Good morning. We're an advanced society, are we not? Heck, we've put 12 people on the moon, invented deep-fried Oreos, and made it so your iPhone automatically copies any authentication code from your messages directly into the app.

Which makes it all the more perplexing how we still can't all agree on a single, uniform system for measurement. Meters, inches, feet, yards, miles, kilometers – it's an unmitigated mess. If aliens come to visit and we start giving ‘em multiple types of measurement, they'll laugh at us and leave.

But fear not, dear friends, for today we've found the answer: bananas. Thanks to the absolute genius of converttobananas.com, we can, should, and frankly must express all distances in bananas henceforth.

So when someone asks how tall you are, instead of saying 5'7'', you'll say 9.571 bananas.

Or say you climbed Mt. Everest? That's a whopping 49,712.7 bananas.

And of course, we'll need to know how far away one light-year is – 53,442,048,818,181,816 bananas.

Now isn't that a whole lot more simple?

And now, the NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.86 minutes to read.

“The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

–Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

The US Energy Department has concluded the Covid pandemic most likely originated from a lab leak, according to a new classified intelligence report that was recently shared with top US lawmakers and first reported on by the WSJ. Though like pretty much everything in life besides death and taxes, this conclusion is far from certain.

📝 More details… The Energy Department oversees a network of 17 laboratories across the country, some of which conduct advanced biological research. Its Covid report was based on newly obtained intelligence, further study of academic literature, and consultation with outside experts, sources told the Journal – though they declined to provide any further information.

🏛️ Elsewhere on Capitol Hill: Eight federal agencies have investigated the virus’ initial source.

• Two agencies – the Energy Department and the FBI – have concluded that Covid likely leaked from a Chinese lab.
• Four other agencies say Covid was likely the result of natural transmission (meaning it passed from animals to humans).
• Two, including the CIA, are still undecided.

But despite the varying conclusions, all eight are in consensus that Covid wasn’t the result of a Chinese biological-weapons program, per the Journal. And also worth mentioning: the FBI is the only agency to say it had “moderate confidence” in its assessment, versus a “low confidence” rating from the others.

🦠 Zoom out: Earlier this month, the World Health Organization abandoned its plans for a follow-up investigation into Covid’s origins, citing the difficulties of doing field research in China and "politics across the world." The now-canceled investigation was announced after dozens of prominent scientists raised concerns that the WHO’s initial report, which concluded a lab-leak was “extremely unlikely” compared to natural transmission, had been influenced by China.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, which of the following is the most likely explanation for Covid’s origin?

Lab-leak hypothesis

Natural transmission

Other

🇳🇬 Tens of millions of Nigerians voted in a presidential election on Saturday. Nigeria is Africa’s most-populous nation, and is projected to overtake China as the world’s second-largest population by the end of this century. At the moment, more than half of Nigeria’s 213 million residents live in what local officials call “multidimensional poverty,” which takes into account financial status as well as access to other essentials like healthcare, clean water, and education. This presidential election is expected to be the closest since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, per Reuters, with three main favorites out of 18 candidates. Nigerian officials began announcing statewide results yesterday, but federal results aren't expected until later this week.

🇪🇺 EU lawmakers on Thursday voted to ban TikTok from all government-issued devices. All of the EU Commission and EU Council’s 35,000 employees were also ordered to remove TikTok from their personal devices if they contained any work-related apps, or alternatively delete all work apps from the device. The social media app is currently under investigation by EU regulators for potentially unlawful transfers of citizens’ data to China in violation of GDPR.

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Government leaders from Israel and Palestine agreed to take steps to de-escalate tensions yesterday. Senior officials from both countries – along with the US, Jordan, and Egypt – met in Jordan on Sunday for what Axios described as the most significant meeting on the conflict in over a decade. In a joint statement, Israel said it would halt all new plans to expand West Bank settlements for the next four months, and wouldn't legalize any new outposts for the next six months. Both sides also agreed to discuss the Palestinian government’s willingness and authority to prevent attacks on Israel from its territory, among other things.

📸 The big picture: The global drone market is estimated to be worth $30.6 billion in 2022, and is expected to surge to $55.8 billion by 2030 – good for an 8.3% compound annual growth rate. Though if you’re into investing, this probably isn’t news: we’ve seen multiple drone stocks skyrocket by 70%+ in the past year.

Unmanned aerial vehicles have not only disrupted industries, but created their own. So what’s the next big development?

🚁 Parallel Flight Technologies’ proprietary tech allows drones to carry heavier payloads for exponentially longer, increasing efficiency of vertical lift operations. Cool, cool. But what does that really mean?

• It can navigate zero visibility conditions – unlike helicopters – providing critical supplies/equipment in emergency situations
• It can deliver supplies/medical equipment to the most remote/rural locations
• It can provide heavy lift for beyond visual line of sight industrial logistic applications
• It achieves a 90% carbon footprint reduction vs helicopters

We’re no drone scientists or investment wizards (shocker), but this sounds like a game-changer across multiple sectors. And we’re not alone… they’re backed by NASA, USDA, and NSF.

Parallel Flight Technologies has a fundraising round open now – learn more and how to invest here.**

Ah, South Park – the often controversial satire full of foul language and crude humor, a 20-time nominee and five-time winner of the Primetime Emmy Awards, and, as of last week, the TV show at the heart of a lawsuit between two of Hollywood's major studios.

On Friday, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) filed a lawsuit seeking over $200 million in damages from Paramount Global and South Park Digital Studios (SPDS), the production company run by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, for violating the streaming exclusivity of a 2019 agreement.

Or as Cartman might say: “Respect mah authoriteh.”

💰Here’s what happened: In 2019, Paramount/SPDS and WBD signed a $500 million deal giving WBD the exclusive streaming rights to South Park’s over 300-episode back catalog. The deal also stipulated that SPDS would produce 30 brand-new episodes for WBD.

But much like a mailman on Sunday, SPDS didn’t deliver. Citing the COVID pandemic as the cause, the South Park team only made 10 new episodes for WBD – or 20 short of what was promised in the agreement.

Though following a 2021 deal with MTV, a subsidiary of Paramount, reportedly worth over $900 million (or as co-creator Matt Stone called it, “f*** you money.”), SPDS created several 50-minute “specials” that aired on Paramount+.

🤔 The argument: WBD called this a ““grammatical sleight-of-hand, characterizing new content as ‘movies,’ ‘films,’ or ‘events,’” so they were seen as categorically different from the “episodes” owed to WBD.

💬 Quoted…​​ “The whole world will be talking about it.”

That was Atlanta Braves bench coach Walt Weiss’ reaction after his team lost its first MLB spring training game over the weekend on a walk-off called third strike… due to a violation of the league’s new pitching clock.

• Starting this season, the MLB is implementing new rules that give pitchers a max of 15 seconds to throw when the bases are empty, and 20 seconds when there’s a runner on-base – or an extra ball is added to the count.
• On the flip side, batters must be in the box and “alert to the pitcher” with no less than eight seconds remaining on the clock, or they receive an extra strike.

P.S. Maybe not the whole world, Walt… but definitely us.

💰 Stat of the Day: American millennials in their 30s held a collective $3.8 trillion worth of debt by the end of last quarter, per new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; that figure represents a 27% jump from late 2019, or the fastest rate of increase since 2008.

🤯 Did You Know?... Dogs intentionally try to make humans laugh, since they have enough social awareness to understand that laughter equates to play.

📖 Worth a Read: The particle physics of you → (Symmetry Magazine)

• ☝️ Floral artist Azuma Makoto recently created this sculpture, which part of an ongoing series called Frozen Flowers, in the middle of a frozen lake in Hokkaidō, Japan.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📊 US stock markets closed lower on Friday (S&P: -1.0%; Dow: -1.0%; Nasdaq: -1.7%); all three major indexes posted their worst week of 2023 last week. | The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index lifted for the third-straight month in February to reach a 13-month high. 
• 📝 Warren Buffett published his annual letter to shareholders on Saturday.
• 💻 Twitter laid off more than 200 employees on Saturday night; that’s roughly 10% of the 2,000 people who work at the company, down from 7,500 last October.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆 Everything Everywhere All at Once won Best Film at the Producers Guild of America Awards on Saturday night. | The film also won the top honor of Best Motion Picture Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday night.
• 🥊 Tommy Fury defeated Jake Paul over the weekend via split decision.
• 📚 Roald Dahl’s books will be published without alterations in addition to newly-edited versions that change certain sections that could be deemed offensive, UK publisher Penguin Random House said on Friday. (Background)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 The US Copyright Office ruled on Friday that artwork and images produced using artificial intelligence tools cannot be copyrighted.
• ☄️ The asteroid Ryugu, whose orbit crosses the orbit of Earth, is rich in organic molecules that could serve as the building blocks of life, per a study published Friday in Science; it represents the first analysis of samples collected by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft in 2019.
• ⚡💪 Swedish researchers have successfully grown electrodes in living tissue, which could pave the way for fully-integrated electronic circuits in living organisms, per a study published Thursday in Science.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 📰 Hundreds of US newspapers dropped the long-running “Dilbert” comic strip over the weekend after creator Scott Adams posted a video in which he called Black Americans a “hate group” and said white Americans should try to stay away from them.
• 🚂 The residents of East Palestine filed a class-action lawsuit against Norfolk Southern Railway on Friday; they’re seeking punitive damages as well as a new fund for medical monitoring, new testing, and cleaning procedures. | Separately, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to temporarily halt shipments of toxic waste from the crash site to locations in Michigan and Texas following complaints from local residents and officials.
• ⚖️💊 Twelve Democratic state AGs filed a lawsuit against the FDA on Friday seeking to strike down “excessively burdensome” dispensing restrictions on the drug mifepristone, which is part of a two-drug regimen for medication abortions. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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• 💼 The 10 most in-demand skills employers want to see on your resume right now.

*Sponsored post

On Friday, we covered the Biden administration’s new proposed law that would prohibit the vast majority of migrants from being able to seek asylum at the US southern border.

❓ Our question to you: How do you feel about the Biden administration’s proposed immigration law?

• 👍 Strongly agree: 24%
• 📈 Agree/Somewhat agree: 24%
• 🤷 Neutral: 20%
• 📉 Disagree/Somewhat disagree: 13%
• 👎 Strongly disagree: 19%

Click here to read some of the best responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 6,288 votes and 530 longform responses.

Monday: The Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona, Spain

Tuesday: The Supreme Court hears arguments in two cases challenging student-loan forgiveness; Election Day in Chicago

Wednesday: The start of March, aka Women's History Month

Thursday: Weekly unemployment claims; National Read Across America Day

Friday: National Employee Appreciation Day

Twin sisters Gloria and Victoria Guerrier bring friendly sibling rivalry to a whole new level. 

The twins are students at West Hempstead Secondary School in upstate New York, and were just named Valedictorian and Salutatorian (2nd-highest GPA) of the class of 2023. 

🧠👖 Smarty pants... Gloria and Victoria have never recieved a grade below 100% on their high school transcripts, sporting career GPAs of 105.3 and 104.9, respectively. Outside of the classroom, the sisters also earned All-County and All-State honors for track.

• “It’s like the saying, ‘How iron sharpens iron,’” Gloria said on Good Morning America. “We really use each other to improve upon ourselves. I think that level of competition between us was what really helped us.”

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

1. Cen
2. Hal
3. Insul
4. Les
5. Meta

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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Start referring.👇

1. Cen = Empty (e.g., cenotaph)
2. Hal = Salt (halogen)
3. Insul = Island (insular, insulation)
4. Les = Hurt (lesion)
5. Meta = Above (metaphor, metaphysics)

**The Parallel Flight sponsor block was written and/or published as a collaboration between The DONUT's in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of The DONUT. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. The DONUT may receive monetary compensation from the issuer, or its agency, for publicizing the offering of the issuer’s securities. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice. This is a paid ad. Please see 17(b) disclosure linked in the campaign page for more information.