Good morning. Weekend vibes all around. Whatever you do this weekend, be sure to get everyone together to take a photo, but instead of telling them to ‘say cheese,’ do like the Victorians and instruct them to ‘say prunes.’

Yep, it’s true – photographers of the Victorian Era told their subjects to ‘say prunes’ in order to keep their mouths as small and refined as possible.

Which makes you realize: one day people will look at all of our goofy, ear-to-ear grins and say, “oh yea that’s because they used to all go, ‘say cheese.’”

We are the future’s past.

And on that weird note, THE NEEEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.88 minutes to read.

“If you get up one more time than you fall, you will make it through.”

–Chinese proverb

According to a White House statement, President Biden is getting the pen ready to sign the first veto of his presidency in the coming days. It’ll be used to stop the reversal of a Labor Department rule allowing US retirement plan managers to direct their clients’ investments based on ESG considerations.

The legislation to reverse was approved by the GOP-led House on Wednesday by a 216-204 margin, while the Senate voted 50-46 in favor of the law on Thursday. Both votes were almost strictly party-line, with a total of three Democrats crossing the aisle (one House, two Senate).

🏢 Background: ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. At its most basic level, ESG investing puts other priorities – like increasing diversity, or reducing carbon emissions – on equal footing with financial returns.

And as it increasingly becomes adopted by retirement fund managers, ESG investing appears to be having an impact. For example: More than one-third of the 2,000 largest publicly-traded companies in the world have made net zero emissions commitments, and two-thirds of the S&P 500 have set emission reduction targets of some kind.

• Another example: A recent PwC survey found the single most important attribute being prioritized in corporate board director searches at Fortune 100 companies right now is racial and ethnic diversity.

✋ Yes, but: Congressional Republicans and outside experts have cited statistics that show it’s virtually impossible to track many companies’ progress on ESG issues. Only a quarter (27%) of all global firms had any ESG metrics or key performance indicators in place as of August 2022, and just 3% had a full set, per the Harvard Business Review.

• What’s more, a recent analysis found over 65% of the 702 companies in the Forbes 2000 with net-zero emissions pledges haven't clarified how they’re going to achieve that goal – aka all bark and no bite.
• And another thing worth mentioning: institutional money managers typically charge 40% more to manage ESG funds than traditional funds, per HBR… but they often have the same/similar top holdings as regular funds.

🔀 On the flip side… President Biden and most congressional Democrats have pointed out that the law in question doesn’t require retirement managers to invest based on ESG principles – it merely allows them to do so if those factors are relevant to their risk/return analyses. The practice was banned during the Trump administration.

📊 Flash poll: How do you feel about Biden’s expected decision to veto a law that would ban US retirement managers from directing their clients’ investments based on ESG considerations?

Strongly agree

Agree/Somewhat agree

Neutral

Disagree/Somewhat disagree

Strongly disagree

🇪🇬 Yesterday, Egyptian officials unveiled a newly-discovered chamber hidden within the Great Pyramid of Giza. The corridor is nearly 30 feet long and more than six feet wide, and located directly above the main entrance of the Pyramid of Khufu (the largest such structure in existence). Archaeologists said they discovered the hidden chamber – which isn’t accessible from the outside – using modern scanning technology, but further study is needed to determine what purpose it served.

🇨🇳 China started construction on 50 gigawatts of new coal power capacity last year, six times as much as the rest of the world combined. That’s per a new report published this week by a pair of independent climate organizations, which also found China added a record 125 gigawatts of new solar and wind energy capacity over the same period. Beijing has also committed to building another 160 gigawatts of new solar and wind energy capacity this year. For context, one gigawatt represents enough capacity to power ~750,000 homes for a year.

🇷🇺 Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a surprise meeting with his Russian counterpart at the ongoing G-20 summit in India yesterday. The 10-minute discussion between Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov represents the highest-level meeting between the two countries since Moscow invaded Ukraine a little over a year ago. Sources told the WSJ that Blinken approached Lavrov with the aim of conveying three messages: 1) urging Russia to rejoin the New START arms treaty; 2) requesting the release ex-Marine Paul Whelan from Russian prison; and 3) stressing that the US will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, and will push for the war to end on Kyiv’s terms.

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The FDA denied Elon Musk-led Neuralink’s request to progress to human trials in early 2022, according to a Reuters report published yesterday. News of the denial had not previously been reported.

📅 Background: Neuralink, founded by Musk and seven others in 2016, is a company aiming to create a so-called brain computer interface (BCI) device that uses electrodes to penetrate or sit on the brain and provide direct communication to computers.

The company says its device could eventually be used to help disabled patients to move and communicate again, and also restore vision. But it has a liiiiiiittttle bit of work to do before getting there.

The FDA’s rejection listed dozens of what it calls “deficiencies” the company must address before human trials, five Neuralink sources told Reuters. Some issues are relatively minor, but the agency has major concerns, too.

• One big sticking point, sources told Reuters, was the safety around the brain device’s proposed use of lithium batteries that could be recharged remotely.
• The agency also had questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue.

🧠 Zoom out: If Neuralink was a baseball player up to bat, the count would be 0 balls and 1 strike – with the pitch clock (aka a definitive timeline for FDA approval) set to 15 seconds. But Synchron, a Neuralink competitor making a BCI implant to help paralyzed people, is already standing on first base; it began human trials last July.

“There a promise in the title of 'Succession,'" the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, said in an interview last week.

And it appears that promise is about to be fulfilled. Last week, Armstrong confirmed the show's fourth season – which premieres March 26 on HBO Max – would be its last.

A satirical drama that often veers into dark comedy, Succession follows a dysfunctional media family empire as the aging founder Logan Roy battles for control of the company with his four children.

📷 Big picture: Nominated for 48 Emmys with 13 victories, including Best Drama Series for both the second and third seasons, Succession has been praised by critics for its portrayal of today's real-world media empires.

The Roys have often been compared to the real-world media dynasty, the Murdoch family, owners of News Corp (which owns Fox News, WSJ, the New York Post, and The Times of London, among others). In fact, the Murdochs have been going through their very own succession battle to see which of the 89-year-old Rupert Murdoch's two sons would take over as heir.

• For Armstrong and the writer's room, crafting each season involves extensive research, background reading, and often cobbling together stories from that morning's WSJ or Financial Times. To sum it up: "Reality is terrifying, but also funny."

+Trailer drop: The two-minute and forty-second trailer for Season Four was released yesterday. (And it's giving Shakespearian tragedy: alliances, betrayals, and several explicit mentions of death and murder.)

💬 Quoted…​​ “Although inflation has been coming down since the middle of last year, the recent data indicate that we haven’t made as much progress as we thought."

In prepared remarks at a banking conference in Arizona yesterday, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said that if inflation data remains elevated – as is currently projected – the central bank will have to raise benchmark interest rates from their current level of between 4.5% and 4.75% to above 5.4% over the next few months.

• That represents a higher level than Fed officials had signaled in December, when they said benchmark interest rates would likely peak at around 5.1% this year.

🏘️ Stat of the Day: 36 = the median age of all first-time home buyers in the US last year, per new data from the National Association of Realtors. That’s up from a median age of 29 in 1981, and the oldest age since NAR began tracking that data over four decades ago.

🤯 Did You Know?... The province of Alberta, Canada, is the largest inhabited area on Earth without a native rat population, thanks to an ongoing program enacted in 1950 that isolates and eradicates any rat that crosses the border.

📖 Worth a Read: The collectors who spend thousands on rare Hot Wheels → (The Hustle)

🚁 Parallel Flight Technologies are developing drones that can lift heavy payloads for long durations. Cool, right? Sure, but let’s really think about it. This means they can:

• Deliver critical equipment during emergency situations, even in zero visibility when helicopters are grounded.
• Provide medication/supplies to remote locations; this is extraordinarily helpful for on-the-ground relief efforts.
• Autonomously fight and prevent forest fires with no risk to the operator.

All while achieving a 90% carbon footprint reduction vs helicopters. And then the commercial applications… turns out, lifting heavy payloads beyond the visual line of sight has a ton of logistical implications – good ones!👷‍♀️

And Parallel Flight Technologies aren’t just going to sell drones either. They also service them, and will offer drones as a service (DaaS). Plus they’re backed by NSF, USDA, and NASA.

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

• ☝️ You’re looking at a photo of a green aurora swirling around Earth’s northern latitudes; it was recently captured from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut Josh Cassada.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P: +0.8%; Dow: +1.1%; Nasdaq: +0.7%).
• 📈 Mortgage rates rose above 7% yesterday (7.1%), per Mortgage News Daily; that’s the highest level in over four months.
• 🛒 Walmart CEO Doug McMillon plans to helm the country’s largest retailer for at least three more years as the company continues to try and identify a successor, the WSJ reported yesterday. | Instacart added ChatGPT to its app yesterday; the AI-chatbot will be used to answer users’ questions about recipes, healthy meals, etc.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🥊 Creed III opens in theaters across the country today.
• ✌️🏡 Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been asked by the royal family to vacate Frogmore Cottage, their British home base on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
• 📺🏅 ESPN is exploring the possibility of launching a feature that would link users directly to where any live sporting event is streaming – even on channels outside its networks, CNBC reported yesterday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🚀🛰️ SpaceX successfully launched four crewmembers to the International Space Station early yesterday morning. | The chances of seeing a satellite in a Hubble Space Telescope image increased from an average of 3.7% between 2009 and 2020 to 5.6% in 2021, per a study published yesterday in Nature Astronomy; the jump is attributed to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation.
• 🦾 A team of engineers at the University of New South Wales has developed a tiny, flexible robotic arm that can 3D-print cells directly on the surface of organs inside a living human’s body, circumventing many of the risks associated with surgeries, per a new study published in Advanced Science.
• 🌎 More than half of the global population will be obese or overweight by 2035 barring significant action, per a new report from the World Obesity Federation.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• ⚖️ Former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was found guilty by a jury yesterday on charges of killing his wife and son; he faces 30 years to life in prison without parole.
• 🔎 The House Ethics Committee officially established a subcommittee yesterday to investigate Rep. George Santos (R-NY) for potential ethics violations. (Background)
• 🏛️ Former President Trump can be sued in civil lawsuits that seek to hold him legally accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the US Capitol, the Justice Department argued in court yesterday; the agency made no judgments about the truth of the allegations against Trump. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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🤔 Picture this: You're enjoying a nice soon-to-be-spring day in your New Jersey home, when you wander out onto your back porch. 

• There, lounging about in your backyard, is this adorable little seal pup ⬆️.

🚦Why did the seal cross the road?... Police officers stopped traffic earlier this week after the pup was spotted trying to cross a busy road in a Jersey suburb. 

• While no one is quite sure how the seal got so far from the beach – or what it was looking for – the pup was eventually rescued, examined, and safely released back to the wild.  

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

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Butter
• Garlic
• Broccoli
• Cheddar
• Parmesan
• Salt & pepper
• Puff pastry
• Egg
• Water

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Salt
• Butter
• Sour cream
• Egg
• Cream
• Plums
• Cinnamon
• Lemon juice
• Orange zest
• Tapioca or flour

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Tomatoes
• Salt & pepper
• Sugar
• Ricotta
• Mozzarella
• Parmesan
• Egg
• Lemon
• Parsley
• Jumbo shells
• Basil leaves

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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☝️ Recipe #1: Broccoli cheddar hand pies

✌️ Recipe #2: Plum galette

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Stuffed-shell pasta

**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.