Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🗳️ Super Tuesday is in the books
• 🎯 Target is channeling Amazon and Walmart
• 🔌 The fastest EV-charger in America makes its debut

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.62-minute read.

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"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

–Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Presidential nominating contests took place in over a dozen states and the territory of American Samoa yesterday, marking this year’s biggest voting day outside of the general election on November 5.

In total, more than a third of all available delegates for both the Republican and Democratic nominations – essentially electoral votes – were at stake on Super Tuesday.

Here’s how things went:

On the Republican side: Former President Trump entered Super Tuesday with 244 GOP presidential delegates compared to 43 for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, his only remaining opponent.

• By the end of last night, Trump had increased his lead over Haley to 757-62 (based on available results) after winning at least 13/16 GOP elections held yesterday, with Haley notching a single win in Vermont. The results place Trump within striking distance of the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
• Haley is reportedly considering whether to end her campaign after Super Tuesday’s results; she has no events scheduled for beyond that date, and no future TV or radio ads booked.

On the Democratic side: Businessman Jason Palmer won American Samoa's Democratic caucus, while President Biden took the other 15 Democratic nominating contests by a wide margin – though he faced pushback from a few hundred thousand voters in his own party, who cast their ballot for “uncommitted” on Tuesday as a protest vote against Biden’s continued support for Israel's military response in Gaza (similar to 100,000+ voters in Michigan last week).

🥊 Head-to-head(-to-head): Both Trump and Haley lead President Biden by a margin of 3%-6% in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, according to the latest national polls. Trump’s polling lead over Biden remains consistent even after adding third-party independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his ~15% national support to the mix.

📊 Flash poll: Are you planning to vote – or have you already voted – in this year’s presidential primary elections?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇻🇳 The largest financial fraud trial in Vietnam history began yesterday. The case centers around real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, who allegedly used thousands of ghost companies to embezzle $12.5 billion – roughly 3% of Vietnam’s annual GDP – from the country’s largest bank between 2018 and 2022. Her husband and 16 central bank officials are also among the 85 defendants being prosecuted in the trial, which is expected to last through the end of April. Lan could face imprisonment or the death penalty if found guilty, though she denies any wrongdoing.

🇨🇳 Apple lost the title of China’s best-selling smartphone maker, per a new report. iPhone sales in China – which represent one-fifth of Apple’s sales – fell 24% through the first six weeks of 2024, causing Apple’s market share in the country to fall from first to fourth, per new data from Counterpoint Research. The US tech giant’s top spot was taken by Chinese smartphone manufacturer Vivo, while fellow local player Huawei rose from fifth to second following a 64% bump in domestic sales this year.

⚖️🇷🇺 The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two top Russian commanders. The ICC accused the two officials of war crimes and “crimes against humanity” for directing a series of attacks targeting Ukraine’s power grid in December 2022, which caused emergency blackouts across the entire country. It marks the ICC’s second round of warrants for Russian officials related to the war in Ukraine, after targeting President Vladimir Putin and another top official in March 2023.

The bullseye retailer is putting on its sumo loincloth and stepping into the ring with the big boys. Target yesterday announced the launch of Target Circle 360, its new subscription-based membership program that takes direct aim at Amazon Prime and Walmart+.

What’s included:

• Unlimited free same-day delivery for orders over $35
• Free two-day shipping and an extra 30 days to return purchased items
• Access to a marketplace operated by Shipt – a delivery company Target purchased for $550 million in 2017 – that offers free same-day delivery from dozens of retailers, not just Target

Target Circle 360 is slated to launch in early April and cost $99 per year (compared to $139/year for Prime and $98/year for Walmart+). However, Target is offering a discounted rate of $49/year through May 18.

It’s time for a Target turnaround. While the bullseye retailer reported Q4 earnings and profit that outpaced Wall Street’s expectations, it also reported its first annual sales drop in seven years.

Target – contrary to Walmart, America’s biggest grocer – has historically relied on discretionary spending from consumers (think: optional spending), which has been slowing as more of people’s budgets go to meet their basic needs. It’s been 30 years since food costs have accounted for such a high percentage of Americans’ spending, per government figures.

👀 Looking ahead… While consumer adoption of the new membership program is still a question mark, the bullseye retailer hopes it’ll be like The Mountain from Game of Thrones – big and strong. Its current Target Circle program has more than 100 million members, per the company.

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💬 Quoted… “I think this is going to have a domino effect on other cases across the country, and that could lead to other changes.”

• In an election held yesterday, Dartmouth men’s basketball players voted 13-2 to unionize, taking a major step towards establishing the first-ever labor union for college athletes. The Dartmouth union’s creation is currently on hold pending an ongoing legal battle, which will set a precedent for all college athletes at private universities. Federal regulators are also currently reviewing a case that could allow student-athletes at all colleges, public or private, to unionize and collectively bargain.

🚗⚡ Stat of the Day: America’s fast-charging network is getting a jolt. This week, Google-backed startup Gravity Mobility opened a new public charging station in New York City that it says is the fastest in America – or, put another way, its power and speed is similar to if Thor and The Flash were both cursed to live in the same electric car charger. Gravity Mobility’s new product can replenish up to 200 miles of range in five minutes of use, compared to 20-60 minutes for DC fast-chargers and 3+ hours for non-fast-chargers. The new technology is aimed at accelerating EV adoption among US consumers, 70+% of whom say the lengthy amount of time to charge is a reason why they wouldn’t purchase an EV.

🤔 Did You Know?... The film Paranormal Activity (2007) had a total non-marketing budget of $215,000 – and earned $193 million at the global box office. Not so scary numbers for a scary movie, huh.

📰 Worth a Read: What Really Happened During the Murder of Rasputin, Russia’s ‘Mad Monk’? → (Smithsonian Magazine)

• ☝️ Japan’s Riken Yamamoto, 78, was declared the winner of the 2024 Pritzker Prize, an award often called the “Nobel of architecture”; during his five-decade career, Yamamoto dedicated himself to fostering community in Japan’s rapidly expanding cities.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Binoid

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -1.0%; Dow: -1.0%; Nasdaq: -1.7%).
• 🪙 Bitcoin ETFs have been a big hit; BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust surpassed $10 billion in assets last week, the fastest a new ETF has ever reached that milestone; the price of bitcoin set a new record Tuesday for the first time in more than two years, topping $69,000.
• 💳 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unveiled a new rule that would cap late fees banks charge credit card customers at $8 per incident. | ✈️💼 Delta became the latest airline to raise its checked baggage fee. (Background)

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📵 Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger all experienced a global outage yesterday that left hundreds of thousands of users without access for over an hour.
• 🏌️ Drake, LeBron James, and Chris Pratt are among a group of celebrities who recently invested a combined $3 billion into the PGA Tour.
• 🎭 Former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell, best known for Drake and Josh, said he was sexually abused as a minor by a dialogue coach on the set of Nickelodeon’s The Amanda Show.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Slumber

• 🥤 Drinking diet soda may raise the risk of atrial fibrillation, aka irregular heartbeat, by up to 20% in people who consume two liters/week or more (equivalent to 5.5+ cans/week), per a new study.
• 🐟 About 830,000 newly hatched Chinook salmon have died from “gas bubble disease” after being released from a California Department of Fish and Wildlife hatchery, officials said.
• 🪐 Jupiter’s moon Europa produces 1,000+ tons of breathable oxygen per day at its surface, per a new Nature Astronomy study; that figure is lower than initially expected, though scientists say it doesn’t necessarily harm Europa’s potential for habitability.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 💰 Jeff Bezos reclaimed the title of world’s richest person for the first time since 2021, per Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index; Bezos’ net worth is currently $200 billion, slightly ahead of Elon Musk ($198 billion) and Bernard Arnault ($197 billion).
• ⚖️ Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife were charged with obstruction of justice in a new 18-count indictment unsealed yesterday; the case builds on earlier charges accusing Sen. Menendez of accepting bribes from Egypt.
• 🏛️ Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) announced plans to retire from the Senate at the end of her term this year; she previously switched her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent in 2022. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🗣️ How to master the art of small talk.

👆You're looking at Chico, a 7-year-old cockatoo who smashed the world record for the fastest 5m on a scooter by a parrot.

Who needs wings when you can scoot... Chico set the record for the first time in 2022, with a time of 17.79 seconds. The legend then bested himself, completing the course on the Italian TV show Lo Show dei Record in Milan in just 14.58 seconds.

• "He is a natural talent," owner Kaloyan Yavashev told Guiness World Records of his beloved pet. "We started to train him to do more serious tricks, but he did everything very easily and without any problem."

+Note: This story first appeared in Positive DONUT, a weekly newsletter delivering awe (and awww) inspiring stories you won't hear in the news. Sign up for free here.

Which three films share the record for most wins at the Academy Awards? (Hint: They each won 11)

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)