Good morning. We hope y’all had a great Presidents' Day Weekend. But… something was missing, wasn’t it? Something about these great United States of ours just wasn’t right.

Don’t worry, we felt it too – an absolute disregard for the quality of the tea we were all drinking.

The Board of Tea Experts, a team within the FDA described as "a field force of 3.9 full-time employees," had been checking on the quality of this country’s tea since 1897 to prevent Americans from drinking tea that's "little better than hay or catnip."

For 99 years, the Board analyzed up to 300 cups of tea a day with the classic “slurp, swoosh, spit” system – and for 99 years this country drank only the best Sleepytime Tea.

But in 1996, Congress repealed the funds allocated for the Board and all that went away. Now? Well, look around. Chamomile chaos.

Give your tea a quick slurp, swoosh, and spit and let’s GET INTO THE NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.73 minutes to read.

"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”

–Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

The eyes of tech execs and avid internet users alike are focused this week on Capitol Hill, where today and tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a pair of cases that could fundamentally alter Section 230, one of the most important laws governing how the internet works in America.

🌐 A quick reminder: Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act gives internet platforms legal immunity for nearly all third-party content hosted on their sites. Many experts have argued that this 26-word clause laid the groundwork for current online giants – Google, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Bing/OpenAI, etc. – to thrive.

⚖️ So, what are the SCOTUS cases about?... Both lawsuits – one against Google, one against Twitter – were brought by the families of victims who died in terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS in the mid-2010s. The families are seeking permission to sue the tech giants for monetary damages for allegedly failing to remove some ISIS videos and recommending them to other users.

• In both cases, the plaintiffs are arguing that Section 230 may prevent tech firms from being sued over the content of users’ posts, but it shouldn’t protect companies from lawsuits over content that their algorithms choose to promote or suggest.

✋ Yes, but: Google and Twitter are claiming that the plaintiffs’ arguments about Section 230 would go against 25+ years of legal precedent. And up to this point, lower courts have almost unanimously agreed with them.

👀 Looking ahead… The Supreme Court is expected to announce verdicts in the two cases by late June or early July – so we'll know soon whether tech companies will be forced to alter their recommendation algorithms or content moderation practices. But regardless of which way SCOTUS ends up ruling, it’ll likely take years for the implications of its decision to become fully apparent, several tech execs told Axios.

🇹🇷🇸🇾 Two additional earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border yesterday, killing at least three people and injuring 200+ more. The tremors, registering 6.4 and 5.8 in magnitude, came exactly two weeks after a series of larger earthquakes across Turkey and Syria killed at least 44,000 people, and caused billions of dollars worth of structural damages. Officials from both countries said hundreds of buildings that were weakened by the quakes earlier this month ended up collapsing in yesterday’s tremors.

🇺🇦 President Biden paid a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv yesterday. Biden’s visit to Ukraine marks the first time in modern history that a US president visited an active war zone where America's military was not fighting. It also came less than a week before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, which takes place on Friday. In public remarks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden committed $460 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, along with a fresh round of sanctions targeting institutions that have sought to evade existing penalties on Russian banks.

🐦 A Spanish court agreed to extradite a UK native to the US on charges that he hacked several high-profile Twitter accounts in July 2020. The 23-year-old male Briton is accused of gaining access to the profiles of several politicians and celebrities – including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kanye West, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk – and using their accounts to ask followers to send bitcoin to a certain wallet, promising to double their money. A Florida teenager accused of masterminding the hacks was previously sentenced to three years in juvenile prison.

🤯✍️ Did you know?… writing by hand stimulates and engages your brain more than typing? 

And writing – specifically journaling – has other benefits, too. In fact, our friends at The Scribes were inspired to start their company because of a passion for journaling – and the benefits that come with it. 

To encourage people to start, The Scribes began publishing weekly journaling prompts, known internally as "Wednesday Morning Prompts." As an offshoot of those weekly emails, they’ve launched a new product, The Wednesday Morning Scribe. This journal is the perfect template to think critically and practice mindfulness with questions like:

• What are you grateful for?
• What do you need to remind yourself?
• What are you looking forward to?

DONUT readers can save $10 on the Wednesday Morning Scribe with code BEST10. This is a limited-edition product, so get yours today. And remember: for every journal sold, The Scribes donates one notebook to students in need (over 13,000 notebooks donated and counting!).

Have you heard of Janky and Guggimon? According to their website, the two are “internet phenomena, fashion influencers, and content creators who have forever changed the face of entertainment.” Also…

... they’re not real. The duo, who have over 20 million followers on Instagram and TikTok, are “synthetic celebrities” created by Superplastic, a character design studio based in Vermont.

And last week, Superplastic – along with Amazon – made some very real news:

1. Amazon’s Alexa Fund, the tech giant’s R&D arm making investments in robotics, AI, and self-driving transportation, led a $20 million investment into Superplastic.
2. Amazon Studios has signed a first-look deal with Superplastic, and has begun development of an animated series following the misadventures of the two characters.

💰🍿 Big picture: To Superplastic, Janky and Guggimon are like a hip, Supreme-wearing version of Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Iron Man – aka virtual characters whose IP can be turned into TV shows, movies, amusement park rides, and everything in between.

And when it comes to brand partnerships, virtual influencers can be ideal precisely because they aren’t real – meaning they don’t age, can’t do anything controversial, and always show up on time for shoots. Besides the deal with Amazon, the Vermont-based design studio has recently launched partnerships for its characters with Mercedes Benz, Gucci, and Grammy-winning band Gorillaz.

💬 Quoted…​​ "Although our vision is technically ambitious, our technology is real now."

Earlier this month, Blue Origin quietly announced that scientists at the Jeff Bezos-founded space company managed to create working solar panels and electricity transmission wires out of a simulated version of … Moon dust (literally – we’re talking about the dust and dirt found on its surface).

• This accomplishment is something researchers have been trying to do for more than five decades, ever since astronauts first brought lunar soil back to Earth.

📉 Number of the Day: $20.6 billion = the amount of new funds raised by all venture-capital firms last quarter, per new data from Preqin Ltd; that figure represents a 65% drop from the previous year, and the lowest Q4 amount since 2013.

🤯 Did You Know?... Between the ages of 20 and 60, the average American English speaker learns a new word about once every two days, per a peer-reviewed study from 2016.

📖 Worth a Read: How to make friends as an adult → (Startup Social)

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• ☝️ You’re looking at the overall winner of the 16th annual International Garden Photographer of the Year award; the image was taken in the Canary Islands of Spain.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📱 Meta announced a paid version of Instagram and Facebook for $11.99/month on desktop, or $14.99/month on iOS/Android; the subscription comes with account verification, among other features.
• 🤖 Microsoft began talks with advertisers about placing ads within the new Bing, its ChatGPT-enhanced search engine, Reuters reported last Friday. | Bing’s ability to respond to users has been capped to five responses per session, and 50 total per day, following the bot’s aggressive behavior. (Background)
• ✈️ United Airlines will help families with children under 12 sit together free of charge, the airline announced yesterday.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania led the domestic box office with $120 million in ticket sales over the long weekend; the film kicked off Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Background)
• 🎬 Rust prosecutors yesterday downgraded the charges against Alec Baldwin and the film's armorer; the pair now face a maximum of 18 months jail time apiece if convicted instead of five years. (Background)
• 🏀 Jayson Tatum scored a record 55 points in Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game, leading Team Giannis to a 184-175 victory over Team LeBron.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚗 General Motors has invented a self-cleaning touch screen display that automatically erases fingerprints using a special wavelength of light invisible to the human eye.
• 🧑‍🔬 South Korean scientists invented a test strip with a 99% success rate at identifying pancreatic and prostate cancer based on a single urine sample, per a new peer-reviewed study; the test strips cost $0.08/apiece.
• 🧠 Synchron, a brain implant startup with investors that include Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has started enrolling human patients to trial its device that purportedly allows fully-paralyzed individuals to control technology using their mind.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🙏 Former President Jimmy Carter, 98, has decided to forgo any further medical treatment and enter home hospice care in Georgia, his foundation confirmed on Saturday.
• 🤭 An unsuspecting art collector accidentally knocked over and smashed a $42,000 statue of a balloon dog at a gallery in Miami over the weekend – though some people are still interested in buying the shattered remains.
• 🏭 Packers Sanitation Services paid a $1.5 million fine for allegedly employing 100+ children, some as young as 13, to clean meat-packing plants during overnight shifts, the Labor Department announced on Friday.
• ⚖️ Five former Memphis police officers pleaded not guilty on Friday to second-degree murder and other charges stemming from the violent arrest and death of Tyre Nichols last month. (Background)

*In partnership w/ Parallel Flight Technologies: 🚀🙌 New tech developed by Parallel Flight Technologies lets drones autonomously lift heavy payloads for much longer, reducing carbon footprint by 90% vs helicopters. Parallel Flight Technologies has a fundraising round open, so you too can capitalize on the tech – learn more/how to invest here.

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• 🤑🎓 The 10 highest-paying college majors, five years after graduation.

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On Friday, we covered two proposed bills in Congress that would raise the minimum age to use social media from 13 to 16, both of which came on the heels of the US Surgeon General saying he thinks the current minimum age is “too young.”

❓ Our question to you: How do you feel about Congress approving a law that bans kids under 16 years old from using social media?

• 👍 Strongly agree: 38%
• 📈 Agree/Somewhat agree: 26%
• 🤷 Neutral: 12%
• 📉 Disagree/Somewhat disagree: 14%
• 👎 Strongly disagree: 10%

Click here to read more of the best responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 13,089 votes and 1,146 longform responses.

Tuesday: Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras day

Wednesday: Ash Wednesday, marking the start of Lent; Fed publishes minutes from its latest meeting

Thursday: Harvey Weinstein to be sentenced by LA court; weekly unemployment claims

Friday: MLB spring training kicks off; one year to the day since Russia invaded Ukraine

Nellia and Dietmar Ehrentraut have been dancing together since 1989, when they began training in a popular 1940's swing-dance style called the Lindy Hop. 

• The duo has been competing around the world for the last 40 years, and recently gained online fame with their impressive acrobatic moves and tricks. 

🏆 Winner, winner... The couple's accolades include first place in their native Austria’s dance championships, as well as second place in the German championships. 

Watch them in action here.

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Cred
2. Err
3. Grav
4. Juxta
5. Nihil

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, just 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.👇

1. Cred = Trust (e.g., credentials, credibility)
2. Err = Stray (errant, aberration)
3. Grav = Heavy (aggrivate, gravity)
4. Juxta = Beside (juxtaposition)
5. Nihil = Nothing (nihilism, annihilate)