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Now, NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 5.15-minute read.

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"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”

–Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

In yesterday's newsletter, we stated that Irish airline Ryanair will operate 5 million fewer flights this fiscal year due to Boeing's recent manufacturing delays. That is incorrect; they'll actually be carrying 5 million fewer passengers. Apologies for any confusion.

Note: This is the 48th correction out of the 531 newsletters we've published since January 2022 (for context, each newsletter contains 20+ news events).

The term “organized crime” generally evokes the image of a Tony Soprano-like hardo eating deli meats and playing cards while discussing grisly business with their crew. But US retailers fighting organized theft are dealing with an entirely different cast of characters, according to a new investigative report from CNBC.

How these organized theft rings work: The godfather ringleader of one California-based organized theft group that investigators dubbed the “California girls” recruited down-on-their-luck women to shoplift from various stores.

• With travel expenses paid by said ringleader, these suspects committed hundreds of thefts up and down the California coast and into Washington, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Ohio – hitting stores like Ulta, Sephora, Bloomingdale’s, Prada, Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, and Luxottica’s Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters.
• These stolen products were then transported back to the ringleader’s home and listed on Amazon for rock-bottom prices (ex: a brand-new $52 bottle of Estee Lauder foundation was sold for $25 – an offer you can’t refuse, to quote the Don). And the money rolled in. The group sold ~$8 million in cosmetics via Amazon before being shut down, including $1.89 million in 2022 alone.

Other groups are even more sophisticated.“We’re talking about operations that have fleets of trucks, 18-wheelers that have palletized loads of stolen goods, that have cleaning crews that actually clean the goods to make them look brand new,” Adam Parks, an assistant special agent in charge at HSI, which is the main federal agency investigating retail crime, told CNBC.

📸 Big picture: The National Retail Federation estimates that retailers lost $40.5 billion to external theft, including organized retail crime, in 2022. That represented ~36% of total inventory losses – slightly lower than the 37% in 2021.

Read the full CNBC investigative report.

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🇪🇺 The EU is one step away from enacting the world’s first comprehensive set of AI regulations. EU lawmakers approved the AI Act by a 532-46 vote yesterday, sending the measure to all 27 member-states for approval (which is expected by May). Among other things, the new law requires AI models to receive approval from the EU Council, bans AI-powered social scoring systems, and restricts biometric surveillance in public spaces to certain serious crimes. Companies risk fines of up to 7% of global revenue for breaking the new law.

🇺🇦🇺🇸 The US announced $300 million in military aid for Ukraine. It marks the US government’s first Ukrainian aid package since last December, when the Pentagon said all available funds had been exhausted. US officials say the new funding was created by cost savings from Pentagon contracts that came in under bid. The Senate recently approved $60+ billion in additional assistance to Ukraine, though the House has yet to vote on the bill.

🇬🇧 UK greenhouse gas emissions fell to their lowest level since the Victorian Era, per a new report. An analysis of government data from climate website Carbon Brief found UK emissions fell 5.7% last year to reach its lowest reading since 1879. The report attributes a majority of the decrease to a milder winter, lower demand for gas due to new electricity imports from France, and a decline in coal use.

Later today, SpaceX is scheduled to launch the third test flight of its record-setting Starship megarocket after the previous two launch attempts ended in a fiery explosion – or, as SpaceX likes to call it, “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

Why it’s a big deal: Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built – though powerful may be an understatement. It’s able to generate a staggering 16 million pounds of thrust, or nearly 2x that of the previous record holder, NASA’s SLS rocket, which was used in the Artemis I mission two years ago.

• The Starship program is part of SpaceX’s effort to make space travel more akin to air travel, with launches every day and greater accessibility to the public.
• CEO Elon Musk has said that if SpaceX can get the fully-reusable, 100-passenger Starship to fly regular missions, it could bring down the cost of each launch by a factor of about 7. (For context, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket currently costs $67 million/launch.)

👀 Looking ahead… Starship, once fully operational, is set to be busier than Princess Kate's PR team over the past few days. The rocket is currently scheduled to carry a crew of astronauts to the Moon in September 2026, as part of NASA’s historic Artemis III mission. And SpaceX has also announced plans for future private missions to the Moon and Mars using a fleet of Starships.

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A rare 11th-century artifact called an astrolabe, which remained hidden in an Italian museum’s archives for decades, is making waves in the archaeological community following its recent chance discovery by historian Federica Gigante.

An astrolabe is a multi-purpose instrument dating back to the ancient Greeks that essentially represents a two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional sky, serving as a star chart and physical model of the Sun, Moon, planets, and other visible celestial bodies. They’re often referred to by modern historians as the “smartphones of the ancient world,” due to their usefulness across a wide variety of functions.

• A 10th-century astronomer deduced there were ~1,000 total astrolabe applications, including seasonal and daily time-keeping, navigation aids, an inclinometer, and an analog calculation device.

What’s so special about this astrolabe? The 11th-century artifact is especially notable for its signs of collaboration between Jewish, Muslim, and Christian scientists, marking one of the oldest known examples of dual linguistic tools.

The astrolabe’s engravings – first in Arabic, then in Hebrew – tell the story of how knowledge was added to the instrument over the years by scholars from all three religions, who lived and worked side by side in the Iberian peninsula during that period. “It’s a bit like adding an app to a smart phone or running an update,” said Gigante, a research associate at Cambridge University’s history department.

🤝 Bottom line: Even though it happened ~1,000 years ago, it’s encouraging to see that people of different cultures and beliefs can actually work together.

💬 Quoted… “What we found was a really strong connection between feeling badly about your money situation and how much time you spend on social media.”

• What happens when the desire to be rich meets wannabe social media financial gurus flexing Richard Milles while inside Lambos? A phenomenon called “money dysmorphia,” according to a new report from Credit Karma, which found 43% of Gen Z and 41% of millennials are currently experiencing it. The term basically means to have a distorted view of money that drives poor financial decisions – aka keeping up with the Joneses. The interesting part? Many of those who experience money dysmorphia have above-average savings, per Credit Karma – but they’re also likely to admit to being obsessed with the idea of being rich. As they say: comparison is the thief of joy.

🤼 Stat of the Day: More high school girls are limousine ridin' and jet flyin' their way to the wrestling mat – enough to make girls’ wrestling the fastest-growing high school sport in America. Over the past decade, the number of high school girls’ wrestling teams has quadrupled nationally. And the number of girls wrestling in high school quintupled to 50,000+ through last year, according to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations.

🤔 Did You Know?... The “doorway effect” is a replicable psychological phenomenon characterized by short-term memory loss that occurs when passing through a…🚪… what were we saying?

📰 Worth a Read: Why Congress is becoming less productive → (Reuters)

• ☝️ The mysterious monoliths are back: A hiker recently came across the above shiny, silver monolith while walking in central Wales; it marks the first known appearance since identical monoliths mysteriously showed up around the world back in 2020, including in California, Colorado, and Utah.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with bistroMD

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: -0.2%; Dow: +0.1%; Nasdaq: -0.5%).
• 📉 Adidas posted its first annual loss since 1992 and warned that US sales are hurting.
• 💵 Family Dollar, which is owned by Dollar Tree, will close 600 stores this year and 370 additional stores over the next several years, citing a general pullback in consumer spending.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Free agent WR Calvin Ridley signed a four-year, $92 million deal with the Tennessee Titans.
• 🎭 Timothée Chalamet is getting a salary bump to the “double digit” millions for each leading role in studio films, per Variety; the raise follows box office successes Wonka (~$625 million globally) and Dune: Part Two ($369 million and counting).
• 🙏 Former UFC star Mark Coleman is “battling for his life” after saving his parents from house fire, according to his family.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with bestBodiesforLife

• 👓🤖 Ray-Ban's Meta smart glasses can now act as a virtual tour guide by identifying and describing the landmarks you see.
• ☄️ The “Devil Comet,” named after its horned shape, will be visible in the night sky later this month for the first time in over 70 years.
• 🚀🍾 NASA unveiled the “Message in a Bottle” that the space agency will send in its latest mission to Jupiter's icy ocean moon, Europa.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🏳️‍🌈 A record-high 7.6% of US adults – including 22.3% of Gen Z – identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or another sexual orientation besides heterosexual, per a new Gallup poll.
• 🏛️📲 The House voted 352-65-1 in favor of a bill that would force Chinese firm ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban from all US devices; the bill now heads to the Senate. (Background)
• ⚖️ The US federal judiciary adopted a new policy aimed at limiting "judge shopping"; the policy targets plaintiffs who file lawsuits against government policies in courthouses where sympathetic judges are virtually guaranteed. | ⚖️ A state judge dismissed six of 41 counts in the Georgia 2020 election interference indictment against former President Trump and co-defendants. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🥧 The wacky origin of Pi Day.

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

• Indonesian flight veered off course after both pilots allegedly fell asleep in the cockpit → (NBC News)
• Flight in China delayed four hours after passenger throws coins into engine → (CNN)
• Harrison Ford says 'Indiana Jones' theme music was played during his colonoscopy: 'Follows me everywhere' → (Fox News)
• Ugandan man behind viral fake East African currency shocked by its success → (BBC)
• Wildlife rescuer dons red fox mask to feed orphaned kit → (UPI)

Yesterday, we covered a House bill that would ban TikTok in the US after ~6 months if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the platform before then.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, should TikTok be forced to divest from ByteDance or face a ban from every device in the US?

• 👍 Yes: 53%
• 👎 No: 28%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 19%

Click here to read some of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 4,128 votes and 348 longform responses.

Idaho resident David Rush has claimed more than 250 Guinness World Records in his lifetime. He actively holds 162 of them, and has made it his goal to hold the most concurrent titles by the end of 2024.

🎈 Balloon balance... David originally broke the record for the longest time spent keeping two balloons in the air with his head in 2018, when he did so for 3 minutes and 12 seconds. 

• But, alas – his record has since been broken. That is, until last week, when David made a triumphant return and re-broke the record at 13 minutes and 58 seconds.

💬 What he's saying: "I learned a valuable lesson from this experience," shared David. "Even if you have broken a world record before, it doesn’t mean it will be easy to do it again. You have to keep practicing, keep challenging yourself, and keep having fun."

What's the capital city of Australia?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

Canberra