Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. On today’s docket:

• 🇺🇦 Russia/Ukraine peace talks are at a “dead end.”
• 🪁 Wanna live off the grid? Get an energy-producing kite.
• 😬 The latest inflation report is out.

... and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.44 minutes to read.

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away."

–Elvis Presley (1935-1977)

🇺🇦 In his first extended public comments about the war in over a month, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue his assault on Ukraine after peace talks between the two sides reached a “dead end.”

• The US and UK are investigating allegations of a chemical attack used by Russia in the eastern port city of Mariupol; no independent evidence of such an attack has yet emerged.
• Russian military hackers tried and failed to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last week, the country’s government and a Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm revealed yesterday.
• 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.4 million children (64%) have fled their homes over the past six weeks, per the UN, which has verified the deaths of 142 children thus far; officials say the true number is almost certainly much higher.
• Sweden's ruling party has officially begun debating whether the country should join NATO, while Finland is expected to take a step towards potentially joining the military alliance later this week.

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

…yep, it’s still high.

Inflation rose 8.5% in March from a year earlier, per Labor Department figures released yesterday, its fastest annual pace since December 1981. It's the fifth straight month inflation has hit a new 40-year high.

• The consumer price index, a key inflation measure tracking what consumers pay for goods and services, rose 1.2% from February to March, the highest monthly increase since September 2005.

📝 A breakdown…

• Energy/fuel: Accounted for more than half of the index’s total monthly jump, with energy prices increasing 11% overall in March from the prior month. Gas prices went up 18.3% month-over-month.
• Food: Was also a major contributor to inflation. An index of food prices rose 8.8% in March from the prior year, the biggest annual increase since 1981, driven by an increase in the price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs.
• The core index (with food + energy/fuel stripped out): Increased 6.5% in March from a year earlier – up from February’s 6.4% rise, and the sharpest 12-month rise since August 1982.

📸 Big picture: High inflation is the downside of booming growth as the economy bounces back from Covid, the WSJ reports. Fed officials began raising interest rates last month to rein in lending, spending and demand, and the central bank’s top goal at the moment is to reduce inflation, Fed governor Lael Brainard said at an event yesterday.

• Russian oil bans have also rocked global energy markets and are causing trouble for US consumers and businesses in both direct and indirect ways. In addition to gas, commercial transportation, utilities, fertilizers and more have shot up in price since the invasion began.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, fosters greater connections between different regions of the brain in depressed people, freeing them up from long-held patterns of rumination and excessive self-focus, according to a peer-reviewed study published in Nature Medicine on Monday.

🧠 A deeper dive… Scientists at UC San Francisco and Imperial College London analyzed brain scans of nearly 60 people who had participated in two psilocybin trials and received the same type of psychotherapy.

• Trial #1: In this trial, all the participants had treatment-resistant depression and knew they were being given psilocybin.
• Trial #2: Was a bit different. The participants were depressed but not as severely, and they were not told whether they'd been given psilocybin or a placebo that turned out to be escitalopram, an SSRI antidepressant.

🤔 One interesting thing: Those who underwent psilocybin-assisted therapy experienced noticeable changes in brain patterns associated with depression. No such changes were seen in the brains of those who received escitalopram, suggesting that psilocybin acts differently on the brain than SSRIs.

💊 Zoom out: Psychedelics like MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD — combined with cognitive behavioral therapy — have shown promise for treating a range of addictions and mental health disorders, including treatment-resistant depression and PTSD.

+For us visual learners: 👇

And that’s a good thing. As parents, we love them for exactly who they are. But when it comes to how your child views themselves, it isn’t so simple.

The content kids consume can have a negative impact if they can’t see themselves in the characters.

And with children's books, there’s a significant underrepresentation of kids with disabilities, sicknesses, and those with darker skin tones.

When kids can’t relate, they start to question whether their lives have value or self-worth.😕

🙌 Be the change… Keepsake Tales launched in 2019 after identifying this problem. Instead of waiting for change, they started making personalized books that let your kids be the main character. 👏 

1. Simply upload a photo
2. Personalize the illustration of your child
3. Select your stories

And then you'll receive a personalized book with beautiful illustrations, exciting adventures, and the coolest main character imaginable.

Save 25% by using the code DONUT25 at checkout.🍩😎

➡️ Make your kid the hero of the story with Keepsake Tales.

This week, Philadelphia became the first major US city to re-introduce its mask mandate in response to an uptick in cases spurred by the omicron BA.2 variant, which now accounts for ~75% of new infections across the country.

• Preliminary research shows this new variant is slightly more transmissible than the previous dominant omicron strain (BA.1), but there’s no evidence that it results in more severe outcomes.

🔢 By the numbers… Philly (pop. ~1.6 million) has recorded an average of 142 new cases each day over the last two weeks, with 4.5% of tests coming back positive during that time. There are currently 46 hospitalized patients in the city, with six on ventilators.

😷 Driving the move: Although an indoor mask mandate is not recommended for Philly under current CDC standards, the local health commissioner said a more cautious approach is justified because the city has a history of disparities leading to worse public health consequences for minority communities.

☝️ Zoom out: Covid hospitalizations are at an all-time low across the country, according to government data, with less than 2% of US hospital beds being used for Covid patients as of Monday (~14,500 people in total).

• Daily US Covid deaths are at their lowest point since last August, averaging 500 people per day.
• For context, the leading cause of death in the US is heart disease, which killed just over 1,900 Americans per day in 2020; cancer was second at 1,650, while Covid was third at 960.

• ☝️ Lego unveiled a life-sized F1 car at last weekend’s race in Australia; the model, which features moving pistons, a locking differential and working steering controls, took a team of 27 Lego engineers nearly 2,000 hours to complete using more than a quarter of a million bricks.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US digital ad revenue jumped 35% to $189 billion last year, the largest annual gain since 2006, per a new report.
• 💼 Out of the 21% of Americans who switched jobs over the past year, 40% say they’re already looking for a new position according to a new survey.
• 📝 The 100 best companies to work for, according to Fortune’s annual list.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎭 Gilbert Gottfried, a comedian and actor known for voicing the Aflac duck and Iago in Disney’s original Aladdin, passed away at 67.
• 👍👍 Netflix introduced a ‘Two Thumbs Up’ button to be used when you ‘love’ a movie or TV series.
• ⚖️ Opening statements were given yesterday in Johnny Depp's multi-million defamation lawsuit against his former wife, Amber Heard.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☄️ The Pentagon confirmed the first-ever interstellar visitor to Earth – a meteor that flew through the atmosphere over Papua New Guinea in 2014.
• 👂 MIT spinout Frequency Therapeutics developed a new regenerative drug that reverses hearing loss by stimulating the growth of small hair cells in the inner ear.
• 🪁 German startup Kitekraft is one of nearly a dozen US and European companies flying gigantic, computer-controlled kites to generate electricity from “airborne wind energy.”
• 🔋🚘 NASA is teaming up with Nissan to develop next-gen battery technology that can fully charge in 15 minutes.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🚨 The NYPD is still hunting for a suspect who deployed a smoke bomb and shot 10 people on a Brooklyn subway yesterday morning.
• ⛽ The Biden administration plans to temporarily allow high-ethanol content gasoline to be sold this summer in a bid to lower fuel prices at the pump. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 🗽 New York Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin resigned yesterday after he was indicted on federal charges over an alleged bribery scheme and subsequent cover-up when he was a state senator. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “The deadliest year in US history."

• The CDC quietly updated its provisional death tally for 2021 this month, as first reported by the AP; the agency said 3.465 million Americans died last year, roughly 80,000 more than 2020′s record-setting total.

📺 Stats of the Day: CNN+ has fewer than 10,000 daily users two weeks after launch, sources told CNBC.

• For context, CNN's cable channel declined in viewership last year but still averaged nearly 800,000 viewers a day.
• The network has spent ~$300 million on its subscription streaming service to date, and was projecting about 2 million signups in the first year.

🤯 Did You Know?... Every single country’s passport is one of four colors – blue, red, green or black – despite there being no official rules about cover color.

📖 Worth a Read: 'Stresslaxation' is Real. Here’s Why It Happens and How to Get Past It → (Fast Company)

When do you think the Covid pandemic will be ‘over’?

The pandemic is already ‘over’

Sometime this year

Sometime in 2023

In 2024 or later

+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.

A group of 107 skydivers over the age of 60 set out to break a world record in California last weekend. 

• The team of older individuals, the Skydivers Over Sixty, gathered from all around the world to make a massive human snowflake in the air.
• While they just barely missed the world record, with one person falling out of formation, the crew plans to reconvene next year and try again.

🪂 Never stop adventuring... "Just because you are over 60 doesn't mean you have to sit down and not participate in activities," said one of the skydivers, 75-year-old Fredrick Winsser. "There's all kinds of possibilities you can do. I scuba dive as well, I used to ski, skydiving is the cats meow."

❓Trivia: Who is the only actor to be killed by an alien, a predator, and a terminator?

⚖️ True or false?... Oval watermelons are sweeter than round ones.

🤔 Riddle me this… John’s mother has 5 children. Their names are March, April, May, June and ______?

(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:  Bill Paxton

⚖️ T/F:  False. Round ones are sweeter.

🤔 Riddle: John…. not July.😉