March 3, 2014

• Ukraine is the latest example of Putin's top priority as president: To expand Russia's influence in Eurasia.
• See also: how Ukraine lost its definite article.
• By storing Russia's money, Europe has disabled its ability to stand up to Putin.
• Special Economist report on democracy's lack of forward momentum.
• Fourteen people have metal keys that together create a master key, which in turn controls one of the internet's central security measures.
• Between 3,000 and 5,000 animals are "management-euthanised" in European zoos in any given year.
• Advances in de-extinction could lead to woolly mammoths inhabiting Earth again, but also a host of environmental quagmires.
• The rooster crows! Today's the first day of the 10th annual Morning News Tournament of Books.
• Related: Get a special Tournament memo book from ToBX presenter Field Notes Brand.
• Thousands of protesters in Paris march against the academic subject of gender theory.
• Seventeenth-century advice on how to sweet-talk super-excellent ladies.
• Steve McQueen becomes first black director to win the best-picture Oscar for 12 Years a Slave.
• Oscar voters are even older, whiter, and more male than you might have imagined.
• The "cool girl"—she who eats nachos and hangs with the bros, but is hot—reflects unreasonable and contradictory expectations of women.
• New study says the "hot hand" really does exist in basketball, though a rare phenomenon.
• Whales experience REM sleep while still moving, and other facts about how animals sleep.
• Singer names the top three excellent bands that inspired the worst music.