Good morning! The good people of Hollywood loved the movies they made last year. So much so, that they gave each other a bunch of awards again. “Oppenheimer” cleaned up at the Oscars last night. To save you a Google:

• Best Picture: “Oppenheimer”

• Best Director: Chris Nolan for “Oppenheimer”

• Best Actor: Cillian Murphy for “Oppenheimer”

• Best Supporting Actor: RDJ for “Oppenheimer”

• Best Actress: Emma Stone for “Poor Things”

• Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for “The Holdovers”

And, (drumroll), the one you’ve all been waiting for. “The Last Repair Shop” won Best Documentary Short Film. There.

GOVERNMENT

☀️ Daylight shifting time is here

It’s that time of year again. That time when the microwave clock is correct for the first time in months. That time when hospitals report a 24% uptick in heart attack visits. That’s right. We’ve sprung forward. Welcome to Daylight Saving (no “s”) Time.

For the next eight months, we’ll be stealing an hour of daylight from the morning and slapping it onto the evening.

Who does it? This is mostly a U.S., Canada, and Europe thing. Most of the world doesn’t play along. Then again, neither does Hawaii. Or Arizona.

• But Arizona’s Navajo Reservation does recognize DST.

• But the Hopi Reservation inside the Navajo Reservation doesn’t.

• But the part of the Navajo Reservation that’s inside the Hopi Reservation (that’s inside the Navajo Reservation) does do DST. Clear as mud, right?

I’m sorry, what? Daylight Saving Time is created by federal law. The Constitution gives Congress the power to “fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” So it’s a federal thing. But states (and Tribes) can opt in or out with Congressional approval.

• It began in World War 1 as an energy-saving measure. It returned in World War 2.

• From there, the feds dropped it. Some states and cities liked it but implemented it differently. This left a patchwork of confusing time changes.

• So Congress standardized it in 1966.

That’s how we ended up with the current system we all know and hate. Now, Standard Time only runs from November to March. So Daylight Saving Time is more standard than Standard Time.

Permanent? As you’re probably aware, there’s a movement to dump the change entirely. But we’re not unified on which way to go.

• 50% of Americans (the night owls) say we should adopt DST year-round.

• 31% of Americans (the morning people) want to keep Standard Time year-round.

• Whether you love it or hate it might depend on which side of your time zone you’re in. Areas on the western edge of a time zone see sunrises an hour later than the eastern edge.

• Of course, there’s also the 21% of insane totally normal people who enjoy the current system.

Congress shifts the DST dates around periodically. They tried making Daylight Saving Time permanent in 1974. Just like people today say they want. But Americans hated it so much that winter that Congress repealed it the following year. We’ve been changing our clocks ever since.

PS: Try not to go to the hospital this week. Doctors make more errors the week after we spring forward.

CONGRESS

💰 Budget drama: part 68

Are you in debt up to your eyeballs? Do you enjoy the thrill of submitting things minutes before the deadline? Congress might be the place for you. They yet again passed a spending bill at the buzzer to avoid a government shutdown due to lack of funding. Thankfully, this bill will last for the remaining seven months of the fiscal year.

• It increases funding for the WIC program that feeds mothers and young children.

• It keeps non-military spending pretty flat.

• It strengthens gun rights for veterans by making it tougher to deem them mentally unfit. Opponents of that say it could increase gun violence.

The federal budget is comprised of twelve appropriations bills. This $460 billion package contained six of them. Congress will need to pass the other six (either separately or as one thicc package) by March 22 to again avoid a shutdown.

• The discretionary budget is the one Congress is always debating. It includes the military and basically every federal agency. But not most of the cash.

• Most of the cash is money the law requires Congress to spend on things like Medicare and Social Security. But that goes to a pretty small number of agencies.

• In total, the discretionary budget is likely to hit about $1.66 trillion. For comparison, total federal spending last year was $6.13 trillion.

POLITICS

⚪ California counts ballots slower than that sloth in Zootopia. It's been over a week and they're just over halfway done counting votes in the nonpartisan Sacramento mayoral race. But it's a razor-tight race so far. Just one percent of the vote separates the top four candidates.

🔵 Arizona Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego quietly ditched his membership in the 104-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. Tacking to the center ahead of an election is a tried-and-true political strategy. Gallego stands a good chance of winning the seat being vacated by Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

🔴 Ronna Romney McDaniel resigned this month as chair of the Republican Party. The Republican National Committee (RNC) voted Friday to replace her with now-former North Carolina chair Michael Whatley. The 168-member RNC also picked Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump (Eric's wife) as party co-chair.

⚪ Former NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom says he’s running for Congress in 2028. He became a U.S. citizen in 2021. The Constitution mandates a seven-year waiting period between receiving citizenship and serving in Congress. No word on where he’s running or under which party’s banner (though he’s met with Republicans in the past). But there are worse names for campaign signs than Freedom.

🔵 Rep. Jared Moskovitz, the possible Democratic candidate for governor of Florida we mentioned last week, is working hard to prove his Florida-ness. He posted a meme of Biden oogling at actress Sydney Sweeney’s chest. Moskovitz later deleted the post because “it was inappropriate.”

🔴 Here’s a great example of how politicians are just as indecisive as the rest of us. In the span of a month, Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale (R) launched a Senate campaign, dropped a Senate campaign, launched a House campaign, and dropped a House campaign. He really is one of us.

🔵 The first rule of nicknames: never give yourself one. Team Biden has now violated that rule twice. First, they tried calling the president “Dark Brandon.” That didn’t quite take. Now they’re trotting out “Smokin’ Joe Biden,” which would be great if he owned a barbeque shack in Texas. But, you know. He doesn’t.

TRIVIA

If Donald Trump defeats Joe Biden (shudder or cheer as you wish) in this year’s election, he’ll become only the second-ever U.S. president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Who was the first? And when did he serve?

Hint: He shares his name with a major U.S. city (coincidentally).

WORLD

🇺🇸 United States: At the request of the State Department, the U.S. military airlifted nonessential personnel out of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The evacuation took place in the middle of the night due to security concerns. But the Embassy remains open. Additional Marines were also deployed for extra security as violence in Haiti escalates. The U.S. Marine Corps. provides security at embassies around the world.

🇵🇹 Portugal: Portugal's center-right party finished first in yesterday's parliamentary elections. But, with only ~30%, they’ll need to join forces with other parties to form a governing majority. The Socialist Party finished in a tight second with ~29%. The populist right-wing party came in third with ~19% (nearly triple their vote in 2022).

🇮🇪 Ireland: Over 67% of Irish voters rejected a proposed constitutional change. The proposal would've deleted language that says "Marriage, on which the Family is founded." Elsewhere, it would've modified language that ties women to "life within the home."

BRIEFS

• President Biden walked back his use of the word “illegal” in the State of the Union and said he should’ve said “undocumented”

• The U.S. plan to build a floating port in Gaza for aid deliveries could take 60 days to complete

• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to defy the U.S.’s “red line” and press ahead with an invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza

• A city investigation says the Uvalde, TX police who stood outside a school for 77 mins. while children were murdered inside did not violate policy.

• Ukraine is pushing back against Pope Francis for saying the country should have "the courage to raise the white flag"

• Virginia's legislature ended its 60-day session without funding for Gov. Youngkin's $2 billion NBA/NHL arena plan

• Electric utility Xcel Energy admitted its equipment may have started the raging Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest in Texas history

• Google fired an engineer who interrupted a company event to protest its contract with the Israeli military

• Nintendo yesterday, Mar. 10 (Mario Day), announced a sequel to the Super Mario Bros. Movie will be released on April 3, 2026

QUOTE

SNACKS

🎞️ Oscars: If you care who won an Oscar but don’t care quite enough to watch the show, the Academy has the full list of winners.

🏢 NYC: Some poor New Yorker is going to pay $1,300 for a kitchenless, bathroomless, 54-square-foot, 9’ x 6’ “apartment.” TikTok has the full 3-second tour.

📺 SNL: The (sometimes) funny people at Saturday Night Live had a good time last weekend. Scarlett Johansson parodied Sen. Katie Britt's response to President Biden's State of the Union address.

ANSWER

President Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897. He was initially defeated for reelection by Benjamin Harrison. But he ran again four years later and beat Harrison to win a second term.

Cleveland was the only Democrat to win the White House between 1860 and 1912, interrupting a Republican win streak that otherwise lasted 52 years. Since we count presidencies rather than presidents, ole Grover is #22 and #24. Were Trump to win in November, he would be both president #45 and #47.