Good morning. Big news for all our word-lovers out there – the Oxford English Dictionary just added 17 new words. We’ve got “deepfake,” “cheddar” (meaning “money”), and our favorite, a “groomzilla,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

But be careful, for three new insults of the most powerful variety have also been added:

• Lamester!
• Crazy-pants!
• Freako!

Ok OED, we see you. Get that cheddar.

And now let’s get ourselves a big glass of THE NEWS!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.94 minutes to read.

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.”

–Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

A Manhattan grand jury hearing evidence about former President Donald Trump's role in a payment made to an adult film star is close to finishing up its work, per multiple reports. The news indicates that NY prosecutors could soon call for a vote on whether to indict the former US president – which, if approved, would represent the first such occurrence in history.

But, but, but: law-enforcement officials have been tight-lipped about any news from the grand jury, whose proceedings are held in private, meaning it isn’t guaranteed that Trump will actually be criminally charged.

Here’s what we do know so far:

• The Manhattan District Attorney's office has spent nearly five years investigating a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, which happened during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
• Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen previously alleged that he personally paid Daniels in exchange for her silence about an affair with Trump.
• Another former Trump lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, later confirmed that Cohen was reimbursed by Trump’s 2016 campaign.
• Trump has denied the affair and accused Daniels of extortion.
• Trump’s lawyer has said the former president would surrender peacefully if charged with a crime.

👀 Looking ahead… If the NY grand jury does vote to indict Trump, it wouldn’t be made public until after prosecutors negotiate a time and date for his surrender, then formally arrest him. If that happens, his trial will most likely play out around the same time as the 2024 presidential election.

📊 Flash poll (long-form): In your opinion, how would Trump being indicted and arrested affect the 2024 election?

Click here to leave a response.

🇦🇺🕷️ Australian researchers discovered a new “rare and giant” species of trapdoor spider. The scientists found the abnormally large spider hiding in the soil of woodland areas, and after further investigation determined it was actually a brand-new species. They named it Euoplos dignitas, a name "derived from the Latin dignitas meaning dignity or greatness, reflecting the impressive size and nature of the spider,” scientists with the Queensland Museum said in a statement.

🇫🇮 Finland is the world’s happiest country for the sixth year in a row. That’s according to the UN’s annual World Happiness Report, which ranks 150+ countries based on six categories: social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption. Despite spending half the year in darkness, Nordic countries made up all of the top three, with Denmark in second place and Iceland in third. The US placed 15th, up one spot from 2022.

🇰🇪🇿🇦🇳🇬🇹🇳 People in four African countries are protesting over economic and political instability. Citizens in the north (Tunisia), east (Kenya), south (South Africa), and west (Nigeria) of Africa took to the streets on Monday to call out their respective governments’ inaction over the increased cost of living due to inflation and/or currency devaluation. Another point of contention for protesters: all of the countries, save for South Africa, recently had a politician ascend to the presidency despite claims of illegitimacy by the opposition party.

🌞 Vacation time is supposed to be relaxing, but when you’re a fur parent you know it can be anything but. Fortunately, many destinations are becoming more pet-friendly in their accommodations.

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Though Los Angeles doesn’t get much snow, the over half a million K-12 students who didn’t have to attend school yesterday had themselves a bit of a snow day.

That's because more than 30,000 bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, special education assistants, and other school workers walked off the job, starting a three-day strike that will last until Friday. They’re joined in solidarity by the LA teachers union’s ~35,000 members.

🚪 Why so closed?... The strike all boils down to one thing: wages. According to the union that represents the workers, the average income for a non-teacher school worker is $25,000/year (many work part-time). Or as the union refers to it, a “poverty wage.”

To remedy the situation, the union is demanding a 30% salary increase, plus an additional $2/hour increase for the lowest-paid workers.

• Which isn’t eeeeeexactly how much the schools are willing to give up. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho countered on Monday with a “historic offer”; it included a 23% recurring pay increase, a 3% cash-in-hand bonus, a minimum wage of $20/hour, and full healthcare for anyone working at least four hours a day.

For the workers’ union, that offer was close to its ask, but not enough. Or as baseball legend Frank Robinson once said, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

🔎 Zoom out: Worker strikes are on the rise across the country. Last year saw a total of 23 major work stoppages, the second highest number since 2001.

For the first time in history, scientists have detected the presence of one of the four nucleobases of RNA on an asteroid in space, per a peer-reviewed study published yesterday in Science Advances.

And if your first thought was “aliens!” a) you’re not alone and b) yes, aliens – but probably not the ones you’re thinking of. The discovery, based on samples taken from the asteroid Ryugu by a Japanese spacecraft in 2019, represents the strongest evidence yet that the building blocks for life first came to Earth from outer space.

☄️➡️👩 A deeper dive… RNA, like DNA, is present in all living cells and made up of four total nucleobases. The presence of one of those nucleobases – uracil – was detected in the Ryugu samples.

While uracil has previously been found in samples taken from meteorites, those objects had already landed on Earth before they could be analyzed. This left open the possibility that they had already been contaminated by humans, or our planet’s atmosphere.

• But because the Ryugu rock samples were collected in space nearly 2 billion miles from Earth, Japanese scientists were able to confirm the presence of uracil on asteroids for the first time.

🧬 Bottom line: One of several theories about the origin of life suggests that RNA first arose before DNA, and that early living organisms relied on RNA for the chemical reactions associated with life. So if the building blocks for RNA can be found in space, it lends credence to a separate (but complementary) theory suggesting life first came to Earth on comets and asteroids.

💬 Quoted… “Anarchic.”

The drug DMT significantly impacts the highly-evolved parts of the human brain that are responsible for planning, language, memory, complex decision-making, and imagination, per a new study published yesterday in PNAS. It was led by top psychedelic researcher Robin Carhart-Harris, and represents the most advanced picture yet of the human brain on psychedelics.

• The study found that patients who ingested DMT saw their brain’s normal hierarchy break down, with electrical activity becoming chaotic and connectivity between different regions soaring.

👂🎶 Stat of the Day: 111.4 million = the amount of Spotify subscribers who have listened to The Weeknd so far in March, earning him the Guinness World Record for most monthly listeners; it’s also the first time any artist has surpassed 100 million listeners in a single month.

🤯 Did You Know?... If you get something delivered that you didn't order, you're legally entitled to keep it.

📖 Worth a Read: Meet the chatbots that want to be your best friend → (The Guardian)

• ☝️ The winners of the 2022 World Nature Photography Awards were announced last week; the competition, which plants a tree for each entry, saw photographers in 45 countries across six continents submit their work for consideration.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board yesterday (S&P +1.3%; Dow: +1.0%; Nasdaq: +1.6%).
• 🏦 US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen yesterday said the government is willing to take further action to provide more deposit guarantees if the banking crisis worsens. | Regional bank stocks rose following her remarks; First Republic Bank shares increased ~30%.
• 🏠📉 Home prices are lower on a year-by-year comparison for the first time in nearly 11 years; sales of previously owned homes rose by 14.5% in February, per data released by the National Association of Realtors.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🧬🎥 Netflix purchased The Electric State for over $200 million, sources say; the sci-fi film will star Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown.
• 🎵🎤 Lollapalooza announced its 2023 lineup yesterday; Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Odesza, Lana Del Rey are among the headliners. | Bad Bunny is being sued for over $40 million for allegedly using a recording of his ex-girlfriend’s voice without her permission.
• ⚾ Japan won its first World Baseball Classic title since 2009 last night, after defeating the US by a 3-2 score.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 Google officially opened public access to its Bard AI chatbot, which isn’t being integrated into Search or other products (for now); CEO Sundar Pichai sent an internal email to employees yesterday warning that “things will go wrong” as more users test the chatbot’s capabilities.
• 🚀💥☄️ The aftermath of NASA’s DART asteroid impact was captured by the Very Large Telescope in Chile, with the images published yesterday in a new peer-reviewed study.
• 💤 The European Space Agency could begin testing “hibernation chambers” developed for long space journeys on human subjects within the next decade, per the co-author of a recent paper outlining the ESA's approach to hibernation research.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🍄 The CDC said yesterday that the number of cases of Candida auris, a drug-resistant and potentially deadly fungal infection, nearly doubled last year to reach 1,471.
• ⛰️🏜️ The Biden administration announced plans to establish two new national monuments in the Southwest; the decision covers Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in southern Nevada that some Indigenous American tribes consider sacred, along with the Castner Range in El Paso, TX.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that a deaf student in Michigan can sue his school district for failing to provide him a public education tailored to his needs.

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔 How to detect liars: the devil is in the details.

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One anonymous Melbourne teacher brings dedication to her students to a whole new level. For the past few years, she's spent hours crafting custom plush toys for her students based on their imaginative drawings.

• The toys range from what one student calls a "therizinosaurus," to the little fluff ball you see above. Every single student receives a custom creation.

🍎 Thanks, teach.... Reid Parker, a dad of one of the students, set up a GoFundMe page to thank the teacher. It raised almost $10,000 🥳.

See all the creations here.

Here's how to play: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the stated value.

💧💰 $180M: The budget of Waterworld, the 1995 box office bomb starring Kevin Costner.

🔥⚾ 13: The number of earned runs scored in the postseason against relief pitcher Mariano Rivera (across 141 innings).

✈️🚫 90%: How often the TSA failed to detect things they should have, when secretly tested by an independent agency.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Under: $172 million–$175 million.... and it eventually recouped the costs, it just took a while
2. Under: 11, for an ERA of 0.70
3. Over: 95%