Good morning. The Super Bowl is upon us. Or should we say “The Game,” which is just one of its many alternative names.

There was the “World Playoff,” “AFL-NFL Championship Game,” and even the business-sounding “Merger Bowl.”

But the Super Bowl stuck, and according to the AP, everything else about the event became Super too: Super Week, Super Sunday, Super Teams, Super Players, etc.

So when you’re watching the game this weekend, impress your friends and say “What a Super Player Mahomes is, leading his Super Team here on this Super Sunday.”

You will sound cool and smart and not dumb at all not even a little.

And now, THE SUPER NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.99 minutes to read.

"Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker."

–Hilary 'Zig' Ziglar (1926-2012)

Lawyers from the Biden administration and conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom will submit briefs later today as part of a federal lawsuit in Texas that could effectively outlaw mifepristone, one of two pills used in medication abortions – even in states where abortion is legal.

💊 Some quick background: Mifepristone is typically taken during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, alongside the drug misoprostol, in order to induce an abortion or help manage an early miscarriage.

• More than 3.7 million women have used mifepristone since it became available in the US at the start of this century, with its popularity gradually rising over time.
• In 2022, the mifepristone/misoprostol combination accounted for over half of all abortions performed in the US (54%).

⚖️ The arguments: Anti-abortion/pro-life activists represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom are seeking to reverse the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, which would effectively ban the drug nationwide. In the group’s 113-page lawsuit filed this past November, it argued that the FDA didn’t adequately study mifepristone’s side effects before approving the drug in 2000, since it was under pressure to do so from then-President Bill Clinton.

• FDA officials have said the charges are baseless and politically motivated, and presented evidence to the court that mifepristone has been safely used by millions of people over the last 23 years.

👀 Looking ahead… The Texas judge overseeing the case, a Trump appointee, is expected to issue a decision as early as today. The Biden administration plans to appeal any ruling against mifepristone – though its appeal would first go to the right-leaning 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and then the Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.

📊 Flash poll: How do you feel about the Alliance Defending Freedom’s lawsuit seeking to reverse the FDA’s approval of mifepristone?

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🇹🇷🇸🇾 The death toll from Monday’s series of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria rose past 21,000 yesterday. The incident is now the world’s deadliest earthquake since the 7.0-magnitude tremor that struck Haiti in 2010, killing between 92,000 and 316,000 people and displacing 1.3 million more. The World Bank yesterday announced plans to provide $1.78 billion in aid to Turkey to help relief and recovery efforts.

🇨🇭 Swiss trader Trafigura Group is missing up to $577 million worth of nickel. The metal is missing due to suspected fraud, which was first discovered when the Trafigura Group opened a shipping container supposedly full of nickel… and found a lower-value material inside instead. Trafigura said the perpetrators of the suspected fraud were companies it believed to be controlled by metals trader Prateek Gupta, who reportedly sent fake containers filled with low-value materials over the years while simultaneously falsifying documents to make it seem like the shipments contained nickel (which fetches $30,000 per ton).

🇺🇦 SpaceX is limiting Ukraine’s ability to use Starlink satellite internet. Starlink has provided Ukraine's military with broadband communications since Russia invaded last February, with at least 25,000 terminals active in the country as of November. But SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell said yesterday that Ukraine recently used Starlink to control unmanned aircraft – and the space company has pledged to never to use the service “for offensive purposes.” The change doesn’t mean that all 25,000 terminals will be deactivated, just that Ukraine won’t be able to use Starlink to control its military drones.

🏀🏈 Scores, rivalries, scandals, athlete interviews… where do you find the time to stay up to date with it all?

• Get the gist of all that and more in just a few minutes, 3x a week, with The GIST’s College Sports newsletter. The GIST gives coverage to the biggest headlines in the NCAA and your fave conference, while providing a refreshing female point of view. And it’s FREE – forever and always!

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If every app in the world was competing in a basketball game to determine who holds the crown for most popular among US kids and teens, Roblox would be the seven-foot-four kid that’s dunking on everybody and can somehow also drain threes.

Per a new annual report from parental control software maker Qustodio – which surveyed tens of thousands of US families with kids aged 4-18 – the gaming app/social network commanded both the highest participation rate and longest average use time among all video, social media, gaming, and education apps in 2022.

• Popularity: 62% of American kids used Roblox last year. The second-most popular app overall was YouTube (60% usage rate), followed by TikTok (42%), Facebook (40%), Pinterest (40%), and Netflix (39%).
• Time: Those who used Roblox spent an average of 190 minutes/day on the app. TikTok came in second (107 mins), with Snapchat in third (90 mins).

📈 Big picture: Kids- and- teens’ app usage in America is like a house with millions of balloons tied to it – going up, up, up. On average, US kids and teens spent a combined 152 minutes per day on video, social media, gaming, and education apps last year, an 11-minute increase compared to 2021.

+One interesting thing: Over the past two years, just five apps – Roblox, TikTok, Snapchat, Netflix, and Clash Royale – have grown significantly in terms of average use time. All other apps have stayed relatively constant or declined.

In a strange new twist on the classic “will they, won’t they” trope, the latest mystery swirling around Hollywood involves a kiss between the two leads of Netflix’s recently released You People, Jonah Hill and Lauren London.

The 2023 Netflix rom-com explores how the couple of Hill, whose character is white and Jewish, and London, whose character is Black and Muslim, handle the cultural and racial differences between their families.

💋 But wait – the kiss. If you saw the movie, you’d definitely say it happened – it was right there on the screen. But according to co-star Andrew Schulz, it wasn’t actually Hill and London kissing, but rather a fake kiss created using CGI.

• Explaining it on his podcast The Brilliant Idiots, Schulz said he saw Hill and London’s faces stop about six inches apart, which Schulz thought meant the film would cut away to a new scene. Instead, the film shows the two characters’ faces slowly blend together into a blurry kiss.

🎥 The bottom line: Much like every hacker in a movie saying “I’m in,” the use of CGI to change an actor’s appearance is common in Hollywood. According to visual effects executive Matt Panousis, de-aging CGI is used in 80-85% of current films to erase wrinkles, clean up pimples, and in some cases even stretch an actor’s body so they appear thinner and taller.

But faking a kiss with CGI is something that’s rarely done. Though as Christie D'zurilla of the LA Times points out, You People was shot in 2021 at the height of the COVID pandemic, so the decision not to kiss may have been for health reasons.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Clearly for intelligence surveillance."

As the US Navy continues to fish debris from an alleged Chinese spy balloon out of the Atlantic Ocean, a senior State Department official told reporters yesterday that high-res images captured before the balloon was shot down showed it was capable of collecting and geo-locating communications from American soil.

• The official also said the balloon is likely part of a large aerial spy program operated by the Chinese military that’s targeted more than 40 countries across five continents in recent years.

🏈🤑 Stat of the Day: The American Gaming Association predicts that 50.4 million people – or roughly 20% of American adults – will bet a combined $16 billion on this Sunday’s Super Bowl; both figures would represent new all-time records. Arizona is the first state with legal sports betting to ever host the NFL’s championship game.

🤯 Did You Know?... New Mexico is actually older than Mexico by about 250 years. That’s made possible because both places have the same namesake: the ancient Valley of Mexico, which laid at the heart of the Aztec civilization.

📖 Worth a Read: The Manhattan high-rise that shrunk itself down → (The Hustle)

• ☝️ You’re looking at the winners of the 32nd annual International Snow Sculpture Championships, which was recently hosted in Breckenridge, CO.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• ⛽ Shell’s board of directors are being sued in the UK as individuals over their alleged failures to adequately manage the risks associated with the climate crisis; the case is the first of its kind.
• 📉 Yahoo is laying off 20% of its workforce, or roughly 1,600 jobs.
• 🚗 Lyft shares dropped over 30% in after-hours trading after issuing weak guidance in its Q4 earnings report; the ride-sharing company said it expects to make roughly $975 million in revenue this quarter, lower than the $1.09 billion analysts projected.

*In partnership w/ Five Minute Finance:💡 Get smarter on crypto and macro finance in just five minutes. Five Minute Finance is an independently run newsletter explaining the latest and most important trends in crypto, macro, and global markets. Join over 50,000 readers – sign up for free.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📰 Substack’s top 27 newsletters make over $22 million of total revenue, UK trade magazine Press Gazette reported yesterday.
• 📱 Former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have been reinstated, per a Meta announcement yesterday.
• 🏀 The NBA trade deadline ended yesterday with every team but two (Cleveland and Chicago) having made at least one trade; notable deals include a four-team swap that will send Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☝️ Scientists have finally discovered how human fingerprints are created, a process that ensures no two people – even twins – have the same prints, per a peer-reviewed study published yesterday in Cell.
• 🪐🌊 NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has discovered the best evidence of water and waves on the red planet that scientists have seen in the craft’s entire decade-long mission.
• 🌎🌕 A team of scientists has proposed using a large gun to fire plumes of moon dust into space, with a goal of reflecting the sun’s rays away from Earth and reducing the global temperature, per new peer-reviewed research published in PLOS Climate.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🥪 Chick-fil-A will debut its new, plant-based breaded cauliflower sandwich in three markets starting on Monday.
• 🙏 A New Jersey council member from the borough of Milford was found fatally shot in a parking lot on Wednesday; it came a week after Eunice Dwumfour, a fellow Republican council member from New Jersey, was shot and killed in her car.
• ⚖️ Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel overseeing the DOJ’s ongoing investigation into former President Trump’s role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🍄 Could The Last of Us ever happen? The real risks of a fungus pandemic.

*Sponsored post

The DONUT’s weekly news quiz is back. In just two minutes or less, see how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

⬆️🐀 Record breaker... Patrick Stewart (the mouse, not the actor) was born on July 14th, 2013, at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

And the Pacific pocket mouse just claimed two Guinness World Records:

1. The world's oldest living mouse in human care 
2. The oldest mouse ever, at 9 years and 209 days old.

🥳 Background: Pat was born during the very first year of the San Diego Zoo's Pacific pocket mouse conservation breeding and reintroduction program.

• "This recognition is so special for our team and is significant for the species," said Debra Shier, Associate Director of Recovery Ecology at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make. 

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Avocados
• Lime, juiced
• Salt
• Onion
• Fresh cilantro
• Roma (plum) tomatoes
• Garlic
• Jalapeño pepper

2️⃣ Recipe #2:

• Chicken
• Hot pepper sauce
• Cream cheese
• Ranch dressing
• Cheddar

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Refried beans
• Taco seasoning
• Sour cream
• Salsa
• Tomato
• Green pepper
• Green onions
• Iceberg lettuce
• Cheddar cheese
• Black olives

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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☝️ Recipe #1: Classic guacamole

2️⃣ Recipe #2: Buffalo chicken dip

3️⃣ Recipe #3: 7-layer taco dip