Good morning. We haven’t heard much from our team over at The DONUT: Antarctica, which hopefully means they’re working on a top notch story and not just super, super cold.

But in far more important news, a new chapter of conflict began yesterday between Taco Bell and its scrappier rival Taco John’s over who can use the phrase “Taco Tuesday.” It appears that Taco John’s has owned the trademark on the phrase in every state except one (New Jersey) since 1989.

This means that, legally, Taco Bell must request permission from Taco John’s to use the phrase. Taco Bell disagrees, and yesterday filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark office to cancel the trademark.

Taco John’s disagrees with that disagreement, and so the battle between David and Goliath continues for another day.

Now, to use a phrase we totally trademarked, THE NEWS.

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

“A person sees in the world what they carry in their heart.”

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Last week, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee published a report detailing previously-undisclosed evidence that Joe Biden’s family members, associates, and their related companies received over $10 million from foreign entities over a two-year period during and after Biden’s term as vice president.

The 36-page report, based on records collected via subpoena from four banks, accuses nine Biden family members of using a network of 20+ companies and incremental payments over time to conceal large financial transactions from 2015 to 2017.

In particular, House Republicans singled out Joe’s son Hunter Biden as someone who allegedly received several million dollars over that period from foreign individuals in China and Romania, including some with criminal ties.

• The report also accuses President Biden of lying on multiple occasions about his family receiving money from China, including during his 2020 campaign and as recently as March 2023.
• GOP lawmakers didn’t identify any direct or indirect payments to President Biden himself, and also didn’t allege that any criminal activity had occurred.

🔀 On the flip side: President Biden has consistently denied playing any role in his family’s business operations – and last week was no different. A White House spokesperson called the House committee's findings “baseless innuendo,” saying the report failed to provide evidence that Biden’s policy decisions were influenced in any way by foreign entities.

👀 Looking ahead… House Republicans are planning to issue subpoenas for more bank records from the Biden family in the coming months. GOP lawmakers say the investigation will help them craft new legislation to strengthen reporting requirements for elected officials’ family members, as part of an effort to combat “influence peddling.”

• Under current laws and regulations, non-dependent family members of senior elected officials aren’t required to provide any financial information to the public.

📊 Flash poll: Do you think the US government should enact stricter reporting requirements for the business dealings of elected officials’ family members?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia unleashed one of its biggest airstrikes against Ukraine since the war began. Ukraine’s military claimed it shot down all six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles fired by Moscow in its attack, which began around 3 am local time yesterday morning. Russia had previously claimed its Kinzhal missile, which reaches speeds of up to 7,000 miles per hour, couldn’t be destroyed by any existing air defense system in the world…. which may be why Moscow denied yesterday that its Kinzhal missiles were shot down, instead saying one had successfully destroyed a US-supplied Patriot air defense system. US officials later confirmed that Ukraine did indeed down six Kinzhal missiles, and a Patriot system was damaged – not destroyed – in Russia’s overnight attack.

🇨🇳🇮🇷🇷🇺 Individuals associated with the Chinese, Iranian, and Russian governments have been accused of stealing US tech. In a series of five cases announced yesterday by the Department of Justice, federal prosecutors accused half-a-dozen people of illegally transferring US trade secrets and sensitive technologies to businesses and governments in China, Russia, and Iran. In one case, the DOJ said a Chinese citizen and former Apple employee stole thousands of internal documents pertaining to the tech giant’s self-driving vehicle, then brought the documents with him to his new job at a China-based autonomous vehicle competitor.

🇹🇼 Taiwan’s government approved a new amendment granting full adoption rights to married same-sex couples. Taiwan first legalized gay marriage in 2019, becoming the first – and to this day only – Asian country to do so. But prior to yesterday’s legislative change, all same-sex married couples within the country could only adopt children who were related to one of the partners, a policy some lawmakers and critics argued disincentivized such couples from getting married in the first place (since the restriction doesn’t apply to single people).

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Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, ah come on please can you not?

That was the essential message from lawmakers yesterday during OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy and technology.

“Congress failed to meet the moment on social media,” Chair Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) said in his opening written remarks. How can we ensure, he may have continued, channeling the legendary UK band The Who, that we don’t get fooled again?

Altman’s answer was simple – regulate, regulate, regulate. And that includes creating a legal framework that isn’t Section 230, the law that essentially indemnifies social media platforms from being held liable for the content on their platforms.

Here’s Altman’s three-point plan for what regulation might look like:

1. Establish a dedicated government agency responsible for licensing large AI models, and grant it the authority to revoke licenses for non-compliance with government standards.
2. Develop and enforce safety standards, including assessments of potential risks and dangerous capabilities (example: testing whether models can self-replicate or go rogue and start acting autonomously without authorization).
3. Mandate independent audits conducted by external experts.

🤖 Looking ahead... Expect more regulation-focused AI conversations – because much like gossip at a family reunion, the technology is spreading fast. OpenAI’s ChatGPT crossed the 100 million user mark just two months after launching late last year. Meanwhile, Google, which has over 1 billion people using its services, recently announced plans to integrate its AI chatbot, Bard, into its suite of apps, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and more.

Ah, the mall… piercings at Claire’s, delicious-smelling pretzel samples from Auntie Anne's, and – what’s that sound? That’s the signature “pop-pop-pop” of a pickleball match.

Across the US, businesses are converting shuttered department stores into locations where people can gather to play the sport that’s one part tennis, one part ping-pong, and one part badminton.

A few recent examples:

• A group called Pickleball America is taking over an 80,000-sq-foot mall space in Stamford, CT, which will become one of the largest indoor pickleball venues in the US once it opens this summer.
• The Meadows at Lake St. Louis, an outdoor mall in Missouri, plans to replace its Bed Bath & Beyond store with a new athletic club dedicated to pickleball.
• A new pickleball facility recently opened in a former Burlington store at Shore Mall in New Jersey, while a pickleball club took over a former Old Navy space at a New Hampshire mall.

In a report this week, investment firm JLL said the new trend offers benefits to both mall owners, who need new and exciting tenants to fill vacant spaces and draw customers, as well as pickleball players, who are increasingly being driven out of neighborhoods due to the loud noises associated with the sport.

🏓📈 Zoom out: Like Abercrombie & Fitch for that weird spell, the US pickleball scene has exploded in popularity. More than 36.5 million Americans played the sport during the year-long period ending in August 2022, a 630% increase from the start of 2021.

💬 Quoted… “The driver attempted to switch places with his dog, who was in the passenger seat, as the SPD officer approached and watched the entire process.”

• This past weekend, a Colorado driver pulled over for speeding and suspected DUI tried to trade places with his dog to make it look like the pooch was driving, the Springfield Police Department revealed in a recent Facebook post. (Thankfully, the dog got off with just a warning.)

🥚📉 Stat of the Day: As of last week, Midwest large eggs – the benchmark for eggs sold in the US – cost an average of $0.94/dozen on the wholesale market, per independent price reporting agency Urner Barry.

• That’s down from an all-time high of $5.46/dozen just six months ago, with the 83% drop in price widely attributed to fewer-than-expected cases of bird flu this spring, combined with a nationwide decrease in demand for eggs.

🤯 Did You Know?... Nearly a quarter of all American adults (24%) say they used to follow a different religious tradition or denomination than the one they practice now; that figure is up from 16% in 2021, per a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.

📖 Worth a Read: The mission to preserve Sorani Kurdish by getting it onto Google Translate → (Rest of World)

• ☝️ The San Antonio Spurs won last night’s lottery to secure the #1 overall pick in the NBA Draft (takes place next month); the Spurs are essentially guaranteed to select Victor Wembanyama (right), a 19-year-old French phenom who stands a whopping 7’4’’ tall with an estimated 8-foot wingspan.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board yesterday (S&P: -0.6%; Dow: -1.0%; Nasdaq: -0.2%).
• 🚗⚡ Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased two new EV models at yesterday’s annual shareholder meeting, saying the automaker has already started building one; he also announced the company will begin spending money on advertising for the first time.
• 🏦⚖️ Wells Fargo agreed yesterday to pay $1 billion to settle a lawsuit accusing the bank of defrauding its shareholders about its progress in recovering from a series of previous scandals over its treatment of customers; if approved, the payout will be one of the top 20 largest class-action settlements in history.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🦹🦸 Disney announced streaming release dates for season two of Loki (October 6) and season one of the Hawkeye spinoff Echo (November 29); the streamer will also make the Indiana Jones back catalog, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom, available starting May 31.
• 📻🎙️ NPR announced the winner of its Tiny Desk Concert yesterday: Utah-based band Little Moon (listen to the performance here).
• 🗣📱 iPhones will soon be able to speak in your voice after fifteen minutes of training, Apple announced yesterday; the tech giant also unveiled several other new accessibility features for people with cognitive, vision, hearing, or mobility problems.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🧬 New DNA collecting techniques can essentially pull human genetic material out of thin air, per a peer-reviewed study published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
• 🧠 Scientists have identified the second man in recorded history with a mutation preventing the early onset of symptoms from Alzheimer’s disease.
• 🤕 Wounds with a zig-zag pattern heal up to 5x faster than straight wounds, due to the swirling motion of healing cells arriving at the damage site; the findings, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS, could allow for faster-healing surgical incisions.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🚗 The average age of the 284+ million cars currently operating on US roads is at an all-time high of 12.5 years, up three months from last year, per an annual analysis from S&P Global Mobility.
• 🏛️ North Carolina’s GOP-led state legislature voted yesterday to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a new state law that bans most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, instead of the current 20-week limit. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• ✍️🏫 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill on Monday banning all public colleges and universities in the state from spending money on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🏠 She pays $0 to live in a ‘luxury tiny home’ – how she built it for $35,000.

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The black-and-white ruffed lemur is one of the 25 most endangered primates in the world. 

 It makes sense, then, that the Calgary Zoo team is celebrating the arrival of its newest member: a baby lemur born on April 7th, thanks to the zoo's Species Survival Plan.

🍼😍 Welcome to the world... The baby was born to a four-year-old female lemur, Eny, and an eight-year-old male named Menabe. It marks the zoo's first successful birth since 1987 🤯.

• While the happy family is not on display quite yet, zoo officials confirmed the new pup is "bright-eyed and active."

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

1. 🏀 36: Combined NBA championships won by the Boston Celtics and LA Lakers.
2. 📺 10 minutes: How long it takes the average American to pick something to watch.
3. 🪖 30 minutes: The length of the shortest documented war in history.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Under; they have 17 championships each (34 total)
2. Under; 7 minutes, per a 2019 Nielsen study
3. Over; it was between 38 and 45 minutes long (Britain vs Zanzibar, 1896)

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