Good morning and welcome to Thursday. The big question on every golf fan's mind: Will Tiger turn back the clock this weekend at Augusta??

The key to success is simple. Stay on the fairway – and out of the woods.😉

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 4.60 minutes to read.

"The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it."

–John Locke (1632-1704)

Google has yanked dozens of apps from its Play store after determining they include a software element that surreptitiously harvests data, the WSJ reports.

📱 The deets… A Panamanian company called Measurement Systems was responsible for writing the data-harvesting code, per two researchers who published their findings yesterday.

Ready for the shoe to drop?

• Measurement Systems is linked through corporate records and web registrations to a Virginia defense contractor that does cyberintelligence, network-defense and intelligence-intercept work for US national-security agencies.
• Its software has been found inside several Muslim prayer apps, a highway-speed-trap detection app, a popular weather app in Iran, a QR-code reading app and a number of other popular consumer apps. All in all, the code is installed on more than 60 million Android devices.
• And its reach could be much larger. In addition to collecting precise location data and unique identifiers (phone and/or email), the software could spot the existence of other devices running on the same Wi-Fi network as one with the code. (I.e., it would know who you were around.)

⚙️ How it worked: The company would pay developers to install its SDK (software development kit) inside their apps, saying the data was being collected on behalf of internet-service providers and fin-serv and energy companies. 

• According to the WSJ, developers could earn anywhere from $100 to $10,000 – or more – per month depending on how many active users it could deliver.

MLB Opening Day has finally arrived, and with it comes a sense of normalcy: 162 games on the schedule, stadiums will be at full capacity from the get-go, and the brief labor lockout is firmly in the rearview mirror.

⚾ But there are several changes... 

• The postseason field was expanded from 10 teams to 12 – three division winners and three Wild Card teams per league.
• Rather than a winner-take-all Wild Card game, the first postseason round is now best-of-three, with the top two seeds in each league receiving byes.
• The designated hitter (DH) rule now applies to both the American and National Leagues.

💰 You pay to win the game: This was the biggest-spending offseason in MLB history by far, with roughly $3.4 billion in contractual agreements reached despite a three-month pause due to lockout.

The biggest spender? The Texas Rangers, who set an MLB record for most money spent in an offseason – and did it basically with two players (shortstops Corey Seager and Marcus Semien), who together added up to $500 million in new contract money.

• Max Scherzer also became the highest paid player in league history, signing a three-year, $130 million deal with the Mets (~$43 million annually😳).

🏆👀 Looking ahead to October... The odds-on World Series favorites are the Dodgers (4.5 to 1). The Blue Jays and Astros are next (8 to 1 and 9.5 to 1), followed by the New York Mets and Yankees (both at 10 to 1).

The most-streamed song on Spotify is plagiarism-free, per a London judge's ruling released yesterday.

🎤 A deeper dive... The copyright case in question centered around "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran, who stood accused of stealing sound from UK grime artist Sami Chokri and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue.

• Lawyers for Chokri and O’Donoghue argued that "Shape of You" copied the hook of their track, which includes the phrase “oh why” being sung several times.
• In order to prove the claim, they needed to show that Sheeran had listened to Chokri’s song – otherwise the similarities would just be coincidence. But the judge ruled there was only speculative evidence that had ever occurred.
• “Shape of You” is the most-streamed song of all-time on Spotify, garnering over 3 billion plays. It earns Sheeran and his co-writers upwards of $6.5 million per year.

💬 Bad Habits... “[The trend of suing and hoping to settle is] really damaging to the songwriting industry. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify,” Sheeran said in a video posted after the judgment was released.

⚖️ Zoom out: In 2017, Sheeran settled out of court over claims he copied his song “Photograph.” A separate ongoing lawsuit accuses him of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” with his track “Thinking Out Loud.”

• Fellow UK pop star Dua Lipa is currently facing a pair of lawsuits claiming copyright infringement over “Levitating,” which was bought, streamed, or played on the radio more than any other song in America last year.

If you guessed a functional fidget in the form of a computer mouse that improves focus and helps children complete tasks, then you guessed right! 😎

🤯 Did you know?… Between 30 and 40% of the population is thought to be neurodiverse. This includes conditions like ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder, which can make staying engaged and learning more challenging.

🐭🖱 Reimagining the mouse… After hundreds of feedback sessions, Hedgehog Health found that kids, especially those with learning challenges, respond to the following:

• Squishiness
• Nubby texture
• Bright, vivid hues

Hedgehog Health put those ingredients together with a computer mouse, and the Hoglet was born.

Fidget toys have been proven to help with concentration. The problem, however, is many schools don’t allow them into computer labs. 🖥️

The Hoglet solves this issue by turning a regular computer mouse into a functional fidget with bright colors and awesome textures that have a calming, centering effect.

➡️ Get the Hoglet today and save $30!

Online checkout startup Fast – which was valued at ~$580 million in its latest funding round – is shutting down, according to CEO Domm Holland.

💳 The (juicy) deets... The one-click checkout company raised nearly $125 million from investors, including payments giant Stripe and VC firm Index Ventures.

• It ran into trouble earlier this year when executives attempted to raise another funding round valuing Fast at over $1 billion, but received... erhm... limited investor interest.
• Last year, the company hired around 400 employees and spent up to $10 million per month – but its core business generated just $600,000 in revenue, per The Information (paywalled).

💬 What they're saying: Several Fast employees told NPR that Holland had poured significant funds into high salaries and deals aimed at creating marketing buzz, including partnerships with sports teams.

🌐 Zoom out: In the five years since Amazon's patent on one-click checkout expired, dozens of companies have commercialized their own solutions.

• PayPal and Apple are among the largest companies in the industry today; Fast was attempting to carve out a place alongside smaller competitors like Bolt and Shopify.

• ☝️ SHoP Architects (yep, we spelled it correctly) just finished constructing the skinniest skyscraper in the world; it's located on ‘Billionaires’ Row’ in Midtown Manhattan; the 1,428-foot-tall building accommodates one residence per floor.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US stocks fell across the board for the second straight day; minutes from the Fed’s latest meeting showed that officials discussed raising rates by up to half a point instead of a quarter. (Dow: -0.4% | S&P: –1.0% | Nasdaq: -2.2%)
• 📊 Yahoo Finance launched a new Collectibles Index that tracks the value of things like trading cards, classic cars and comic books.
• 🔎 The SEC is reportedly investigating Amazon over how it handled disclosures related to its employees using data from third-party sellers, sources told the WSJ.
• ✈️🚆🏨 Uber is testing a feature in the UK this summer that would let you book long-distance travel (planes, trains, buses) from the app; the company is aiming to create a travel "superapp."

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎤 The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia are replacing Kanye West as headliners at Coachella this month.
• 🍿 Netflix introduced a Pete Davidson-inspired selection of movies titled “Short-Ass Movies”; the films in this category are all less than 90 minutes long.
• ⚾ The money train keeps rolling: Guardians infielder Jose Ramirez signed a 5-year, $124 million extension, the largest in franchise history.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦖 Scientists discovered an extremely preserved leg of a dinosaur that some are claiming came from the actual day the giant asteroid that killed the dinos struck Earth.
• 🛸 Encounters with UFOs have reportedly left Americans with radiation burns, brain and nervous system damage and even "unaccounted for pregnancy," according to a database of collected government reports recently made public.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🐦 Twitter is adding an edit button days after new board member Elon Musk polled his followers asking whether they wanted one (73.6% said ‘yse’).
• 🏛️🇷🇺 The White House announced new sanctions against Russia, including restrictions on President Vladimir Putin's two adult daughters; the EU is also poised to make the same move.
• ⚖️ A federal judge issued the first acquittal in a case regarding the January 6 riot at the US Capitol yesterday; the FBI has made nearly 800 arrests in total with hundreds more outstanding cases. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “We can’t grow faster.”

• Top oil company executives rejected accusations of price-gouging at a six-hour House hearing yesterday; average US prices at the pump hit a record $4.32 per gallon last month and have fallen 3% since then, while crude prices have dropped 20+% from recent highs.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🏫 Stats of the Day: 46% of students in Los Angeles Unified have been chronically absent this year (i.e., missed at least 9% of classes), according to the LA Times.

• In NYC that figure is 40%, up from 26% in 2018-2019, per the NY Post.

🤯 Did You Know?... In 1982, some 43% of fathers said they had never changed a diaper; by 2000, that number was down to 3%.

📖 Worth a Read: The Remarkable Brain of a Carpet Cleaner Who Speaks 24 Languages → (SFGate)

Deploy troops to or institute a no-fly zone over Ukraine (31%) – “Russia is behaving just as the Nazis did at the start of WWII when they invaded Poland without any resistance. The other nations didn't want to get involved, and the world crisis escalated to unprecidented heights because of that. We need to join forces and make it stop now.”

Stay out of any military conflict, but keep imposing sanctions on Russia (35%) – “Two nuclear powers going to war means lines being drawn and crossed, and alliances being made and broken around the world. It means fighting not just in Europe – but in Asia, the Middle East and Africa as well. We should try our best to help Ukraine, but avoid triggering this scenario.”

Nothing, it’s not our problem (17%) – “We can’t start WW3, and the problem with sanctions is that they currently and historically don’t work as intended. Oligarchs remain wealthy, regular people take most of the impact, and they don’t tend to stop war – only delay it.”

Unsure/Other (17%) – “My main priority is avoiding a nuclear war, but I don’t feel comfortable saying we shouldn’t do anything to help Ukraine. Sanctions clearly aren’t helping much.”

+Note on sample size: We received 6,825 responses.👏🥳 Some may have been lightly edited for grammar or clarity.

Canadian native Robert Perkins and his love Rhonda met at sixteen years old. The two bonded over their passion for the outdoors, and dreamt of one day building their own little place in the woods together.

🦫❤️ A lifetime in the making... Rhonda passed tragically in 2006. And ever since, the Nova Scotian man has dedicated himself to keeping her memory alive by building a wildlife refuge sanctuary right in his backyard.

• The wetland area now includes eight ponds of different sizes surrounded by vegetation and animal residents.
• Robert says he's proud of the habitat, and feels Rhonda around him constantly. 
• "I couldn't walk away from her," he shared with CBC. "If I'm here, she's here."

❓ Trivia: What are the 3 largest industries in the US by revenue?

🤔 Riddle me this… What’s a 4 letter, 3 syllable word that has 3 vowels?

⚖️ True or false?... Lawnmowers kill more people each year than sharks.

(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:

1. Retirement and pension plans
2. Health and medical insurance
3. Drugs, cosmetics and toiletry wholesaling

The three have a combined annual revenue of almost $3.5 trillion.

🤔 Riddle: Idea

⚖️ T/F: True – lawnmowers are responsible for an average of 70 deaths per year. Sharks? Around 10.