Good morning. In a social media post this week, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he has a new hobby in addition to martial arts and hydrofoiling: raising cattle. His goal with the project? To "create some of the highest quality beef in the world."

But that’s not what drew us to the post – it was the cattle’s diet. Per Zuck, his wagyu and angus cattle will be chilling on his ranch in Hawaii while "eating macadamia [nuts] and drinking beer that we grow and produce here on the ranch." Which, to be fair, doesn’t sound like too bad of a gig for a cow in today’s world.

Billionaires… they’re just like us!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 5.06-minute read.

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"Someone who has never failed somewhere, that person cannot be great. Failure is the true test of greatness."

–Herman Melville (1819-1891)

The US reduced its greenhouse gas emissions last year as the overall economy grew, signaling that America is slowly heading toward a more sustainable future, per an annual emissions progress report published yesterday by the Rhodium Group.

The report found US greenhouse gas emissions fell by about 1.9% in 2023, while the economy grew by 2.4%, marking the first time both things have happened since before the Covid pandemic.

• The annual decrease in emissions can be mostly attributed to US companies and organizations phasing out the use of coal plants to produce electricity, with such activity falling to its lowest level in half a century last year.
• Overall, US emissions have now fallen more than 17% since 2005, which the report frames as “a step in the right direction.” However, it also says that if current trends hold, the US will end up ~10 points shy of President Biden’s goal to cut US emissions by 50% compared to 2005 levels by the end of this decade.

🌏 Big picture: A recent UN report found Earth is on track to peak at between 4.9°F and 5.2°F above pre-industrial levels by 2100, based on emissions commitments from countries around the world and the actions they’ve taken thus far.

That figure is nearly double the 2.7°F limit set in the 2015 Paris Agreement as the threshold for which countries should aim to limit global warming to avoid severe consequences, such as the runaway melting of ice sheets or the Amazon rainforest drying out.

• China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas-emitter, is responsible for 27+% of global emissions, while the US sits at 11%. India makes up 7%, and all 27 EU nations combined account for 6%.

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💥🚢 US and UK warships shot down one of the largest airstrikes from Houthi rebels in Yemen. A US official said yesterday’s barrage from Houthi rebels, who fired into a key Red Sea shipping lane, will likely elicit retaliatory airstrikes in the coming days. Many major international shipping companies have begun rerouting their ships away from the Red Sea passage – which facilitates ~15% of all global seaborne trade – in response to nearly two dozen Houthi attacks in the region since mid-November, when the militant group pledged to support Hamas against Israel.

🇳🇴 Norway became the first country to allow commercial-scale deep-sea mining. The decision, approved by 80% of parliament, opens up 108,000 square miles of Norwegian waters for the deep-sea mining of lithium, scandium, cobalt, and other materials critical to developing EV batteries and similar green technologies. The decision came after 120 EU lawmakers wrote an open letter in November calling on the Norwegian parliament to reject the project due to concerns about environmental damage.

🇪🇨 Violence has broken out across Ecuador after two gang leaders escaped from prison on Monday. Following the escape, the country has experienced prison riots, domestic terrorism, and police kidnappings, in addition to a news station being temporarily seized by gunmen on Tuesday. In response, President Daniel Noboa declared a two-month state of emergency that imposes an overnight curfew, and allows the military to take over prisons and patrol the streets to crack down on gang violence.

As the great Nick Saban and others say, “trust the process.” But that approach is now in question. US regulators are currently investigating the health effects of ultra-processed foods, which can be found on a majority of grocery shelves across the country.

First things first: Ultra-processed foods are mass-produced food items that are highly manipulated and contain lots of added ingredients. 

Examples include most packaged snacks, sweetened beverages, candy, chicken nuggets, hamburgers, french fries, and more (aka the good stuff). Ultra-processed foods make up nearly 50% of the average American’s diet.

• In recent years, scientists have noticed a connection between diets high in ultra-processed foods and health problems like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even mild depression or anxiety – but they have yet to pin down exactly what, if anything, is causing the problem.

👀 Looking ahead… Due to their outsized role in Americans’ diets, the federal government is currently reviewing ultra-processed foods and is expected to publish recommendations on the topic in its next dietary guidelines, which are released once every five years.

• Many food-industry groups and manufacturers, including Unilever and Barilla, have launched lobbying efforts aimed at promoting ultra-processed foods, arguing that processing makes food more safe, convenient, accessible, and affordable.

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Amazon yesterday announced that it’s laying off hundreds of employees across its Prime Video and MGM Studios divisions, in addition to cutting 500 jobs at Twitch, its livestreaming platform.

It’s not the only company to announce job cuts over the past week and a half:

• Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, is laying off 600 people, or 3% of its workforce.
• Videogame software provider Unity announced layoffs affecting 1,800 employees, or 25% of its workforce.
• Xerox is cutting ~3,000 jobs, or 15% of its workforce, this quarter.
• Rent the Runway is saying goodbye to 37 employees, or 10% of its corporate roles.
• Duolingo is laying off 10% of its contractor workforce as it leans more into AI.

And all this news of layoffs appears to have workers spooked. A recently released survey indicates that 85% of people are worried they’ll lose their jobs in 2024.

But despite this most recent round of layoffs, data shows the overall jobs market is like the cattle on Zuck’s compound – in a pretty good place. The labor market ended 2023 on a high note, unemployment is at a healthy 3.7%, and wage growth is once again outpacing inflation. Some experts are predicting a “quiet,” if not “boring,” year for labor markets in 2024.

🤔 Looking for a new role or career change?... Glassdoor just released its list of the best companies to work for in 2024.

💬 Quoted… “Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282.”

• If it could talk, said iPhone👆, discovered by Sean Bates in a bush on the side of the road in Vancouver, Washington, would have quite a story to tell. As you may have been able to guess by the Alaskan Airlines and airplane mode context clues, it appears to have played the part of an action movie protagonist and fallen 16,000 feet out of the Boeing jet whose fuselage blew off mid-flight – and survived this drop completely intact. There are a few things that could be working in the phone’s favor to make this possible, according to a scientist who was interviewed by USA Today: phone manufacturers have been working to make phones stronger, it encountered air resistance to slow its fall, and it landed on a bush instead of something hard (aim for the bushes!).

🏢 Stat of the Day: Nearly 20% of office space in major US cities wasn’t leased in Q4 of last year, the highest figure since Moody’s Analytics first started tracking such data in 1979.

🤔 Did You Know?... Gasoline is produced differently in the summer and winter, which is why prices at the pump are often cheaper during colder months.

📰 Worth a Read: Steamboat Willie: How Mickey Mouse’s first appearance saved Walt Disney from ruin and changed cinema forever → (BBC Culture)

• ☝️ The winners of the 2023 Close-Up Photographer of the Year contest were announced this week, with the victors selected from ~12,000 entries across 67 countries.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Coop

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board (S&P: +0.6%; Dow: +0.5%; Nasdaq: +0.8%). | 👍🪙 The SEC officially approved rule changes allowing for the creation of spot bitcoin ETFs in the US.
• 🚚⚖️ Cummins agreed to pay a record Clean Air Act civil penalty of $1.675 billion over allegations that it installed diesel engines with illegal software, allowing them to pass emissions tests but emit much more pollution while in operation. | 🌍 German tech giant SAP agreed to pay over $230 million to settle investigations into worldwide foreign bribery practices.
• 🤖 OpenAI debuted the GPT Store, which allows users to list personalized chatbots they’ve built for others to download (similar to Apple's App Store).

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈🐐 Alabama head coach Nick Saban announced his retirement from college football; Saban won six national championships in 17 seasons with ‘Bama, and holds the most titles of any CFB coach in history (seven). | 🏈 Pete Carroll is out as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks after 14 seasons and one Super Bowl victory; he’ll remain with the team in an advisory role.
• 🎬 Warner Bros. is producing a new untitled film pairing director Paul Thomas Anderson with actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Regina Hall.
• 🏀✍️ The Los Angeles Clippers signed forward Kawhi Leonard to a three-year, $153 million contract extension.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Spoak

• 🛰️💬 SpaceX has successfully sent the first text messages via Starlink satellites using T-Mobile’s network, the company announced yesterday.
• 🦧 The largest great ape species in history, which stood 10 feet tall and weighed up to 650 pounds, ultimately went extinct ~250,000 years ago due to climate change, per a new peer-reviewed study.
• 🌌🔭 The Hubble Space Telescope discovered the origin of the most powerful fast radio burst ever recorded from space; the burst emerged from a group of ancient galaxies that appear to be merging.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🖼️⚖️ A US appeals court ruled that a Madrid museum has the right to retain a ~$30 million painting by Camille Pissarro that was stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family.
• 📈 Antisemitic incidents in the US have more than tripled in the three months since Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel, per preliminary data from the Anti-Defamation League.
• 🗣️ The final GOP debate before Monday’s first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses was hosted by CNN last night; the only two participants were Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. | 🗳️ Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie is suspending his 2024 GOP presidential campaign.

CLICKBAIT

• ☕ How much caffeine you should actually have – and when.

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• Dog escapes kennel, frees his friends, throws a party until the cops show up → (WDBO)
• Try not to let moose lick your car, Parks Canada warns, as more salt-seeking animals flock to highways → (CBC)
• Florida city adopts new law that requires dog owners to give pets daily exercise → (FOX35 Orlando)
• Mouse secretly filmed tidying man’s shed every night → (The Guardian)

Yesterday, we covered how many US home and auto insurers are hiking their rates in certain states or refusing to write and renew policies in an attempt to recover from some of their worst years in history.

❓ Our question to you: For all our US home and car owners: have you experienced a noticeable increase in your insurance rates for 2024?

• 👍 Yes: 71%
• 👎 No: 29%

❓ Follow-up question for “Yes” folks: In which region of the US do you live?

• West: 25%
• Southeast: 22%
• Midwest: 20%
• Southwest: 19%
• Northeast: 14%

Click here to read some of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 6,289 votes and 430 longform responses.

Ten years ago, Alabama resident Hody Childress stopped by the local drugstore to chat with the pharmacist. He was shocked when she told him many of his neighbors struggled to pay for their medications, due to a lack of insurance and rising prescription costs.

So, for the next decade, Hody dropped a $100 bill off at the pharmacy on the first of each month. He gave thousands away over the years.

• “Do not tell a soul that money came from me,” the pharmacy owner remembered Hody saying. “If they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the Lord."
• In fact, no one knew of Hody's generosity until just before his passing a little over a year ago, when he told his daughter what he had done

💸 Keep the giving going: Members of Hody's small Alabama town are keeping the tradition alive by donating money each month to the same pharmacy in honor of his good deed.

Which city, pictured above, contains the world’s largest castle complex?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

Prague, Czech Republic