Good morning. This past week was chock full o’ holidays, so we’d like to take this opportunity to say a belated:

• Happy International Women’s Day! We are all grateful for and in awe of all of the incredible women in our lives; thank you for being you.
• Happy Holi to those who celebrate! Hope you managed to get all those colors off (or not! Keeping them on is cool, too!).
• Chag Purim Sameach for all our Jewish brothers and sisters. May your lives be joyful and your hamantaschen delicious.

… and this brings us to this weekend, when all of us make a deal with the devil to exchange one hour of sleep for longer, summer-filled days. Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 am ET on Sunday for most – but not all – of the US.

And now, THE NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.44 minutes to read.

"The imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization."

–Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

This week, a utility company in Georgia announced that it has achieved self-sustaining fission in one of its new nuclear reactors. The breakthrough means the reactor, which was constructed as part of a $30+ billion facility near Augusta, Georgia, will be able to start generating enough electricity to power a quarter-million homes and businesses by April or June of this year.

This marks a key step towards commercial operation of the first new reactor built within the US in nearly three decades, per the AP.

🤔 Why use nuclear energy?... Fission reactors – not to be confused with fusion reactors, which combine atoms instead of splitting them and are still a ways away from being commercially viable – can be used to generate electricity without emitting any carbon dioxide as a by-product.

The idea is that by replacing fossil fuel-based power plants with fission reactors, America could sharply reduce the amount of CO2 that’s emitted by its electricity industry, which collectively accounts for ~30% of all US emissions.

🔀 On the flip side: Critics of nuclear fission cite a range of downsides, including extremely high building and operating costs (sometimes more than 15x original forecasts), as well as challenges in the disposal of radioactive waste.

• Plus there’s also the potential for nuclear meltdowns like those that occurred at Fukushima, Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl, where the surrounding area was rendered uninhabitable for years due to radioactivity.

📸 Big picture: Nuclear fission reactors have provided around 20% of America’s electricity needs every year dating back to 1996, the last time a new US-made reactor went online.

📊 Flash poll: In general, how do you feel about using nuclear energy as a source of electricity in the US?

Strongly agree

Agree/Somewhat agree

Neutral

Disagree/Somewhat disagree

Strongly disagree

🇮🇱 Thousands of people gathered across Israel yesterday to protest a government proposal that would reduce the power of the judiciary. Since early January, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have protested against the proposed judicial reforms, which would allow Parliament to override Supreme Court decisions, restrict the Court’s ability to block laws, and give the government full control over appointing new judges. Proponents argue that Israel’s Supreme Court currently has too much power over the country’s legislature, while opponents contend the reforms would upend the checks and balances within Israel’s government and lead to authoritarian rule.

🌎 Democracy around the world declined for the 17th consecutive year in 2022, per a new report from nonpartisan nonprofit Freedom House. The report said that while several encouraging events took place last year – including peaceful transfers of power in Colombia, Kenya, and Malaysia – they were slightly outweighed by negative events like multiple coups in West Africa, and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. But alas! There is some good news: Freedom House researchers said the world appears to be headed towards a “turning point” for improvement, with global democracy projected to increase as soon as 2023.

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Russia fired dozens of missiles into Ukraine yesterday, in one of its biggest attacks this year. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief said Moscow fired eight Iranian-made suicide drones alongside 81 cruise missiles, which killed a total of six Ukrainians and caused the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to temporarily lose power. Officials from both sides said six of the Russian missiles were hypersonic Kinzhal models, which can accelerate to 10x the speed of sound and precisely strike targets at a range of 1,200 miles.

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Imagine Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory – except instead of candy, it's full of all the weirdest new tech, film, music, and comedy that you can’t get anywhere else.

That, in a nutshell, is the ten-day South by Southwest festival (SXSW), which kicks off today in Austin, Texas. Except instead of Wonka's tests of moral character, everyone just has to wait in lines. Loooong lines. And there's queso. So much queso.

🎤 Background: Founded in 1987, SXSW began as an alternative-minded music festival with 700 attendees. After years of steady growth, the festival, which is held every year in Austin, branched out into three areas in 1994: Music, Film, and Interactive (also in 1994, three long-haired boys with the last name Hanson were discovered at the fest; the rest is MMMBop history).

From there, SXSW has grown into an incubator at the vanguard of creative pursuit.

• For example: In 2007, an unknown startup named Twitter became the talk of the festival, as the tech-obsessed crowd used the app to share updates with one another. Over the course of the festival, the app’s daily tweet count tripled from 20,000 to 60,000 (for context: the app averaged 500 million tweets/day last year).

📸 Big picture: If the early days of the festival felt like a secret hipster spot in deep Brooklyn, today’s fest feels a bit more like Times Square. Last year, SXSW drew a total of ~280,000 in-person and online attendees, over 3,500 conference speakers, 1,500 musical acts, and 215 world premiere films.

This year’s festival – which is expected to attract 300,000 people – will feature a secret screening of John Wick 4, Dr. Deepak Chopra speaking on the future of psychedelic therapy, and a keynote with NASA about the James Webb telescope.

💬 Quoted… "A sort of Texas utopia along the Colorado River, where his employees could live and work.”

Per a WSJ report published yesterday, Elon Musk is planning to build his own town. It’ll reportedly be called Snailbrook, and set on part of thousands of acres of newly-purchased land 35 miles southeast of Austin, Texas.

• Sources told the Journal that Musk and top executives at Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company want their Austin-area employees to be able to live in new homes with below-market rents.

🏦📉 Stat of the Day: $52 billion = the combined market value lost by the four biggest US banks yesterday; the selloff occurred after Silicon Valley Bank said it was forced to raise nearly $2 billion following a larger-than-expected decline in customer deposits (which could get worse in the coming weeks). SVB's stock dropped more than 60% on the day.

🤯 Did You Know?... There’s a type of strawberry called Bijin-Hime that sells for $500 per strawberry; the species is only grown by Japanese strawberry farmer Mikio Okuda, and is world-renowned for its large size, perfect shape, and juicy flavor.

📖 Worth a Read: Jaded with education, more Americans are skipping college → (AP News)

• ☝️ Millions of residents gathered across India this week to celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of love and colors, which also marks the beginning of spring.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board yesterday (S&P: -1.9%; Dow: -1.7%; Nasdaq: -2.1%).
• 🚗 GM will offer ‘voluntary buyouts’ to a majority of its salaried workers, the company told employees yesterday.
• 🤖 Microsoft’s Bing search engine with AI-chatbot integration has passed 100 million daily active users, the company revealed Wednesday; for context: Google has more than 1 billion daily active users.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆 The 2023 Oscars will air this Sunday at 8 pm ET on ABC.
• 🍿 Scream VI opens nationwide this weekend; the Adam Driver-led dinosaur film 65 will also make its theatrical debut. | Michael B. Jordan will helm a “Creed-verse” across film, TV, and animation properties at Amazon studios.
• 🏀 Ja Morant will miss at least four more games, per the Memphis Grizzlies; Morant was allegedly seen holding a gun in an Instagram photo last week.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ✍️ Grammarly announced an upcoming ChatGPT-powered AI text-generator.
• ⚒️ Bronze Age humans used tempered steel instruments more than 1,000 years before the Romans did, per a recent peer-reviewed study that examined intricate 2,900-year-old engravings on stone monuments in Portugal.
• 🐁♂️♂️ Japanese scientists have created mice with two biological fathers and no mother after generating viable eggs from male cells, per a first-of-its-kind experiment presented at the Francis Crick Institute in London on Wednesday.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• ⚖️🎓 Two Brown University basketball players filed a federal lawsuit against the Ivy League this week over its policy of not offering any athletic scholarships; the suit accuses all eight Ivy League schools of illegally conspiring to limit compensation for athletes.
• 🏛️ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 81, has been hospitalized with a concussion after tripping and falling at a private dinner on Wednesday.
• 🚂 Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee yesterday to answer questions over last month’s train derailment in East Palestine, OH. | Separately, around 30 cars in a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Alabama yesterday, with no reported injuries or hazardous chemical leaks. (Background)

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Turkish firefighter Ali Cakas was digging through rubble five days after an initial series of earthquakes that hit his country last month, when he found a black-and-white kitten buried under the debris. 

• The grateful cat, who was covered in dirt and had been stuck for nearly 130 hours, refused to leave Ali's side for the rest of the day. Ali was hopeful they could eventually locate the kitten's owner. 

🐱 🏠 Welcome home... As the days went on and no one came to claim the cat, Ali and his colleagues named him Enkaz – the Turkish word for debris. Eventually, the firefighter took his new fluffy friend home. 

• "He has never fallen from my lap since the day he arrived," shared Ali. "We bonded quickly. We both had a tough time. We'll get through this trauma by hugging each other."

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Lime juice
• Olive oil
• Fish sauce
• Serrano
• Garlic
• Cilantro
• Red onion
• Peanuts

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Potato nuggets
• Pepper Jack cheese
• Pulled pork
• White & green onions
• Jalapeno peppers
• Bbq sauce
• Coleslaw

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Pasilla & ancho chiles
• Chicken broth
• Frozen OJ concentrate
• White vinegar
• Pitted dates
• Chipotle peppers
• Bay leaves
• Ground cumin
• Mexican oregano
• Chicken thighs (boneless, skinless)
• Olive oil
• Tortillas
• Salt

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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☝️ Recipe #1: Melon salad with spicy Nuoc Cham dressing

✌️ Recipe #2: Memphis BBQ pork totchos (tater-tot nachos)

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Chicken adovada