Good morning. It's Monday, March 31, and we're covering the last teams standing in college basketball, a new owner for a social media platform, and much more. First time reading? Join over 4 million intellectually curious readers. Sign up here.
Don’t keep us a secret: Share the email with friends (copy URL here).
And, as always, send us feedback at [email protected]. |
|
|
|
The death toll from a devastating earthquake in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar over the weekend rose to at least 1,600, with reports suggesting a significant number of victims remained buried alive. Rescue crews had largely not yet arrived in the most impacted areas, impeded by severely damaged roads and downed communications (see previous write-up).
The 7.7 magnitude quake rocked buildings as far away as Bangkok (roughly 600 miles from the epicenter)—a number of viral videos quickly spread across social media, including people escaping a high-rise swimming pool (watch) and others running from a collapsing building (watch). The disaster comes as Myanmar is in the grip of a yearslong civil war and a 2021 coup, with military leadership strictly limiting foreign assistance.
The broader region was hit with a number of aftershocks—read a breakdown of the seismological forces that caused the damage here. |
The men's college basketball Final Four was set yesterday, with all four top seeds—Auburn, Duke, Houston, and Florida—advancing to the tournament semifinals. It marks the first time since 2008 that all four No. 1 seeds have advanced.
Top storylines for next weekend include whether Duke's Cooper Flagg, the consensus top draft pick this year, can continue his dominant performance. Separately, both Auburn's Bruce Pearl and Houston's Kelvin Sampson are looking for redemption years after being bounced from head coaching gigs for recruiting violations. The semifinals are slated for this Saturday, with conference foes Auburn and Florida facing off, followed by Duke taking on Houston.
The Final Four standing on the women's side will be determined tonight, with No. 1 Texas facing No. 2 TCU (7 pm ET, ESPN), followed by No. 1 USC (minus star JuJu Watkins) taking on No. 2 Connecticut (9 pm ET, ESPN). Yesterday, top-seeded UCLA punched its first Final Four ticket in program history, beating No. 3 LSU 72-65, while defending champion No. 1 South Carolina outlasted No. 2 Duke 54-50. See a full bracket here. |
Elon Musk announced Friday that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, would acquire his social media platform, X, in a deal valuing the network at about $33B. Musk said xAI would pay $45B for X while assuming $12B in outstanding debt left over from his 2022 purchase of the company.
The move is the culmination of recent efforts by Musk to leverage X as a source of data to train large language models, most notably the xAI-owned Grok—the latest model of which can be used within the X ecosystem (see comparison of LLMs). The company also rapidly built a massive server farm outside Memphis, Tennessee, dedicated to training its AI models, amassing a reported 200,000 AI-specific processors in about seven months. It remains to be seen how or if the acquisition will change the user experience on X.
Separately, Musk has recently split his time between his companies and political efforts, joining a rally in support of Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel (R) last night. The Tuesday election has become a proxy for the national political climate and has drawn $81M in spending, a record for a judicial race. |
|
|
|
|
Please support our sponsors! |
|
|
|
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture |
> Richard Chamberlain, longtime stage, film, and TV actor who also charted as a singer, dies of a stroke at age 90 (More) | Rapper Young Scooter dies at age 39 after severely injuring leg while fleeing from police (More) |
> "A Working Man" upsets "Snow White" to lead slow box office with $15M over the weekend; Disney's "Snow White" dropped 66% from its first to second weekend (More) |
> "Beautiful Girls" singer Sean Kingston and his mother found guilty of federal wire fraud charges; each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison at July sentencing (More) |
|
> Top vaccine scientist resigns from Food and Drug Administration, accuses agency officials of misleading public on the topic; Peter Marks helped lead previous Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed during the pandemic (More) |
> NASA's Curiosity rover discovers the longest-chain carbon molecules on Mars found to date; such molecules are key ingredients in organic life on Earth (More) |
> AI startup Anthropic releases two papers investigating how large language models reason to produce answers; how the models arrive at realistic outputs using billions of parameters remains an open question (More) | Generative AI 101 (1440 Topics) |
|
> US stock markets drop sharply Friday (S&P 500 -2.0%, Dow -1.7%, Nasdaq -2.7%), driven by increased core consumer prices and trade policy uncertainty (More) | Athleisure brand Lululemon falls 15% after lowering 2025 expectations (More) |
> Frank founder Charlie Javice found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan Chase of $175M; student loan assistance startup allegedly fabricated millions of user profiles to facilitate its acquisition by the bank (More) |
> China to issue a reported $72B in capital injections to four of the country's largest banks in an effort to shore up their lending capacity (More) |
|
In partnership with FinanceBuzz |
You could be wasting hundreds every year on overpriced insurance. The experts at FinanceBuzz believe they can help.
If your rate went up in the last 12 months, check out this new tool from FinanceBuzz to see if you’re overpaying in just a few clicks! They match drivers with companies reporting savings of $600 or more per year when switching!* Plus, once you use it, you’ll always have access to the lowest rates; best yet, it’s free. Answer a few easy questions to see how much you could be saving.
1440 readers → See if you’re overpaying now.
*Savings vary based on driving history and discounts. |
|
|
|
> Federal judges block executive orders from President Donald Trump targeting two law firms, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale, calling the directives retaliatory in nature (More) | Separate firm, Skadden, agrees to provide $100M in pro bono work to administration-aligned causes during Trump's term to avoid executive order (More) |
> Columbia University's interim president resigns; move comes a week after the university agreed to a raft of policy changes over Trump administration's threat to pull $400M in federal funding (More) |
> French court to deliver verdict against nationalist-populist opposition leader Marie Le Pen on embezzlement charges today; guilty verdict would bar Le Pen from elections for five years (More) |
|
1440 Topics: Investing, Stephen King, and More |
Dear Readers—We've launched our series of 1440 Topics newsletters, bringing you deep explorations into fascinating topics each week. Here's what is new and coming this week:
Business & Finance: A deep dive into retail investing, from the rise of day trading to the GameStop saga. Sign up here for free.
Society & Culture: We're exploring the career of the Master of Horror, Stephen King. Sign up here for free.
Science & Technology: Stay tuned—we'll be launching this weekly newsletter in the near future!
... and we have new pages on K-Pop, the Panama Canal, NASCAR, Bob Dylan, Pay Transparency, and more. |
|
The Trusted Way To Hydrate |
What will you find in your LMNT single-serve packets? It's simple: 1,000mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 60mg magnesium (for the optimal hydration ratio), zero sugar, zero coloring, and zero other junk.
And LMNT is the perfect electrolyte mix for just about everyone. From everyday athletes to the US Olympic Weightlifting team, pro US sports teams, and people on keto or low-carb diets. And, of course, anyone who's trying to avoid or mitigate a hangover. Today, you can enjoy a FREE sample pack of all eight LMNT flavors with any order, plus a no-questions-asked, risk-free refund policy. |
Please support our sponsors! |
|
|
"Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it, and you'll start believing in it." |
|
Why 1440? The printing press was invented around the year 1440, spreading knowledge to the masses and changing the course of history. More facts: In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. We’re here to make each one count. |
1440 Media 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 1212 Chicago, IL 60654
Copyright © 2025, 1440 Media, All rights reserved. |
|
|
|
|
|
