Good morning. Huge news if you picked your March Madness bracket based on exotic team nicknames: Both the Saint Peter's Peacocks and the Richmond Spiders pulled off big upsets yesterday. Here's to another exciting day of watching basketball work. —Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch | | | |  | Nasdaq | 13,614.78 | | | | | S&P | 4,411.67 | | | | | Dow | 34,480.76 | | | | | 10-Year | 2.180% | | |  | Bitcoin | $40,589.31 | | | | | Oil | $105.77 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 11:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: Stocks have gone up and to the right for three days running, propelled by the Fed's determination to curb inflation with a series of rate hikes this year. The big crash in oil prices reversed somewhat, and crude jumped again to more than $100 a barrel.
- Ukraine: Rescue workers are searching through the rubble for survivors after a Russian airstrike destroyed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians had been hiding. President Biden is speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping today; Biden will push Xi to help de-escalate the war.
| | Illustration: Dianna "Mick" McDougall, Photos: Getty Images The men's college basketball tournament tipped off yesterday, and with it comes more flabbergasting stats about the rise of sports gambling in the US and concerns about addiction among impressionable college students. First, the stats 45 million Americans are expected to bet on the NCAA basketball tournament this year, according to the American Gaming Association (AGA). If that sounds like a lot, it is: That's equivalent to 17% of the US adult population and dunks on the number of Americans who bet on this year's Super Bowl (31 million). Since we have more dynamic ways of betting on our smartphones, the humble office bracket is fading from popularity, much to the disappointment of your one co-worker who absolutely lives to run it every year. Americans expect to place 76% of their March Madness wagers outside of brackets, up from 55% last year, per the AGA. Now, the concerns Sports betting apps are trying to become more of a mainstay on college campuses than Jimmy John's, raising fears that students will be more focused on Michigan +200 than Econ 200. Apps have made inroads. At least seven schools, including LSU, the University of Maryland, and the University of Colorado, have inked ad deals with sports betting companies, Bloomberg reported. At LSU, the athletic department has even sent emails to students pushing sports wagering (subject line: "$300 in Free Bets Await"). Colleges had previously shunned betting partnerships, but…things changed: The US Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports gambling in 2018, and, looking for new revenue streams after the pandemic crushed their budgets, some collegiate athletic departments buddied up to gambling apps. Some officials have pushed back. Last July, the athletic director at the University of Pittsburgh urged Congress to ban betting on college sports, citing the "detrimental impact" on college athletes and the public. In some states, such as New Jersey, it's still illegal to bet on games played by in-state colleges, per Bloomberg. Big picture: College sports betting may have already become too big to fail. Wagering on sports in the Power 5 conferences is now an $11 billion/year industry, according to sports betting watchdog US Integrity.—NF | | Francis Scialabba  Mortgage rates are surging. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage topped 4% for the first time since May 2019, a big jump from its record low of 2.65% in January 2021. That's still low by historical standards (so if you're able to snag one,  ), but it shows how borrowing costs are steadily rising across the economy as the Fed moves to hike interest rates.
 Russia makes its interest payments. Russia's economy has 99 problems, but a default isn't one…for now. The Russian government successfully paid two interest payments worth $117 million to foreign bondholders, proving that it has enough of a rainy day fund to make good on its foreign debts. The last time Russia defaulted on its international debt was after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1918.
 Fourth shots incoming? Moderna asked the FDA to authorize a second booster shot for US adults, a few days after Pfizer did the same for people 65 years and older. Scientists don't agree when, or if, a fourth shot is needed, but a second booster has already been given the green light (to some populations) in countries including the UK, Israel, and Germany.
| | The Simpsons/Fox via Giphy A newly proposed bill unveiled by the UK government earlier this week could send tech and social media executives at companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok to jail for up to two years for noncompliance. The worst part? They probably wouldn't even have access to the metaverse there. The rules are part of an online safety bill that would give regulators a host of new digital powers, including the authority to probe algorithms. Under the bill, execs could face jail time for failing to reply to regulators' requests for information in a timely manner. Also punishable by jail time: suppressing, destroying, or altering requested information. If passed, the bill would cover a wide array of online harms, such as: - Companies would be responsible for preventing scam advertisements on their platforms.
- Cyberflashing—sending unsolicited sexual images—would become a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison.
Critics of the conservative government's bill say its authors lack expertise, and that the bill's vague wording could lead to preemptive censorship by tech companies.—MK | | | Before you tackle that inbox, take a moment for yourself. Your daily serving of organifi Green Juice packs a particularly potent ingredient: KSM-66 ashwagandha. That bad boy is known for its ability to help lower levels of cortisol, aka the stress hormone. This juice combines that stress-busting ashwagandha with a powerhouse blend of greens and adaptogens, all perfectly formulated to reduce cravings and keep you feeling your best all day long. Oh, and it tastes great too. When you start your morning with Green Juice, you're front-loading your day with the balance, hydration, and energy to face whatever comes next. Enter code BREW for free shipping and 25% off your order. | | Curb Your Enthusiasm/HBO Spotify has two new job postings that will focus on Web3-related projects, meaning NFTs could be coming to a Discover Weekly playlist near you, the FT reported. But…why? The company that rescued us from iTunes giftcards is worried that blockchain music startups could eat into business. Where Spotify is feeling vulnerable: Right now, bands like The Front Bottoms only receive a fraction of a cent when you stream "Twin Size Mattress." (Even if it's on repeat cuz you're going through some stuff.) Music NFT startups like Royal, Catalog, and Sound XYZ argue that Spotify's system is a business model for ants. Musicians could earn way more, they argue, by selling works directly to fans as NFTs. And the movement has begun: - Last month, Snoop Dogg bought Death Row Records and quickly pulled some of its catalog off streaming platforms, saying he wanted to turn his new company into "an NFT label."
- In December, Danish investment bank Saxo predicted 2022 would be the year NFT music platforms began clawing market share away from traditional streamers.
Zoom out: Big Tech companies that were once disrupters are trying to not get disrupted by crypto companies. Exhibit A? Mark Zuckerberg said this week at SXSW that Meta is working on bringing NFTs to Instagram.—MM | | Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images Stat: NASA's 322-foot-tall, 5.75-million-ton Mega Moon rocket made its slow journey from Kennedy Space Center to its launch site four miles away last night. The rocket, which will be used in the Artemis I mission headed beyond the moon, will go through a few weeks of tests before a launch date is set. But the real MVP? A 6.6 million-pound crawler that carried the dang thing without complaining once. Quote: "I don't know how to live. I don't know. I really don't know." Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman talked to Bloomberg about life under sanctions. Fridman, who is based in London and has publicly opposed the war, said his bank card in the UK has been frozen and he needs a license from the British government to spend any money. He also acknowledged the suffering of Ukrainians: "My problems are really nothing compared with their problems."
Watch: A message to the Russian people from Arnold Schwarzenegger. (@Schwarzenegger) | | The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to watching Duke lose in basketball. It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz. | | - Amazon closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of the film studio MGM.
- A Russian court has extended the detention of WNBA star Brittney Griner until May 19, according to a Russian state news agency.
- The WHO warned that rising global cases are just the "tip of the iceberg."
- Kanye West was suspended from Instagram for 24 hours after lobbing a racial slur at Trevor Noah.
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