Hello from the Heartland. My name is Jenna and this is Smarter News, news when it matters and why it matters.

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Good morning. Hope you're after a great Monday so far wherever you are. Perhaps you're watching it a little later on this week or listening to this report a little later on this week and we hope you're well. It is Monday just after 10 o'clock central time, March 7th. I feel like the news is changing so fast. We have to time date and stamp anytime we're speaking because we're watching an evolving

story in Eastern Europe that's really touching every part of the globe.

And we're going to talk a little bit about that today.

I was thinking about this before I used to get on the air on television news, on a typical

hour show, for example, there would always be that breaking animation. Do you know what

I'm talking about on television right at the start of an hour? There's usually like a big sound

and animation and bright lights, which is supposed to be a way to catch the viewer's attention

and bring you right into the story. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes

it's actually overused to the point that you actually don't know when you have to pay most attention. And I was thinking about that today and how relieved I am that I don't have to do that anymore. Because there's a point to that, listen, it's great to get people's attention on the news. I obviously love the news. I hope that you love the news as well or you're learning to love the news again through smarter news.

But it's very easy to lose track of why stories matter when you're trying just to chase every new development.

And I thought that's where we really need to start today. Why does the story matter in Ukraine? Why does it matter what's happening between Russia and Ukraine? Let's just go

zoom way, way out, way out in all of this. Why does this all matter? Fundamentally, we don't want

anyone to be hurt, injured, killed. I don't want that for you. I don't want that for anybody else.

We want everybody to pursue the life that they want to live and the dreams that they want to

pursue. We want all of that for each other here in the United States and otherwise. And war

disturbs that. It sounds basic, but we have to keep going back to that point because I never

want to go over the three things I have for you today and be insensitive to what we're watching on the human side, which is very difficult to watch.

And the images are coming at us so quickly that I know it's difficult to digest.

It's difficult for me to digest, and I don't want to lose the humanitarian side as we're also watching the analytical side when we're covering the news. You know,

what are the facts that we can apply to this story? So I just want to start there today. Very basic,

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