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🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 5.16-minute read.

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“Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.”

–Laurence J. Peter (1919-1990)

More and more TikToks are feeling like they belong in the silent film era. Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, exercised its so-called “nuclear option” with TikTok this week, expanding the list of songs that can’t legally be used on the social media platform.

Universal Music Group – which represents Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, and more – pulled all of its artists’ music from TikTok in January due to a contract dispute. This week’s move extends that ban to any song that includes a writing credit from one of Universal’s songwriters – which, much like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, could have a huge impact.

• A top hit can sometimes have more than 10 songwriters from multiple publishers. And if even one songwriter on a track is signed to Universal, it’ll have to be removed from TikTok. This could affect 80% of the current hits across Universal, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Group, and independent labels, by some estimates.
• TikTok’s own estimates downplay the impact, indicating that 20%–30% of popular songs used on the app would be silenced.

Behind the scenes: Universal doesn’t expect a negative financial impact from the contract dispute, in part because TikTok only represents ~1% of its annual revenue. TikTok, on the other hand, is reportedly encouraging creators to post more photo content instead of videos.

• Last year, 85% of videos on TikTok contained music, according to content identification technology and data firm Pex. And that figure is trending upward.

👀 Looking ahead… TikTok recently presented an updated contract proposal to Universal, which rejected it, per the Wall Street Journal. Discussions reportedly haven’t progressed since.

In the meantime, many artists and TikTok creators are finding workarounds – just peep Ariana Grande’s silent promotion for her newly released single featuring Mariah Carey.

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🌎 Politicians above retirement age are increasingly leading the world’s largest nations. A decade ago, the world’s ten most populous countries featured a combined total of one leader aged 70 years or older. Today, that number is eight, covering more than half of the world’s entire population – and the two countries in that group who don’t have a 70+-year-old leader (Indonesia and Pakistan) are both expected to join the club following elections earlier this month. Experts attribute the recent trend to several factors, including autocrats strengthening their grip on power as well as rising barriers to entry for leadership elections.

🇮🇳📺 Disney is merging its Indian assets with Reliance, the top local media conglomerate. The companies will be combining Disney’s Star India and Reliance’s Viacom18 units into a new joint venture, valued at ~$8.5 billion, that will have a combined 750+ million Indian viewers. Reliance, led by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, will control the joint venture, while Disney will own just over a third of the company. The deal is expected to close in 9-12 months if approved by shareholders and regulators.

🇪🇺 The EU officially approved a landmark environmental restoration bill. On Tuesday, the EU parliament voted 329-275 in favor of a law requiring all member countries to restore at least 20% of their land and sea by 2030, in addition to restoring all local ecosystems in need by 2050. The bill passed despite opposition from conservative EU lawmakers, who argue the rules place too big of a burden on the bloc’s farmers.

While an apple per day may keep the doctor away, a daily puff of weed makes you more likely to require serious medical assistance in the future. That’s according to a study published yesterday by the American Heart Association, which found that frequent cannabis smoking is associated with a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The NIH-funded research analyzed survey data for 430,000 US adults, marking one of the largest studies of its kind on record.

• Researchers found daily use of cannabis – mostly through smoking – was associated with a 25% increased likelihood of heart attack and 42% increased likelihood of stroke when compared to non-users.
• By comparison, weekly cannabis use was shown to slightly increase risks for heart attacks (+3%) and strokes (+5%).

The data 👆 tracks with several other recent studies that show frequent cannabis users carry a 30+% higher risk of developing a range of severe heart problems compared to non-users.

Yes, but… All of this research has been observational, meaning it relies on self-reported surveys instead of following participants in real time. This opens up the risk that people who have bad memories – or who don’t want to confess certain behaviors – could end up skewing the results.

📝 Bottom line: Even with those limitations, the data is clear enough that regular cannabis users should probably take notice. In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, cannabis use hit an all-time high across all US age brackets.

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Today is Leap Day, a once-every-four-year event when February 29 is added to calendars worldwide. But have you ever wondered why an extra day is added in February instead of, say, December? Or why Leap Days even exist at all?

Let’s start at the beginning: Roman Emperor Julius Caesar first introduced Leap Day in 46 BCE as part of his Julian calendar, which counted each year at 365.25 days. It added an extra day once every four years to account for the fact that Earth’s full orbit around the Sun isn’t precisely 365 days, but about six hours longer than that.

The Julian calendar scheduled that extra day for late February, since many ancient cultures believed the world was created in the spring, and March was the beginning of the year – thus, Leap Day was placed at year’s end.

• Over the following centuries, the Western world used the Julian calendar as a template until Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in the late 1500s.
• This method of timekeeping, which is still used today, chose to keep Leap Days at the end of February for continuity.

📅 Fun fact: If Leap Day didn’t exist, summer and winter would fully swap places on the calendar – aka hot girl winters and cold girl summers – over the next ~750 years.

💬 Quoted… “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter.”

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced plans to step down from his leadership role in November, following a record-setting 17 years as Senate party leader. McConnell, who first became a senator in 1985, also said he plans to serve out the rest of his Senate term through January 2027. The top contenders to replace McConnell include a trio of Johns – Sens. John Thune (R-SD), John Barrasso (R-WY), and John Cornyn (R-TX).

+Dive deeper: From the Left | From the Center | From the Right

🏎️💨 Stat of the Day: According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the long-anticipated Roadster sports car will be able to go from 0 to 60 MPH in less than one second – nearly halving the previously announced time of 1.9 seconds. For reference: the current fastest-accelerating car in the world (the Rimac Nevara) takes 1.74 seconds to reach 60 MPH from a standstill. Musk also revealed the Roadster’s release – first projected for 2021 – has been delayed from this year to sometime in 2025.

🤔 Did You Know?... An estimated 10 million Americans living today can trace their ancestry back to the 132 passengers and crew of the Mayflower.

📰 Worth a Read: Esperanto: The constructed language that aimed to unite humanity → (Big Think)

• ☝️ The first-ever Dubai Jet Suit Championship, featuring a group of pilots flying around on 1,500-horsepower jet suits at speeds up to 80 MPH, was held in the UAE city-state yesterday.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Slumber

• 💰 US markets closed down (S&P: -0.2%; Dow: -0.1%; Nasdaq: -0.6%) as investors await this week's inflation data. | 🪙 Bitcoin crossed $60,000 for the first time since 2021; the cryptocurrency briefly touched $64,000 yesterday before dropping to ~$59,000.
• 💸 Stripe is allowing some current and former employees to sell shares at a $65 billion valuation.
• 🍔 Wendy's said it has no plans to raise menu prices at times of peak demand; the announcement comes a day after the chain said it would be testing “dynamic” pricing starting in 2025. | ✈️ The FAA has given Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to improve its quality control.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🙏 Richard Lewis, the comedian/actor known for his standup and role in Curb Your Enthusiasm, passed away at age 76.
• 🏈 The 2024 NFL Scouting Combine kicks off today in Indianapolis.
• 🇸🇦🤝🎾 Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the ATP tennis tour announced a multiyear partnership. (Read more)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with BestBodiesforLife

• 🧬🐒 A genetic change that occurred ~25 million years ago may be responsible for why humans and other apes evolved to lose their tails, per a Nature study published yesterday.
• 👥 Empathy can be contagious in social settings if enough people demonstrate it – though a lack of empathy can be contagious too, per new research published in PNAS.
• 💉 More than 80% of tattoo inks contain substances that aren’t on the label, per a new study that analyzed 50+ inks from nine brands used in the US.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🔥 North Texas is experiencing several ongoing wildfires that have collectively burned 570,000+ acres, with one of the fires growing to become the second-largest in state history.
• 🏛️ Top congressional leaders unveiled a bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown ahead of the Friday midnight deadline; the deal involves voting on a stopgap funding bill this week, then voting next month on full-year spending bills.
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether former President Trump can claim presidential immunity from criminal election interference charges filed by special counsel Jack Smith; arguments before the Court are scheduled for April. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 😊🌆 The happiest cities in America in 2024.

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• NY officials: Turkeys are now ‘status quo,’ and need to be ‘accepted’ by Staten Islanders → (Staten Island Advance)
• Willy Wonka Immersive Event Leaves Kids in Tears: “It Looks Like a Meth Lab” → (Hollywood Reporter)
• Woman loses £650,000 injury claim after being seen tossing Christmas tree → (The Guardian)
• ‘Totally cold’ is not too cold for winter swimmers competing in a frozen Vermont lake → (Associated Press)
• California waterfall becomes 'firefall' in rare phenomenon → (UPI)

Yesterday, we covered the GOP and Democratic primaries in the swing state of Michigan, which could give us a better look into what’ll happen in November.

❓ Our question to you: If November’s presidential election were held today, who would you vote for?

• 🔴 The Republican candidate: 25%
• 🔵 The Democratic candidate: 40%
• 3️⃣ A third-party candidate: 16%
• 🔞 I’m too young/I don’t vote: 9%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 10%

Click here to read some of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 5,605 votes and 438 longform responses.

👆Meet Captain, one of eight parrots at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park who has quite the potty mouth. 

🏴‍☠️ Swearing like a pirate... When staff realized the birds had started swearing profusely, they put up warning signs for zoo guests at the exhibit. In January, the zoo announced a new effort to curb the parrots' potty mouths by integrating them with 92 other, more innocent birds. 

• "We could end up with 100 swearing parrots on our hands. Only time will tell," Steve Nichols, chief executive of the park, said at the time.

🤪 Pick your poison: So far, staff has reported a noticeable decrease in swearing from the birds, although one of them has picked up a new annoying habit of singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" over and over again.

Which body of water, pictured above, is the only sea without any coasts?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

The Sargasso Sea – it’s found in the Atlantic Ocean and surrounded by four ocean currents

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