Good morning. In case you didn't watch the Academy Awards last night or managed to avoid the internet entirely, Will Smith strode onto the stage and slapped Chris Rock in the face after the comedian made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Smith later won the award for best actor, and, tears streaming down his face, revealed that Denzel Washington just told him: "At your highest moment, be careful because that's when the devil comes for you." Zero chance anyone will be talking about this today. —Neal Freyman | | | |  | Nasdaq | 14,169.30 | | | | | S&P | 4,543.06 | | | | | Dow | 34,861.24 | | |  | 10-Year | 2.479% | | | | | Bitcoin | $46,741.09 | | | | | Oil | $112.26 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 7:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: After falling for the first two months of the year, US stocks are in position to notch their first monthly gain in March. Also, don't look now but bitcoin is back to being positive for the year.
- Ukraine: President Biden gave a forceful speech in Poland denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but made the biggest waves for ad-libbing the line, "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power." Later, officials grabbed their Swiffers and cleaned up, saying that the US was not advocating for regime change in Russia or anywhere else.
| | CODA/Apple TV+ Don't let The Slap distract you from the business history that was made at the Oscars last night: CODA became the first film distributed by a streaming service to win the award for best picture. Apple TV+ paid a record $25 million for the movie, which follows the only hearing member of a deaf family, after it romped through the Sundance Film Festival last January. With its victory, Apple put the finishing touches on an industry makeover that's been happening for years. Armed with Godzilla-sized content budgets and built-in audiences of tens of millions of subscribers, streaming services have outmaneuvered Hollywood's legacy studios—and charted a future for movies in which the small screen is just as important, if not more, than the big one. - Consider this: Half of the 10 nominees for best picture were from a streaming service or premiered simultaneously in theaters and at home.
While Apple's win is a milestone for streaming, Netflix is probably irked it didn't get there first. The company was the most nominated studio for the past three Academy Awards, and has been lobbying for a best picture win for at least four. Netflix's The Power of the Dog was the favorite to win the category going into the night. So where does this leave movies? Some argue that the growth of streaming services will ultimately dissolve any existing divisions between television and cinema. Others say the movie theater will exclusively become the domain of superheroes, reboots, and other guaranteed moneymakers that don't exactly push the medium forward artistically. - If you compare a list of the 10 highest grossing movies at the US box office in 2021 with the 10 movies that were nominated for best picture, you'll find zero overlap.
- The 10 best picture nominees together earned about 25% of Spider-Man: No Way Home's domestic box office haul.
For more: Here are all of the winners from last night. | | Patrick Smith/Getty Images  The Peacocks lost. Saint Peter's, the Cinderella story of the men's college basketball tournament, got turned into a pumpkin by North Carolina. The Final Four should still be very fun, though, featuring college hoops bluebloods Villanova, Kansas, North Carolina, and Duke. The women's Final Four will be finalized tonight.
 Taylor Hawkins died at 50. The beloved Foo Fighters drummer was in Colombia on the band's world tour when he died at a hotel in Bogotá. Colombian authorities said they found traces of 10 substances, including opioids and marijuana, in Hawkins's system, but they didn't say whether those drugs were linked to his death.
 Shanghai goes quiet. China is attempting its biggest citywide lockdown since the pandemic began. It'll lock down the financial hub of Shanghai (pop. ~25 million) in two different stages over nine days to allow for mass Covid testing. Businesses will feel the pinch—Tesla plans to suspend production at its Shanghai factory for at least one day.
| | The Batman/Warner Bros. President Biden is tired of the Bruce Waynes of the world paying lower tax rates than us regular Gotham residents, so he's introducing a "Billionaire Minimum Income Tax" as part of his 2023 budget. It's the first time Biden has directly called for a wealth tax. The proposal would require US households worth more than $100 million to pay at least 20% in tax on their income. Controversially, this covers both traditional income and unrealized gains on investments—which are how billionaires manage to minimize their tax obligations in the first place. In the current system, you only pay capital gains tax once an asset is sold. To the billionaires worried you'll have to fly commercial: If you already pay at least 20% in income tax, you're in the clear. If you're short, you'll need a top-up to hit the threshold. Big picture: The aim of the minimum tax is to raise a lot of money from the least amount of people possible. The White House said the plan would affect <20,000 households, but bring in $360 billion in revenue over 10 years. That's roughly 2x the amount of money raised by lifting the top tax bracket from 37% to 39.6%. | | | If you're forgoing portfolio growth for the sake of stability, it's time for a new money-management routine—one that unites the dynamic duo of security and success. Fundrise agrees. That's why they can help you rethink the way you invest by allowing you to create a portfolio of high-end, private-market real estate—the same asset class that institutions have utilized in uncertain markets to help generate long-term wealth while stabilizing their portfolios. Through their easy-to-use platform, Fundrise has simplified and revolutionized real estate investing. Oh, and getting started is a breeze. We're talkin' minimums as low as 10 bucks and diversification you can manage from your phone. Feelin' pumped on private real estate yet? Here's a bonus: For a limited time, get $10 when you place your first investment, right here. | | Blue Origin Jobs report: The monthly jobs report has been eclipsed by inflation data as the must-see economic event each month. Still, Wall Street will be paying close attention when it drops on Friday. Economists predict that 460,000 jobs were added in March, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.7%. Booster 2.0: The FDA could authorize a second booster shot for some US adults early this week. The Biden administration is reportedly considering making a fourth shot available to everyone age 50 and older. Budget incoming: President Biden will send his fiscal 2023 budget to Congress today. Along with the minimum tax for billionaires, he will request $813.3 billion in national security spending, a 4% bump from last year's projections. Everything else: - Blue Origin will launch its fourth crewed mission to space on Tuesday.
- April Fools' is on Friday. Brands: Don't even think about it.
- Ramadan begins on Saturday.
| | Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images Stat: Covid vaccinations have fallen to their lowest levels since the first days of the vaccine rollout, the Washington Post found. Fewer than 182,000 people per day are getting vaccinated, down from 692,000 in early February. And it's not because we've run out of people to vax—only 65.4% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and 44% have gotten a booster. Quote: "I'm fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion. But when people start to question the truth—Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection?—I found that unsustainable." Longtime Fox News host Chris Wallace explained to the NYT why he left the network for a new show on CNN+. "I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox," he said. Read: I let a baby bird nest in my hair for 84 days. (The Guardian) | | - Ukraine's government said it raised $67 million in cryptocurrency donations and had deployed about $34 million of those funds as of last week.
- El Salvador declared a state of emergency following a wave of gang-related killings over the weekend.
- Elon Musk said he is seriously considering starting a social media platform.
- That LinkedIn profile pic may be a computer-generated fake.
| | | What was your "last-straw moment?" You know, the moment when big coastal-city living sent you over the edge and into an easier, better way of life. JobsOhio wants to hear yours, whether it was traffic, the cost of living, a smelly subway car, or anything in between. Tweet them with #LastStrawStory to share your experience. | | How to fix baseball: Introduce rules like these. Wise up on student loan debt: How did over 43 million Americans get stuck with a mountain of student loan debt? On CNN's new podcast, Diversifying, host Delyanne Barros explains how to tackle your student loan debt head-on. Listen now. Dive back into the week: | | Turntable: There are 56 possible words you can find in today's Turntable. How many can you get? Find out here. Guess the TV show This chart shows the IMDb ratings for all of the episodes of which HBO show?  Screenshot of whattowatchon.tv | | | True Detective. Check out the ratings for any series you want here. | | | Written by Neal Freyman Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - Emerging Tech Brew: AI, crypto, space, autonomous vehicles, and more
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