4.3.2018

All your news in a single email. We scour 100+ sources so you don't have to. Culture, science, sports, politics, business, and more - all packaged in a 5-minute read below.
 

Villanova Wins Championship.
#1 seed Villanova won its second national championship in three years last night, handily beating #3 Michigan in NCAA final, 79-62. Nova sophomore Donte DiVincenzo scored 31 points off the bench - a record for a title game - and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. Check out a good background read on DiVincenzo - nicknamed the Big Ragu - here. The win capped a dominant tournament run for Nova, who won all six of their tournament games by more than double-digit points - beating #16 Radford, #9 Alabama, #5 West Virginia, #3 Texas Tech, #1 Kansas, and finally, #3 Michigan. Not only did Nova win each game handily, they even beat the Vegas spread in all six tournament games.

It was the program's third title in school history. 

Spotify Pursues Game Changer IPO.
The streaming music giant Spotify goes public today in one of the most anticipated initial public offerings, or IPOs, in recent memory. In a nearly unprecedented move, Spotify will pursue a direct listing on the NYSE, meaning existing investors can simply trade their shares on the open market versus the traditional IPO process where investment bankers arrange a more structured sale of the shares to institutional investors (mutual funds, etc) at a fixed offering price. The move avoids many of the traditional fees associated with an IPO, which can be up to 7% of the overall value. If successful, it may change the way large companies pursue IPOs. Spotify and its nearly 140 million users (with 71 million paying listeners) have led the surge in streaming music, which now accounts for two-thirds of the recorded music business. Overall, Americans streamed more than 377 million songs in 2017, up 50% from the previous year. Spotify reported revenue of $4.99 billion in 2017, up 38% from the prior year, and has a valuation range between $15.9B and $23.4B.

Track Spotify's meteoric rise in nine charts. 

Social Media App Shares HIV Info.
Grindr, the most popular meetup app for gay men, has been sharing information related to HIV status with third-party companies without explicit consent, according to reports. The two companies in question - Apptimize and Localytics - provide supporting software that help optimize performance of the Grindr app itself. When Grindr passes info like GPS location, phone number, and email, it also passes information like HIV status and last tested date for users who chose to include the info in their profiles. Analysts did not believe the data sharing of sensitive medical was intentional - one analyst said it was "incompetence" that packaged geospatial data with the HIV info - but advocates for the community called the reports a serious breach of trust of its nearly 3.5 daily active users. The company initially defended the practice before saying it planned to stop sharing the info with third parties. 

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> China passes North America at movie box office for 1st time with $3.17B in Q1 (More)
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> Rare cosmic alignment allows astronomers to capture most distant star ever seen, a single supernova 9 billion light-years away (More)
> Better fitness in pre-pregnancy women linked to lower rates of gestational diabetes, possibly by improving glucose metabolism (More)
> USDA says it will drop regulations around crops that have been genetically edited, says CRISPR-modified foods are safe (More)
 

> US stock markets fall 2%+ on tech sector sell-off and trade war fears (More) | Amazon falls 6% after another Trump tweet regarding potential regulation (More)
> Alibaba buys remaining shares of Chinese food delivery biz Ele.me valuing company at $9.5B (More)
> For the first time ever, Americans under 35 have less consumer confidence than their parents (More)
 

> Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, anti-apartheid campaigner and former wife of Nelson Mandela, dies at 81 (More)
> Rep. Esty (D, CT-5) will not run for reelection amid reports that she failed to shield staffers from abuse by Chief of Staff (More)
> Justice Department sets quota for immigration judges of 700 cases per year in effort to clear up immigration backlog (More)

Photos of the iconic life and times of Winnie Mandela.

New report says 11% of all TV-owning households in the US have cut the cable cord. 

Colorado school district to switch to four-day week to attract teachers.

Newly discovered fossils show this ancient lizard had four eyes.

Long-haul truckers list America's most beautiful drives.

Insights into the developer community from HackerRank's 2018 developer skills report. 

Martin Scorsese's list of 38 essential films about US democracy. 

Australia is using drones and AI to keep swimmers safe from sharks.

Meet the Symphony of the Seas, the largest cruise ship ever built.

Clickbait: Hamburglar sentenced to three months in jail. 

Historybook: Boss Tweed born (1823); HBD Doris Day (1922); HBD Marlon Brando (1924); First mobile phone call is made (1973); Apple releases the 1st iPad (2010).
 

"The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it."
- Doris Day
 

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