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🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.98 minutes to read.

“It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Yesterday’s headlines read like a story ripped out of WWE Raw. There’s Vince McMahon, majority owner of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), in the ring, back after announcing his retirement last July in the face of sexual harassment allegations – and he’s got big news. The league has been acquired. But by who?

Face the Pain, the intro music for the Ultimate Fighting Competition (UFC), comes over the speakers. Out walks Ari Emanuel, CEO of UFC’s parent company, Endeavor. The two men shake hands and, just like that, the WWE has been acquired by Endeavor for a reported $9.3 billion.

😲 But wait, what’s this?... Emanuel and McMahon aren’t done. The WWE and UFC, the two men announce, will be spun off into a publicly-traded company worth over $21 billion. Aka there’s a new undisputed champ in town, and it's got all the big scary people who fight on its side.

👬 Why the tag team? This deal certainly isn’t the first rodeo for Emanuel, who has been at the helm of what is arguably Hollywood’s most powerful agency, William Morris Endeavor (the company’s clients include Ben Affleck, Hugh Jackman, Barbara Streisand, and honestly most all the other famous people, too).

• With this merger, Emmanuel sees an opportunity for leverage when making TV and streaming distribution deals. Because in a world where content is king, what’s better than an exclusive deal to stream one league of extreme fighting? Two, of course.

🤼 Bottom line: UFC’s TV deal with ESPN, as well as WWE’s TV deals with Fox and NBCUniversal, are set to expire next year. And if you’re in the market to sell streaming rights, the timing is like a surprise entrance from Dwayne “The Guy Who Started Out As A Wrestler Named The Rock” Johnson – it couldn’t be much better.

Last year, YouTube purchased the rights to stream NFL Sunday Ticket for $14 billion over seven years, while Apple bought the exclusive rights to MLS games for $2.5 billion over 10 years.

🇨🇴 Colombia is spending $3.5 million to relocate 70 of Pablo Escobar’s hippos. Hippos aren’t native to Colombia, but were brought to the country in the 1980s by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar for his home menagerie. After Escobar’s ranch was abandoned upon his death in 1993, his four hippos integrated into the local ecosystem and began to reproduce, eventually growing the population to its current size of around 145 – large enough to pose an environmental challenge and endanger nearby citizens.

🇫🇷 Residents of Paris voted to ban rental e-scooters. While only 8% of the city’s electorate voted in Sunday’s referendum, nearly 90% of the people who did vote supported the e-scooter ban. The French capital was one of the first cities to adopt e-scooters, but a recent uptick in injuries and deaths stemming from scooter accidents prompted local lawmakers to propose the city-wide ban, which takes effect on September 1.

🇫🇮 Finland will become the 31st member of the NATO military alliance later today. It marks the end of an accelerated application process that began last May, when both Finland and Sweden reversed course after decades of military neutrality and applied to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sweden’s application is currently being held up by Hungary and Turkey, who have argued that Stockholm is sheltering members of what it considers to be terrorist groups (which Sweden denies).

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Yesterday, NASA announced the four astronauts who will participate in the agency’s Artemis II mission. It’ll be the world’s first crewed Moon mission in over 50 years.

• The team is composed of NASA’s Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman, along with Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. (Read more about them here.)

🤔 What are they going to do?... As the four astronauts were probably told via self-destructing message (your mission, should you choose to accept it), Artemis II is essentially a repeat of last year’s Artemis I mission. Artemis I was an uncrewed test that sent NASA’s Orion capsule on a 1.4 million-mile voyage around the Moon and back – Artemis II will take the same flight path, except this time there will be astronauts onboard.

If everything goes according to plan, the Artemis II mission will blast off in November 2024 using NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, aka the most powerful rocket ever successfully launched.

• The 10-day journey will send the Artemis II crew out beyond the Moon, potentially further than any human has ever traveled from Earth (though the exact distance is TBD).

👀 Looking (way) ahead… Artemis II is expected to pave the way for the Artemis III mission, which will see astronauts – including the first woman and person of color – set foot on the Moon’s surface for the first time since 1972. NASA is currently targeting a launch date sometime in 2025, but the agency’s inspector general has said delays will likely push the mission to 2026 or later.

No. 4 UConn defeated No. 5 San Diego State 76-59 last night to clinch their third NCAA men’s basketball title in the past 13 years. Forward Adama Sanogo earned Final Four MVP honors.

And with that – just like history – this year's March Madness is over with and in the books. Here are some tournament takeaways:

• 👀 Viewership declined for men, but spiked for women… The men’s tournament recorded fewer total viewers for every single Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight game when compared to last year, while the women’s tournament held its most-watched semi final and championship games in history.
• ⛹️‍♀️ … and Caitlin Clark may have been a big reason why. While her team eventually fell short in the championship game, the Iowa guard and 2023 Naismith Winner (college bball’s best overall player) scored a total of 191 points over six games, setting a new all-time tournament record for both men and women.
• ⛹️‍♂️ This year’s men’s tournament took place in a little town called “Upset City.” It was a historic men’s tournament in terms of upsets; a No. 16 seed took down a No. 1 for the second time in history, and all four top seeds were eliminated before the Elite Eight for the first time. It was also the first Final Four that didn’t feature a No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3 seed.

💬 Quoted… “I got a fantasy that's beautiful, that's dark and twisted. But I attacked a whole religion all because of my ignorance."

In a new song, Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) apologized for his antisemitic remarks over the past six months – well, kind of. AI enthusiast and influencer Roberto Nickson used artificial intelligence to clone Ye’s voice, then had it rap some lines that Nickson wrote himself. And just to be clear: even though it sounds like he was, Ye was not involved in the video or song.

🧾 Stat of the Day: 21% = the average tip left by US consumers last year, per a recent Creditcards.com survey. That’s up from an average tip of 15% five decades ago, and 10% in the 1950s.

🤯 Did You Know?... Nearly a quarter of all US couples (23%) stay together due to financial dependency, per a new LendingTree report.

📖 Worth a Read: Would Life Be Better if You Worked Less? → (WSJ)

• ☝️ A new commemorative quarter honoring the late Edith Kanakaʻole, a legendary Hawaiian hula teacher, officially entered circulation last week.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed mixed yesterday (Dow: +1.0%; S&P: +0.4%; Nasdaq: -0.3%).
• 🛢️ Oil prices rose almost 6% yesterday, following OPEC+'s surprise announcement on Sunday about cutting production.
• 🏰 Disney CEO Bob Iger commented yesterday on the ongoing clash between the company and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; the remarks were made during Disney’s first shareholder’s meeting since Iger returned as CEO in November 2022.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🌺🎥 Disney is set to produce a live-action remake of Moana; Dwayne Johnson will reprise his role as Maui. | YouTube will livestream all Coachella performances this year.
• ✈️🎧 Google is testing a new price guarantee program for its Google Flights service; the tool will reimburse you if the flight you bought via the platform decreases in price; it’s currently in a “pilot program” phase (get it? pilot?). | Spotify will shut down its standalone live audio app, Spotify Live, by the end of April, the platform announced yesterday.
• 🕹️ The Justice Department announced a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard yesterday, alleging the videogame-maker illegally suppressed player salaries in two of its esports leagues.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🍃 An Indian patient appears to have contracted a serious case of silver leaf disease, which normally only affects plants; researchers say it’s the first known case of the disease affecting a human in recorded history.
• 🌊🐟 The deepest fish ever filmed was recently captured on video at a depth of 27,000+ feet off the coast of Japan.
• 🧠 One of the National Institutes of Health is building an Alzheimer's research database to track the health of Americans for decades to come, sources told Reuters; the six-year project will reportedly cost up to $300 million.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• ⚖️ Leonardo DiCaprio appeared in a D.C. courthouse yesterday to testify in the trial of rapper Pras Michel, a founding member of the Fugees, over charges stemming from the 1MDB financial scandal.
• 🎈 The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US before being shot down in early February was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, sources told NBC News. (Background)
• 🗽 Former President Donald Trump traveled to New York yesterday ahead of his expected arraignment on criminal charges later today. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 💼 Harvard career expert shares her No. 1 'undesirable' trait CEOs see in employees: It's 'a huge red flag for me.'

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Yesterday we covered the indictment of former President Donald Trump, who will become the first former president in US history to face criminal charges later today.

❓ Our question to you: Based on what we know so far about the indictment against former President Trump, what are your thoughts?

• “Both parties seem determined to take every institution of our government and use it for political theatrics and we the voters play into this game. If justice is our intent, this is not the arena where it will be found.”
• “I do think he's guilty of some of these things, but I also think that the political motivation for the charges can't be denied. Personally, I don't want Trump back in the national spotlight. Our politics are far, far too divisive of late. The country needs to heal.”
• “Trump has long avoided being penalized due to his wealth and influence. If he is guilty, serve justice as one would who is not in his position. If he is innocent, so be it. But he should stand trial.”
• “This is such an emotionally charged issue. The Trump supporters feel it's a witch hunt. His detractors want to penalize him any way they can. I hope there is clear and overwhelming evidence that caused the DA to indict to help those in the middle feel comfortable that the indictment was warranted.”

Click here to read more of the best responses from yesterday’s poll.

+Note on sample size: We received 928 longform responses.

106-year-old Apo Whang-Od – also known as Maria Oggay – recently became the oldest person ever to grace the cover of Vogue Magazine. 

🎨 Leaving a legacy... Whang-Od is the oldest living mambabatok tattoo artist in her village of Buscalan, Phillipines. 

• The ancient tattooing technique uses four ingredients: a bamboo stick, a thorn from a pomelo tree, water, and coal. The technique can only be passed down through blood relatives.

❓ Trivia: Which country was Full Metal Jacket (1987) filmed in?

🍌 True or False?... Bananas are berries.

🤔 Riddle Me This… What word starts as singular, turns into a plural word if you remove the last letter, then turns singular if you remove the last letter again?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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❓ Trivia: England

🍌 T/F: True… now that's bananas!

🤔 Riddle: Princess