Good morning. Today is 4/20, and we all know what that means... Happy 85th Birthday to George Takei!!!🥳

If you need us, we'll be binge-watching Star Trek and ordering Uber Eats.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 4.55 minutes to read.

"Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves."

–Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

In our Dose of Positive section yesterday, we mistakenly wrote that Duke was a stray dog from Afghanistan and Kosovo, when he's actually just from Kosovo. Sorry for the mixup – our head editor watched The Prestige recently and forgot you can't actually be in two places at once.

🇺🇦 Russian forces seized Kreminna, a town in eastern Ukraine with a population of 18,000, late Monday. It’s the first city to fall in Moscow’s new offensive targeting the Donbas region.

• In an address late Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that “Russian troops have started the battle for Donbas, which they had been preparing for a long time.”
• Ukraine has formed what it calls its Internet Army, a group of ~300,000 social-media volunteers who post messages singling out Western companies doing business in Russia or asking foreign government officials to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons.

How the invasion is impacting...

🧸🪀 Toys: Hasbro – which owns Dungeons and Dragons, Monopoly, Nerf, and more – projected a $100 million hit this year from its decision to stop shipping products to Russia.

🌎 The economy: The IMF expects the global economy to grow 3.6% this year, down from 6.1% last year, saying the economic hit from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine will “propagate far and wide.” The group had previously projected 4.4% annual growth in January.

🌽 Food: Corn futures were trading above $8 per bushel on Monday, the highest level in more than nine years; the market was trading around $6 per bushel at the start of this year. Ukraine and Russia combine to account for over 17% of global corn exports.

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned yesterday that the war in Ukraine is exacerbating “already dire” world food insecurity, with estimates suggesting up to 10 million people could be pushed into poverty due to rising food prices.

The answer to that question👆 is increasingly becoming “no.” Yesterday, Netflix reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers during the first quarter, its first decline in paid users in more than a decade. Shares were down more than 25% in extended trading following the news.

• The company previously told shareholders it expected to add 2.5 million net subscribers in Q1.

🤔 Why the big miss?... In its quarterly shareholder letter, Netflix cited the Russia/Ukraine conflict, increasing competition/inflation, and password sharing.

• Russia/Ukraine: The company wound down its service in Russia after the invasion, resulting in a loss of 700,000 paid subscribers.
• Increasing competition/inflation: Mo’ services means mo’ problems. 35% of Americans have canceled a monthly subscription in the past six months due to inflation, according to a recent CNBC survey.
• Password sharing: Netflix currently has 222 million subscribers – and in addition to that, the company estimates more than 100 million households are able to access its service through a shared password.

👀 Looking ahead… Netflix is forecasting a global paid subscriber loss of 2 million for the second quarter, which may be why the company hinted a global password crackdown is coming. 

• And after years of resistance, CEO Reed Hastings said yesterday that Netflix is now “open” to lower-priced, ad-supported tiers.

Smart home company Insteon appears to have vanished without warning last week. All of its products haven’t worked since April 14th, its help forums are offline, its phone is disconnected, and it hasn’t responded to questions from customers or the press. By the end of the weekend, its execs had also scrubbed their LinkedIn profiles of any mention of the company.

It seems that someplace, somewhere, Insteon and the dodo are meeting for the first time.

📱🏠 A deeper dive… The smart home company produced a variety of Internet-connected lights, thermostats, plugs, sensors, and the Insteon Hub (which would bridge all your gear to the Internet and enable use of the Insteon app).

• All of these devices are currently useless, but many of Insteon's wall switches were actual electrical switches, so the worst that will ever happen is that they become dumb switches (aka you have to use your hands. The horror😱).
• And tech-savvy individuals are able to control the devices locally without the app. Per Ars Technica, it's also possible to pipe that local control into another platform's hub controller, returning the smarts and remote access to your home.

🤔 What’s next?... No one really knows. Insteon is owned by another company called Smartlabs, which was purchased by Richmond Capital Partners in 2017. Following the acquisition, the founder of Richmond Capital Partners, Rob Lilleness, was installed as CEO (one interesting thing: the blog post announcing the deal has been scrubbed from the website, but you can see it here).

We’ll be honest. When it comes to the environment, the facts aren’t good. And that’s exactly why people are purchasing sustainable products now more than ever.

🌎🚺 This Earth Day, TheWMarketplace invites you to shop their collections of eco-friendly products, created entirely by women entrepreneurs (every company listing a product or service on TheWMarketplace is woman-owned).

The sustainable collections include:

• 👜 Accessories: scarves, handbags, hats
• 👗 Clothing: dresses, bathing suits, jackets
• 🏡 Home: towels, plant pots, placemats
• 🪞 Clean Beauty: skincare, makeup, shampoo & conditioner

And a whole lot more.

These are just some of the eco-friendly products featured on TheWMarketplace, where there’s no minimum order amount, no membership fees, and shipping is included in every price. (We’re looking at you, Prime…)

➡️ Shop sustainably this Earth Day at TheWMarketplace.

Last week, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle raised concerns that 88-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the oldest sitting US senator, may not be as mentally sharp as she used to be.

• The Constitution specifies a minimum age requirement of 25 for the House, 30 for the Senate, and 35 for presidents – but doesn’t address a maximum age limit.

🔢 By the numbers… Feinstein belongs to the oldest Senate in American history, with a median age of 64.8 at the beginning of last year (including six members over 80).

• The median age was slightly lower in the House, at 58.9, while the average age of the Supreme Court was 63.5. For context, the median age in the US is 38.6.
• Some of the oldest lawmakers include House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (82), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (80), and President Joe Biden (79) – the oldest president in history. The 2nd-oldest president in history is Donald Trump, who was 74 when he left office.
• Members of Congress are typically re-elected ~90% of the time.

🌎 The big picture: The US is near the top among other developed countries when it comes to the age of who’s in charge. The EU’s elected lawmakers are an average of 49.5 years old, while the average OECD national leader is almost 25 years younger than President Biden.

• ☝️ A team of doctors was ‘holoported’ to the International Space Station using software from Microsoft and startup AEXA Aerospace; they appeared and conversed with an astronaut hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface in real time.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰🏘 Blackstone bought student housing company American Campus Communities for $12.8 billion, including debt.
• 📺 Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and laid off CNN's longtime CFO, sources told Axios; the news streaming service has reportedly amassed ~150,000 subscribers to date after spending ~$300 million.
• 📈 US stocks closed up across the board yesterday. (Dow: +1.5% | S&P: +1.6% | Nasdaq: +2.2%)
• 🌍 Google opened its first product development center in Africa.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 Nets guard Kyrie Irving was fined $50,000 by the NBA for flipping off fans of his former team, the Boston Celtics, during a 115-114 Game 1 loss at the Garden on Sunday.
• ⚖️ Johnny Depp took the stand for the first time in a $50 million defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
• 🏈 NBC revealed its new Sunday Night Football announcing crew; play-by-play man Mike Tirico and sideline reporter Melissa Stark are set to join Cris Collinsworth.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🥢 Japanese scientists developed a pair of computerized chopsticks that enhance salty tastes; it's designed for people looking to reduce their sodium intake.
• 🍪 In a peer-reviewed study published yesterday, MIT researchers examined why Oreo filling always sticks to one cookie.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🚫😷 Uber and Lyft removed their mask requirements for drivers and passengers yesterday; some big cities are keeping mask requirements on mass public transit, including NYC, Chicago, and LA, while others have ditched the rules (such as D.C., Atlanta, and Kansas City).
• 🏛️ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the state legislature to eliminate Disney World’s self-governing status over the company’s opposition to a new LGBTQ+ education law. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 🎓 The Biden administration announced plans to expand access to student-loan debt forgiveness for millions of Americans. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “[Biden] wants to run and he’s clearly letting everyone know.”

• President Biden has reportedly told his predecessor and former running mate, Barack Obama, that he plans to run for re-election in 2024.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right

🏘️📈 Stats of the Day: Americans received an average of roughly 35 spam texts and 23 spam calls per person last month.

🌏 Around the World: Extreme poverty in India declined by 12.3% from 2011 to 2019, according to new World Bank data.

🤯 Did You Know?... After cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his wins due to doping infractions, seven consecutive Tour de France titles (from 1999-2005) were officially declared without winners since so many other riders had also gotten caught doping.

📖 Worth a Read: What the City of the Future Borrows From the City of the Past → (Politico)

Should there be a maximum age limit for elected officials to hold office?

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+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.

⬆️ You're looking at one of the many larger-than-life sculptures by Washed Ashore, a program aiming to save our oceans through art. 

A nonprofit organization, Washed Ashore is run by volunteers picking up trash along more than 300 miles of shoreline. 

• The garbage is collected, sorted, cleaned, and then used to create mesmerizing creatures that have captivated audiences around the country. 

💥 The impact... Since its founding in 2010, the organization has collected more than 60,000 lbs. of trash to create 86 works of art.

• “It’s an ugly problem with a beautiful solution,” says director Brad Parks.

❓ Trivia: What is the most commonly smoked plant in the US?

🤔 Riddle me this… What does someone plant that rhymes with weeds?

👩‍🏫 History lesson: What plant did George Washington grow?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. Here’s your unique link to copy and send to anyone you think would like the DONUT:

❓ Trivia: Tobacco

🤔 Riddle: Seeds

👩‍🏫 History: Tobacco