesterday that “as of right now,” he plans to play in the Masters starting tomorrow; it would be his first major tournament since sustaining serious leg injuries in a February 2021 car crash.
• 🍿 The second season of Bridgerton is the most watched English-language TV series in Netflix history through its first seven days, racking up 251.7 million viewer hours.
• ​​👋 WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar will step down after the company's merger with Discovery is complete.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ✈️ An Airbus jumbo jet recently completed two successful test flights relying 100% on recycled cooking oil and other waste fats for fuel.
• 👁️ Mojo Vision recently unveiled its new augmented reality contact lenses; the tech still needs further testing and development before it can receive FDA approval for consumers.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 👙 The real Shein haul: The fast-fashion retailer was valued at $100 billion in a recent funding round, per the WSJ.
• 🚢 President Biden nominated Admiral Linda Fagan to be the next commandant of the Coast Guard; if confirmed, she would be the first woman to lead a US military branch.
• 🏛️ Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) announced his retirement from Congress after 36 years. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 📝 Oklahoma’s legislature passed a bill banning abortion in all instances unless the mother’s life is in danger; if the governor signs it into law, it’s expected to take effect sometime this year unless blocked by the courts. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “There is not a single crime that they would not commit there.”

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the UN Security Council yesterday that Russia should be removed or the council should otherwise be dissolved, after saying at least 300 civilians in Bucha were tortured and killed by Russian troops.

🎮 Stat of the Day: Egg prices are up over 50% since February 8 – reaching $2.88 per dozen – due to increasing cases of avian flu; 17+ million birds have died from the disease so far, including 11 million egg-laying chickens.

🌍🌾 Around the World... More than a quarter of Africa’s population (~340 million people) is facing a food-security crisis driven by severe drought, local wars and a rise in global food prices, the Red Cross warned yesterday.

🤯 Did You Know?... Chinese checkers was actually invented in Germany in 1892 and later given its present-day name thanks to a marketing tactic; the game is neither a variation of checkers nor does it have anything to do with China.

📖 Worth a Read: The Guy Who Quit Med School to Become an NBA Referee → (The Hustle)

What should the US/NATO do about the ongoing war in Ukraine?

Deploy troops to or institute a no-fly zone over Ukraine

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

Nothing, it’s not our problem

Unsure/Other

+Clarification: We decided to equate deploying troops to Ukraine with a no-fly zone because instituting it would require enforcing it (i.e., shooting down Russian planes in violation).

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

Douglas Smith of Hertfordshire, England, won his first Guinness World Record after growing the world's tallest sunflower back in 2020. 

• The IT Manager/gardener extraordinaire has done it again, this time growing a record 1,269 tomatoes on a single stem.🤯

🏆🍅 Quite the effort... After spending weeks perfecting his technique and creating an ideal growing environment, Douglas said he was “really pleased” with the “amazing” tomato harvest this year.

📅 Trivia: What’s the official English word for “the day after tomorrow”? (Hint: It ends in “morrow”)

🤔 True or False?... More people drown in deserts each year than die from dehydration.

❓ Riddle Me This: What 5-letter English word can be pronounced the same even with 4 of its letters removed?

(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:

Trivia: Overmorrow

T/F: True, according to WorldAtlas, which notes that while over one-third of the Earth’s landscape is covered by deserts, just 20% of that land is covered by sand (for example: Antarctica is a desert).

Riddle: Queue