Good morning. ICYMI yesterday, our second-annual Pet Playoffs contest is back.

Have a cute pet and like winning free stuff? Enter your BFF into the March Madness-style competition here. (Fair warning: submissions are closing soon.)

In today’s edition:

• 👩‍🍳🤖 A look at Chippy, Chipotle’s chip-making robot
• 🤔 What do Democrats and Republicans actually agree on?
• 💒 Americans are waiting longer to get married

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.76 minutes to read.

"I know now a loss can be a gift. A chance to grow. Losing has taught me to be a better winner and a better person, one who is always looking for opportunities to learn."

–Serena Williams (b.1981)

As Isaac Asimov said when creating the Laws of Robotics: “First, do no harm – now go make me a burrito.”

We’ll be one step closer to his not-at-all-made-up vision later this month, when Chipotle installs “Chippy,” an autonomous kitchen assistant made by Miso Robotics, in a real-life California restaurant. Though instead of burritos, the AI-powered robot will be tasked with making tortilla chips.

👩‍🍳🤖 A deeper dive… The move follows successful tests at Chipotle’s innovation hub in Irvine, CA, where Chippy was trained to mirror the company’s current recipe and chip-making process. The fast-casual dining chain views the tech as a way to potentially plug a labor shortage (4 out of 5 restaurant operators are understaffed, per a 2021 National Restaurant Association report), as well as boost efficiency and margins. And it’s not alone.

• White Castle, Jack in the Box, and B Dubs are also piloting Miso Robotics’ tech, but to fry food (Flippy 2) and fulfill drink orders (Sippy).
• Panera and McDonald’s have been testing automated drive-thru ordering.
• 800 Degrees Go, a joint venture between 800 Degrees Pizza and restaurant-tech company Piestro, plans to install 3,600 pizza-making robots in locations across the US over the next five years.

👀 Looking ahead… The global market for cobots, or collaborative robots, is expected to reach north of $12 billion by 2028, from $650 million in 2018. That’s a CAGR of ~45%.😳

Which is to say: robots are coming soon to a kitchen near you. A recent report from Lightspeed found 50% of restaurant owners plan to install automation tech within the next two or three years.

+Disclosure: Piestro was a past sponsor of the DONUT.

🛢️ OPEC+ announced its largest production cut since the start of the pandemic – against the wishes of the US and EU. The combined decrease of 2 million barrels per day is intended to push up global oil prices, which have fallen to ~$90 per barrel from $120 in June. The White House criticized the move, calling it shortsighted and suggesting that OPEC+ is actively supporting Russia (one of its member nations). 

🇺🇦 Ukraine has recaptured dozens of “annexed” towns in recent days. Ukrainian forces are advancing as part of an ongoing counter-offensive in the south and east of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin formally signed the annexation of four Ukrainian territories into law yesterday, a move that’s been denounced as illegal under Ukrainian and international law. Earlier this week, the Biden administration announced another $625 million in military aid to Kyiv, bringing the running total to $16.8 billion since late February.

🇮🇷 Iranian police were deployed at universities in several cities yesterday amidst widespread unrest. Girls and women across the country have been protesting at school campuses and in the streets over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police. Thousands of demonstrators have been arrested, with hundreds more injured and 150+ people killed in clashes with police, according to rights groups. Internet access in the country is still largely restricted.

Murders across the US rose 4% last year after increasing nearly 30% in 2020, per the FBI’s annual Crime in the Nation Report published yesterday.

🔢 By the numbers… The murder rate in America last year was estimated at around 7 in every 100,000 Americans. Which is higher than before the pandemic (5 in 100,000), but lower than the record-high levels in the early ‘90s (10 in 100,000).

• Overall, violent crime decreased by 1% year-over-year to 1,313,200 incidents – though that was largely driven by a 9% decline in robberies, the FBI data show.

✋ Yes, but… The FBI transitioned to a new data collection system starting last year – and ~40% of US police jurisdictions have yet to get onboard, including major ones like the NYPD and LAPD.

• Law-enforcement agencies covering just 65% of the US population submitted data to the FBI in 2021, down from ~95% in previous years.
• The agency filled that data gap by using estimates, but officials and experts alike cautioned against placing too much emphasis on federal numbers from 2021 due to wide margins of error.

😬 But, but, but: The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan criminal-justice think tank, said the FBI estimates for last year are similar to a 5% rise in murders it found across 27 major US cities.

📈 Private equity, credit, and other investment strategies make up a $12 trillion industry… a figure expected to grow to $20 trillion in the next decade.🚀

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In a series of surveys published on Tuesday by The Economist and YouGov, Americans from both sides of the political aisle ranked 72 different people and policies on a scale of 1 to 10, in the hopes of answering a single question: can Democrats and Republicans agree on anything?

📊 The results… As you might expect, both parties held very different views on essentially every single US politician or political organization – with the exception of centrist Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

• Policy-wise, the only proposal to garner the support of more than half of Republicans and Democrats was capping the price of insulin at $35. This was backed by 80+% of members from both parties.
• Away from politics, both sides agreed on the importance of nurses, farmers, construction workers, and the working-class – all of whom scored above a 7 out of 10 among both groups.

🇺🇸🤝 Zoom out: While the differences between Republicans and Democrats may be large in certain areas, they’re nonexistent in others. An August 2020 survey from the University of Maryland – based on in-depth surveys of more than 80,000 Americans – found majorities from both parties agree on nearly 150 key policy positions across more than a dozen policy areas.

💬 Quoted…​​ "Presenting your Titans of Tub and hulking, hefty heroes!"

Fat Bear Week 2022 officially began yesterday.

• In this March Madness-style tournament, bears from the Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska are matched against each other, with online visitors voting to determine who's the chunkiest of them all. Last year's winner, 480 Otis, was estimated to weigh north of 1,000 pounds.

P.S. We’re holding a little animal-focused competition of our own next week.

💒📈 Stat of the Day: The rates of people having their first marriages in midlife (ages 40–59) increased 74% for women and 45% for men from 1990 to 2019, per a recent peer-reviewed study.

🤯 Did You Know?... The iconic sign in Hollywood, CA, originally read "Hollywoodland." It was built in 1923 to promote a real-estate development, but in 1945 the City of Los Angeles acquired the land it sat on. Four years later, the sign was shortened to “Hollywood.”

📖 Worth a Read: How to Get Comfortable With Uncertainty and Change → (Greater Good Magazine)

• ☝️ While not quite as cute as a fat bear... you're looking at the heaviest pumpkin ever grown in the US, weighing in at a whopping 2,554 pounds.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🙅‍♀️ Apollo Global Management and Sixth Street are no longer in talks with Elon Musk to provide financing for his pending ~$44 billion Twitter acquisition, sources told Reuters yesterday.
• ⚖️ Former Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan was found guilty of criminal obstruction charges for failing to report a 2016 cyberattack to federal authorities.
• 📉 The World Trade Organization lowered its projection for growth in global trade next year, from 3.4% to 1%.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚖️ Alec Baldwin reached an undisclosed settlement with the family of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer shot to death last year on the set of Rust.
• ⚾ The MLB playoff field is officially set, with Wild Card games beginning tomorrow at noon ET.
• 👑 Miss Texas R’Bonney Gabriel became the first Filipina American crowned Miss USA; Miss North Carolina Morgan Romano was the runner-up; the Miss Universe pageant is scheduled for January.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🏆 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists – Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless – for their work in click chemistry, which has "led to a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together," per the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• 🚀 SpaceX launched four new crew members to the International Space Station for NASA yesterday; the crew included NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, who became the first Native American woman to go to space.
• 😂👽 The presence of laughing gas could be a sign of life beyond our solar system, per a new peer-reviewed study published Tuesday.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🌀 The death toll from Hurricane Ian rose to at least 109 yesterday, with 105 of those deaths in Florida and the other four in North Carolina; 250,000+ Floridians are still without power, per PowerOutage.us.
• 🇸🇮 Slovenia on Tuesday became the first post-communist country to legalize same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption.
• ⚖️ ​​A federal appeals court yesterday ruled the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy is illegal under US immigration law, but left the program in place for the nearly 600,000 "Dreamers" currently living in America. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🧅🏛️ The Onion and the Supreme Court. No, this isn't a parody.

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Yesterday, our flash poll asked you to fill in the blank: “All things considered, Elon Musk buying Twitter would have a ____ impact on society as a whole.”

• Out of 9,843 total responses, 29% said it would have a positive impact, 34% said it would have a negative impact, 18% thought it would have no impact, and 19% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view.

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week…

• Astronaut Scott Kelly: “I have annexed Mount Olympus on Mars on behalf of me” → (Technology.org)
• California woman's lost cat found in Idaho nine years later → (UPI)
• U.K. Artist Mr. Doodle Spent Three Years Covering His Entire House in Drawings to Fulfill a Childhood Dream → (People)
• Guinness World Record for runner dressed as unicorn → (BBC)

CROWDSOURCED

Have you ever encountered a glitch in the matrix, quirky animal behavior, or even just a hilarious first grader? Tell us about it here for a chance to be featured in next Thursday’s newsletter.

👨 Who: Curtis G. from Springfield, IL

💬 The experience: One time me and an uncle of mine both happened to wake up – probably from sleep walking – get up out of bed, get dressed, and drive into work... at 1am in the morning. We live 3 hours away from each other, but did the exact same thing at about the same time. Just so happened that later in the week it came up in conversation with him. We were all awestruck, but it must have been a coincidence.

P.S. Don’t forget to share your odd or hilarious experience with us here.

Dale Road in Keyworth, UK, just won an unusual award: the biggest Hedgehog Street in Britain.  

🦔 Highway for hedgehogs... It all started when resident Jennifer Manning-Ohren encouraged other households on her street to drill holes in their concrete fences so the critters could safely pass through. 

• When they began to notice more and more hedghogs using the pathways, residents started setting out "pit stops" for them, with feed stations and houses for the species – which is in population decline across the UK. 

❓ Trivia: What color is liquid oxygen?

💎 True or False?... Diamonds were used to polish axes during the stone age.

🤔 Riddle Me This: A person dies of old age on their 25 birthday. How is this possible?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, all for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

❓ Trivia: Blue

💎 True or False?... True

🤔 Riddle Me This: They were born on February 29 (Leap Day)