The Daily Valet. - 3/1/22, Tuesday

✔️ Would You Leave?

Tuesday, March 1st Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

You might need a hug. We all do, right?

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

Russian Shelling Kills Civilians

More than 4 million Ukrainians could flee their country

The Russian military is continuing to advance on Kyiv in what U.S. defense officials call an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian capital. They think the Kremlin will adopt the same siege tactics used in Kharkiv—the country’s second-largest city—which was bombarded Monday with some of the heaviest shelling since the invasion began, killing civilians.

“The picture is grim—and could get worse still. Aerial attacks and fighting in urban areas are damaging critical civilian facilities and disrupting essential services such as health, electricity, water and sanitation, which effectively leaves civilians without the basics for day-to-day life,” a UN official told CNN.

Five hours of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations near the Belarus border Monday failed to yield a breakthrough, with the two sides agreeing only to continue their discussions in coming days.

Meanwhile, more than 520,000 people have already fled from Ukraine to neighboring countries and up to four million refugees could follow in coming weeks, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Monday.

Poland has accepted the most Ukrainians, at 281,000, a global spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency told NBC News on Monday. Hungary has taken in nearly 85,000 refugees, while Moldova, Romania and Slovakia have each accepted 30,000 to around 36,000. Close to 35,000 have fled to other European countries.

Immigration authorities in the countries have been overwhelmed though, and many trying to flee have waited for days. The Washington Post reports that “those with cars sleep in them. Those on foot try to stay awake, unable to rest in the freezing overnight temperatures and fearful of losing their place in the miles-long lines. It’s a journey so arduous that some simply give up and decide to risk staying in Ukraine.”

↦ Want to help? This is an updated list of all the ways you can help, from donating supplies, services for children and supporting journalists reporting from Ukraine.

A Dire Climate Warning

Countries aren’t doing enough to protect against disasters to come, UN report says

Billions of people on every continent are suffering because of climate change, according to a significant United Nations report released on Monday. And governments must do a better job of protecting the most vulnerable communities while also rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The report weighs in at around 3,600 pages long and is based on years of research from hundreds of scientists. It found that the impacts from human-caused climate change were larger than previously thought. And unless global warming is dramatically slowed, billions of people and other species will reach points where they can no longer adapt to the new normal.

The authors point to enormous inequities in the climate crisis, finding that those who contribute the least to the problem are the worst affected, and warn of irreversible impacts if the world exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming. For instance, about 8% of the world's farmland will become “unsuitable for growing food.”

But it's not hopeless. The findings made it clear that humans are not entirely powerless in the fight. Repairing damaged ecosystems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions dramatically and immediately would spare billions of people from illness, poverty, displacement and death, reports NPR.

↦ FYI: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release another report this spring detailing the necessary changes to reduce global warming.

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How to Stress Less

You can’t stop it but you can adapt to it

I'd ask how you're feeling these days, but I think I know the answer. If you read the two stories above, you know the world is a scary place right now. And that's not even taking into account your job, relationship or pandemic concerns.

You might need a hug. Seriously! A recent study found that people showed lower levels of cortisol—the stress hormone—after getting hugged for 20 seconds. Other researchers discovered the optimal length for a mood-boosting embrace is just five seconds. And, if you want, you can even hug yourself, reports Psychology Today.

Not into body contact? You might get more from an icy shock of cold water. Thanks to the Wim Hof method, which pairs cold exposure with breathing and meditation, ice baths and cold showers have never been more popular. Science suggests this age-old practice might benefit mental health by relaxing you and increasing chemicals like dopamine, but more research is needed.

Or you could just queue up a Netflix comedy special, because a good laugh fires up and then cools down your stress response, and it can increase and then decrease your heart rate and blood pressure. And bonus, it's been proven that when we're in a good mood, we're much more likely to engage in healthy behaviors. So let this be a reminder to take care of yourself.

↦ Meanwhile: Dr. Bronner's (yes, the soap) is working to loosen government restrictions on psychedelics.

TikTok Goes Long

The app expands maximum video length to 10 minutes

TikTok is starting to roll out the ability for users to upload videos up to 10 minutes in length, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The official launch comes as TikTok has been testing the change over the past several months.

The platform's venture into longer and longer content comes as other social media companies are seemingly doing just the opposite. Youtube, Instagram and Snapchat have all released their own types of TikTok clones in recent years—all with the goal of trying to tap into TikTok's growing dominance, particularly among younger users.

Although TikTok's meteoric rise to popularity was founded on a never-ending stream of short videos tailored to catch your attention, many people saw this shift towards longer content as inevitable. But The Verge warns, a switch to “longer content may hurt the firm by limiting the amount of data it can collect on users' watching habits, which is what allows it to customize the algorithms it uses to attract users in the first place.” In other words: getting the length of content right is something of a balancing act.

I'll be honest, I only mildly flirt with TikTok. But I spend a good amount of time on YouTube. Maybe these worlds will start colliding, or as strategist Michael Miraflor mused, this will become a battle of discovery algorithms.

In Other News

↦ Ukraine Tweeted Its Cryptocurrency Wallet and Got $4 Million in Donations to Help Fight Russia

↦ What You Need to Know Ahead of Biden’s First State of the Union Address

↦ Private Jet Charters Could Increase by More Than 50% This Year, a New Study Says

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Supreme and Nike

Boozy sandwich cookies

A ‘Bullitt’ remake

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Going for Bold

Corduroy floral shirt,$298 by Noah

Wearing prints can sometime take on a negative connotation of attention-seeking or dressing obnoxiously, but that's not always the case. There are a crazy number of prints these days, but there are subtle ways to be quiet about styling loud patterns. If you're wearing busy prints, use the “less is more” approach and never, under any circumstances, mix patterns. If you look at the big fits from Paris fashion week, you'll see that one statement piece stands on its own.

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