Good morning. In this edition:

• 🚘 Teslas: More Wile E. Coyote than Road Runner
• 🦎 Traveling iguanas
• 🔢 This past week by the numbers

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.89-minute read (1,302 words).

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“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”

–Chinese proverb (Unknown)

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We might still be waiting for an Elon Musk cage match – but one of the Tesla CEO’s cars recently got into one of its own. In a video posted to YouTube this weekend, former NASA engineer Mark Rober documented a Tesla Model Y and LiDAR-equipped Lexus competing head-to-head in a series of tests.

Background: Tesla famously uses a camera-only approach for its driver-assistance and self-driving tech, with CEO Elon Musk once calling LiDAR "fricking stupid, expensive and unnecessary." Rivals like Waymo utilize a combination of cameras, sensors, and LiDAR – which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing method that uses a pulsed laser to measure and map objects – to operate vehicles autonomously.

More Wile E. Coyote than Road Runner

Rober’s tests involved placing obstacles – including a Wile E. Coyote-style styrofoam wall painted to look like what’s behind it – in the road, then simulating various conditions to see if the vehicles would sense the object ahead and successfully brake in time to avoid a collision.

• The LiDAR-equipped vehicle passed each of the six tests.
• Tesla’s camera-only Autopilot system passed just three, with its failures occurring in simulated rain and fog conditions, as well as the fake-road test, where it plowed through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man en-route to decapitating a kid-sized mannequin placed behind the obstacle.

Why just cameras? Tesla and some experts claim a camera-based approach is the only feasible way to build low-cost autonomous vehicles at scale, since LiDAR is expensive (as Musk pointed out earlier). Waymo’s Generation 5 self driving taxi has a sticker price of ~$200,000. And while the Generation 6 is estimated to be lower cost, it still uses 13 cameras, 4 lidar, and a plethora of other sensors.

Tesla also benefits from its fleet learning approach, where its millions of cars on the road capture and send data to company servers that can then be used to improve its systems.

But…While Waymo operates commercial robotaxi services in Phoenix, San Francisco, LA, and Austin, with planned services in Miami and Tokyo, Tesla has yet to achieve the same level of success. Its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems are classified as Level 2 Autonomous, meaning they can control steering, acceleration, and braking, but the driver must remain attentive and ready to take over at any time (for context, the highest is Level 5; Waymo has achieved Level 4).

Looking ahead: Autonomous driving is pivotal to the future of Tesla. The EV-maker, which has promised autonomous driving would come next year every year since 2019, says it’ll start production of its Cybercab robotaxi sometime in 2026.

Getting a Hahvahd education will soon carry a price tag of $0 for many students’ families (how do you like them apples?).

The Ivy League school yesterday announced plans to expand its financial aid for the 2025-26 academic year. Some notable changes:

• Tuition is now free for all students whose families make less than $200,000/year (up from $85,000/year currently).
• Students whose families make less than $100,000/year will also get food, housing, health insurance, and travel costs covered by the school.

One more thing: Families making over $200,000/year can also qualify for tuition aid, depending on circumstances like family size, area of residence, and amount of student debt.

The impact: ~86% of all US families fall under Harvard’s new guidelines for financial aid, according to the school, which is expected to support the program with its ~$50 billion endowment fund, the world's largest. Without aid, attending Harvard costs $56,600/year in tuition and $82,900 all-in (including fees and housing).

Big picture: Harvard is one of several top-ranked US universities to increase the amount of financial aid available to students in recent years. Stanford, Princeton, and UT Austin cover tuition for students whose families earn less than ~$100,000/year, while MIT, Caltech, and UPenn all recently bumped up their salary limits for free tuition to $200,000/year.

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The line between trading futures and gambling is blurring. Robinhood yesterday unveiled a prediction markets hub inside its app that allows users to bet on the likelihood of certain events, ranging from financial policy outcomes to sports results.

• The company says its hub will initially take bets on every matchup in the upcoming men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments, as well as bets on the upper bound of the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate announced in May.
• The hub is powered by Kalshi*, a US-regulated exchange that won the right to legally offer event contracts last year.

Back in the game

Yesterday’s move marks Robinhood’s second attempt at entering the sports contracts market. The trading giant had a similar deal with Kalshi to offer event trading contracts on who would win February’s Super Bowl, but the service was pulled after less than a day following pushback from US federal regulators over its similarity to gaming.

Robinhood says it’s “been in close contact with the CFTC over the past several weeks,” but didn’t indicate what prompted another attempt at the space.

Zoom out: Event contracts have exploded in popularity since Kalshi’s legal victory last September opened the door for other US companies like Robinhood and Interactive Brokers to also host such activity. ~$150 million was bet on the 2024 presidential election via Kalshi, per the company.

*Disclaimer: Kalshi is a paying sponsor of The DONUT.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the ISS last June for what was meant to be an eight-day mission in space as part of the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

But a series of issues with Starliner, including five helium leaks and five separate thruster failures, led to their mission being abandoned and the duo being forced to stay onboard the ISS far longer than initially planned. A total of 284 days, to be exact.

Now, their watch has ended. Wilmore and Williams are finally headed back to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon capsule boarded earlier this morning, with a splashdown near Florida expected this evening. Here’s how to watch it live.

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US markets rose yesterday (S&P: +0.6%; Dow: +0.9%; Nasdaq: +0.3%).
• 🏬 Fashion retailer Forever 21's operator filed for bankruptcy for the second time in six years. | 🥤 Pepsi is officially acquiring prebiotic soda brand Poppi for ~$2 billion.
• 🏘️ Some condo owners can’t sell their properties because of a fast-growing and mostly secret mortgage blacklist, the Wall Street Journal reports.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Kanguro

• ⚾ The MLB regular season officially begins this morning in Japan; the Dodgers and Cubs play today (6:10 am ET) and tomorrow at the Tokyo Dome, with the wider MLB Opening Day set for March 27.
• 🎤 Will Smith’s first album in 20 years will drop on March 28.
• 🏈 The Cincinnati Bengals extended their top two wideouts: Ja'Marr Chase (4 yrs, $161 million) and Tee Higgins (4 yrs, $115 million); Chase is now the highest-paid non-QB in the NFL. | ⚽️ Gotham FC forward Mak Whitham, 14, became the youngest player to ever appear in a National Women's Soccer League match.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦎🌊 Iguanas undertook the longest-known transoceanic trip of any terrestrial species ~34 million years ago, per a new study; researchers say they sailed one-fifth of the way around the world from North America to Fiji on rafts made of vegetation.
• 💧⚡ “Microlightning” inside individual water droplets may have sparked the chemical reactions that first created life on Earth, per a new Stanford study.
• 🦠 A strain of E. coli bacteria can be engineered to create biodegradable plastics far more sustainable than current options, per a new study.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with The Knowledge

• 🏛️ Bryan Bedford, the president and CEO of Republic Airways, was nominated by President Trump to lead the Federal Aviation Administration.
• 🇺🇸🇷🇺🇺🇦 President Trump will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin via phone today to discuss ending the war in Ukraine; the call comes a week after the US backed a 30-day ceasefire that Russia later rejected. | 💥 The Gaza ceasefire has shattered: Israel’s military carried out a series of deadly airstrikes in Gaza early this morning as PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to use “increasing military strength” against Hamas; Israeli officials accused Hamas of “repeatedly” refusing to release hostages and rejecting all offers.
• ✍️ Trump, in a social media post, declared many last-minute pardons granted by former President Biden are “void, vacant, and of no further force of effect, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen." (The post | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

*From our partners: 🗞️ Your free 5 mins of daily news, based in London…The Knowledge keeps you up to date on world events with the sharpest commentary and wittiest anecdotes. Join Sienna Miller and 140k+ others and subscribe free to The Knowledge.

👆 The Savannah Bananas – often called the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball – drew a sold-out crowd of 65,000 in their first game at an NFL stadium (the Buccaneers’ Raymond James Stadium in Tampa).

🤔 Did You Know? The University of Oxford in England (est. ~1096) is 200+ years older than the Aztec civilization (est. ~1325).

📰 Worth a Read: The $1 million cactus heist that led to a smuggler's downfall

🖱️ Clickbait: Stop saying ‘I think’ – to sound confident and influence people, use this ‘subtle but powerful’ swap

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

• 🥵☕ A California delivery driver won $50 million in a lawsuit after sustaining serious burns when a Starbucks hot tea spilled in his lap at a drive-thru.
• 🖕 47% of US adults say the way people behave in public today is ruder than before the Covid pandemic; 44% say public behavior is about the same, and 9% say it’s better.
• 💰 Americans lost $5.7 billion to investment scams last year, up 24% from 2023 and more than any other kind of fraud.
• 🎓⚖️ The number of applicants to America’s ~200 law schools is up 20.5% compared with last year.
• 🚂 There were 65,000+ railroad thefts last year, up 40% from 2023, with total combined losses of $100+ million.

Yesterday we covered how new polling shows that for many Americans, the White House has been doing a historically good job, while the modern Democratic Party has never been in a worse state.

❓ Our question to you: In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?

• Overall: Approve: 37% | Disapprove: 61% | Unsure/other: 2%
• Among Republicans: Approve: 88% | Disapprove: 11% | Unsure/other: 1%
• Among Democrats: Approve: 1% | Disapprove: 98% | Unsure/other: 1%
• Among Independents: Approve: 38% | Disapprove: 57% | Unsure/other: 5%

❓ Follow-up question: In general, do you hold positive or negative views of the Democratic Party?

• Overall: Positive: 31% | Negative: 69%
• Among Republicans: Positive: 2% | Negative: 98%
• Among Democrats: Positive: 58% | Negative: 42%
• Among Independents: Positive: 14% | Negative: 86%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses to Trump’s agenda.

+Note on sample size: We received 3,167 votes and 322 longform responses.

❓ Trivia: What's the official language of Austria?

🎓 True or False? A writer’s cramp is also called a graphospasm.

🐻 Riddle Me This: What kind of bear has no teeth?

🐾 A pair of wild cougar cubs were discovered in Michigan for the first time in 100+ years.

👓 3D models are helping blind students in Australia learn more about the world around them. See the models in action here.

😮🚂 Egyptian wrestler Ashraf Mahrous recently claimed three Guinness World Records for strength, one of which included pulling a train by his teeth.

❓ Trivia: German

🎓 T/F: True

🐻 Riddle: A gummy bear