Good morning and welcome to Monday. Whether you had a relaxing weekend of baseball and golf, good times with good company, or a wild adventure, we hope it was amazing.

And if it was a terrible weekend? Don’t let a bad yesterday ruin a good today. 👍

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.22 minutes to read.

"From the errors of others, a wise person corrects their own."

–Publilius Syrus (85 B.C. – 43 B.C.)

🇺🇦 Both sides gathered reinforcements in eastern Ukraine over the weekend, as they prepare for what’s likely to be the war’s biggest battles in the coming days and weeks, per the WSJ.

• Local officials said at least 52 Ukrainians were killed – including five children – in a Russian airstrike on Friday targeting a train station that was being used to evacuate civilians.
• Ukraine has opened 5,600 cases of alleged war crimes since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova told the UK’s Sky News yesterday.
• Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, marking the first in-person meeting between an EU leader and Putin since war started.

How the invasion is impacting…

🌾🌽 Food: Global food prices hit a new high last month according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization’s index, which rose 12.6% to notch its highest-ever recorded level.

• Between them, Russia and Ukraine accounted for 30% of global wheat exports, and 20% of global maize exports over the past three years. 
• Ukraine is also the world's biggest supplier of sunflower seed oil.

🎤🎸 Music: Legendary rock band Pink Floyd reunited for its first original song since 1994, featuring vocals from Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the Ukrainian Band Boombox; proceeds from the track are going to the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund.

The former head of Goldman Sachs in Malaysia, Robert Ng, has been convicted of money laundering and bribery for his part in a multibillion scheme to plunder the Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB.

🏦 Background: The charges stemmed from bond deals that Goldman helped arrange in 2012 and 2013 to raise $6.5 billion for the fund, which was founded to pursue public development projects in the Southeast Asian country.

• But more than $4 billion was stolen and diverted to government officials, bankers and their associates through bribes and kickbacks between 2009 and 2015.

💰 The money was used…

• To buy a $250 million yacht,
• Luxury real estate, jewels, art
• And partly finance The Wolf of Wall Street (you could say it went from 1MDB → IMDb😉)

💸🇺🇸🇲🇾 Zoom out: Goldman has paid more than $5 billion in penalties to the US and Malaysia, yanked compensation from some top execs and admitted that a subsidiary broke US corruption laws. Its board called the matter an “institutional failure.”

🔎 Zoom in: Prosecutors said Ng helped his former boss at the bank, Tim Leissner, embezzle cash from the fund, launder the proceeds and bribe officials to win business for Goldman. Leissner pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2018.

• The heist’s alleged mastermind, Jho Low (aka “The Asian Great Gatsby”), remains on the loose.

🏌️ American Scottie Scheffler, the #1 ranked golfer in the world, cruised to victory at Augusta this weekend, shooting 10 under par to win the Masters (and a record $2.7 million payout) by three strokes.

• Sheffler had a record-tying 5-stroke lead after two rounds; the other four players to achieve this mark also went on to win the Masters.
• Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy placed second thanks to a blistering final round – he shot -8 on Sunday to finish the tournament at 7-under, tying the all-time Masters record for lowest round four score. (He also holed-out from the bunker on 18.)
• In his first major tournament since last year’s car crash, Tiger Woods made the cut but finished in 47th place, shooting 6-over on Sunday to finish +13.

👀 Looking ahead.. The next major on the schedule is the PGA Championship in Tulsa, OK, starting May 19 – then the US Open in Brookline, MA, the following month.

Literally… Why Put Anything Else In Your Body?!

🚦 GO: 5 quick reasons that Matcha is 100% straight-up cleaner for your mind and body than coffee. (Oh, and the Earth, too, in case you care about that…)

🍵 Matcha…

• Is grown from heirloom tea cultivars (i.e. strains) to naturally have more health benefits 🌱 and wicked delicious flavor.
• Has been specially cultivated and shade-grown in Japan for nearly 1,000 years, and takes A LOT LESS water to grow than coffee (a single cup of coffee = 37 gallons of water).
• Literally contains ~10x the calming amino acids AND ~137x antioxidants per serving than regular green tea! 😎
• Has plenty of caffeine, so go ahead and ditch the coffee. Say goodbye forever to jitters and anxiety.
• Is the most stunning bright green color of anything else you’ll ever drink. And honestly, it’s starting to make us wonder how we can ever even look at coffee again.

BTW... matcha has also been researched to make you LIVE 👏 LONGER, not to mention feel more beautiful inside and out.💆

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On Friday, a federal jury failed to convict four men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer due to Covid restrictions she imposed early in the pandemic.

• Two men were acquitted, while the jury couldn’t reach verdicts in the other two cases, resulting in mistrials.

📅 Background: Thirteen men were arrested in October 2020 on allegations of formulating plans to kidnap Whitmer as part of a militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen.

• Six faced federal charges, which carry a maximum penalty of life in prison – the four mentioned above, along with two others who pleaded guilty before the trial.
• One was sentenced to 75 months, while one is awaiting sentencing.
• The other seven are still awaiting trial on state charges of providing material support for terrorist acts, among other things.

⚖️ In this month's case… Lawyers for the defense asserted that the government entrapped the four men by orchestrating the kidnapping plot, which wouldn’t have advanced as far as it did without the support of an FBI informant.

• The source in question – a military vet who reached out to the FBI after joining the Wolverine Watchmen – testified that he eventually rose to the role of second-in-command, helping with training, organizational and tactical operations.

🧗‍♀️ The crux: According to the defense, it was around this time the informant and his two FBI handlers encouraged the group to plan a kidnapping that none of them would have taken up without him.

• The prosecution argued they only needed to show that the four men were predisposed to commit the crime – any encouragement provided by government agents was fair game.

👀 Looking ahead… Federal attorneys indicated they plan to retry the two defendants who had hung juries.

• 👆 The world’s first all-private astronaut mission docked at the ISS on Saturday morning; the launch was conducted by SpaceX, and the mission was organized by Axiom Space.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🐦 Elon Musk has declined to join Twitter's board of directors, the company said last night.
• 🔌🔋 Apple published – then quickly removed – a document to its website revealing a dual USB-C charger capable of charging multiple iPhones/other accessories or fast-charging an iPhone + an Apple Watch; it may be released at some point in the future.
• ✈️📉 JetBlue will reduce flights in May and throughout the summer due to staffing limitations; the carrier canceled 18% of its flights Saturday, 13% yesterday and ~33% of its flights two Sundays ago. | Separately, the FAA proposed its two biggest fines ever for unruly passengers ($81,290 and $77,272).

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Steelers QB Dwayne Haskins, 24, passed away on Saturday after he was hit by a vehicle while walking along a South Florida highway.
• 🥊 Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski defeated Chan Sung Jung via TKO at UFC 273 Saturday night
• 🚫🎭 Will Smith was banned from attending the Oscars or any Academy events for the next 10 years.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🔭 Researchers discovered the farthest astronomical object ever detected, a galaxy roughly 13.5 billion light-years away.
• 👩‍🔬 UK scientists were able to to engineer human skin cells to reverse roughly 30 years of aging.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🗳️ French President Emmanuel Macron and challenger Marine Le Pen advanced to the runoff stage of France’s presidential elections yesterday; the final round is April 24. | Pakistan’s Parliament will elect the successor to PM Imran Khan later today after he was ousted in a no-confidence vote early Sunday.
• 💉 The White House's mandate that federal workers be vaccinated against Covid was reinstated by a federal appeals court late Thursday. (From the Left | From the Right)
• ⚖️ A Texas DA will dismiss the case against a woman arrested for murder after what authorities said was a "self-induced abortion." (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… "If the results are verified by other experiments, the world is going to look different. There has to be a paradigm shift."

• Physicists at Chicago's Fermilab discovered the mass of a subatomic particle called the "W boson" was greater than predicted in the standard model of particle physics – a theory that has explained how the universe works for nearly 50 years.

📛 Stat of the Day: American consumers racked up more than $41 billion worth of debt across credit cards and loans in February, the highest monthly jump in over a decade.

🌎 Around the World: Shanghai, China’s most populous city, is entering its third week of Covid lockdown; videos circulating social media over the weekend show thousands of residents screaming in frustration out of their windows, as some have reported running out of food and clean water.

🤯 Did You Know?... Los Angeles has oil wells hidden in plain sight throughout the city; they’re located inside windowless buildings designed to look like offices, warehouses or towers.

📖 Worth a Read: The Gravity-Defying Ups and Downs of Extreme Pogo → (MEL Magazine)

Monday: Warner Bros. Discovery begins trading under the combined WBD ticker

Tuesday: Consumer Price Index for March

Wednesday: Last game of the NBA regular season; playoffs begin Saturday

Thursday: Look Up at the Sky Day

Friday: Good Friday; Passover begins at sundown (ends Saturday); first day of Coachella (ends April 24)

To get to a nearby hotel, apparently. Police were urgently called last weekend to an intersection in Southampton, NY, in response to a baby seal scooting slowly across the road. 

• The seal pup is believed to have swum up a nearby river before crawling out. It was inching its way towards a hotel when the officers found the animal and brought it to a nearby rehabilitation center.

💬 What they're saying... “The animal is in good condition,” remarked Maxine Montello, the rescue center's director. “We just think he wandered a little too far from the beach. Hopefully we’ll be able to get him back to the beach as soon as possible.”

🤔 Riddle me this… What is something that connects two people, but only touches one?

⚖️ True or false?... The founder of UPS once gambled the company's last $5,000 in Vegas to be able to pay its bills.

(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:

🤔 Riddle: A wedding ring

⚖️ T/F: False; it was FedEx founder Fred Smith