Good morning. In today’s edition:

• ⚖️ SCOTUS considers whether to disqualify Trump from the ballot
• 🚫 Renewable energy projects are being banned across America
• 🏈🏆 Super Bowl LVIII: by the numbers

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 5.14-minute read.

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“The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.”

–Amelia Earhart (1897-1939)

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case seeking to disqualify former President Trump from the 2024 primary ballot in Colorado – and potentially other states – due to the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office.

Background: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prevents anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” in violation of their oath to the Constitution from holding any official state or federal government position moving forward.

• The law was first ratified by Congress in 1868 to prevent defeated Confederate leaders from rising to power again through the ballot box, and was last used to disqualify a federal politician in 1919.

But a recent state ruling brought the law back into the public eye. In December, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to Trump for his actions surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot. The decision disqualified Trump from the state GOP primary ballot pending an appeal to the US Supreme Court, which was heard yesterday.

In the room: During yesterday’s SCOTUS appeal, a majority of Justices appeared skeptical of Colorado’s decision to ban Trump from the primary ballot. Eight of the nine Justices said they were open to some of the arguments brought up by Trump’s lawyers, who laid out several reasons why the former president shouldn’t be disqualified:

• Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6 riot don’t meet the definition of “engaging in insurrection or rebellion.”
• Disqualifying Trump due to the Colorado decision would mean that a single state gets to decide who’s eligible to be president.
• The insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to the president.

👀 Looking ahead… The Supreme Court’s final decision is expected in the coming days or weeks.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should former President Trump be disqualified from the 2024 presidential election due to the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇺🇦 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the country’s top military general. Zelensky’s dismissal of Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, the popular commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, marks the biggest shake-up of Ukrainian leadership since Russia invaded in February 2022. Zelensky appointed the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces – Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi (☝️ on the right) – to lead the army, which has been at a near stalemate with Russia for months.

🇨🇳 Over 100 websites posing as local news outlets across the world are spreading pro-China content. That’s per a new report from digital watchdog Citizen Lab, which said the influence campaign began in mid-2020 and has spread to 30 countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The propaganda material is interspersed with aggregated news from local media to spread conspiracy theories about the US and its Western allies, and attack China’s critics.

🇫🇮🇷🇺 Finland extended its border closure with Russia until mid-April. Finland initially closed its border with Russia in December following a surge in migrants from the Middle East and Africa, whom Finland says were deliberately sent by Russia in retaliation for joining NATO (a charge the Kremlin denies). Finland says it opted to extend the border closure because Moscow hasn’t stopped funneling migrants toward the Nordic country.

Clean energy projects across America are being banned faster than they’re being built, according to a new nationwide analysis from USA Today.

The deets: While more than 180 US counties have built their first wind power project over the last decade, nearly twice as many counties have blocked wind development. And for every US county that built its first solar project over that period, a separate county also blocked solar development.

Why it’s happening: County officials cite a range of objections to clean energy projects, including the loss of prime farmland, devaluation of surrounding property values, and destruction of their local rural setting.

• Overall, at least 15% of all US counties have effectively halted new utility-scale projects for wind power, solar power, or both. And while that may seem like a relatively low number, experts say the trend has affected the most highly productive sources of wind and solar power in America.

👀 Looking ahead… The US is currently projected to get 12% of its electricity supply from wind power and 7% from solar power by 2025, with the combined total outpacing electricity generated from coal for the first time.

But *Matthew McConaughey voice* those rookie numbers have to be pumped up to reach the Biden administration’s climate goals. In order to generate 100% clean energy by 2035 (the goal), wind and solar power would have to provide a combined 60%-80% of all US electricity, experts say.

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Around 110 million people are expected to tune in to watch the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs face off in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday in Las Vegas.

Here are some more numbers surrounding arguably the biggest event of the year:

• Ticket prices: As of yesterday, the median Super Bowl ticket price was $8,559, while the get-in ticket price sat at $5,726 – still above the average ticket price for last year’s Super Bowl ($5,596).
• Betting: According to a survey released Tuesday by the American Gaming Association, ~67.8 million adults – or 26% of the adult population in the US – are expected to bet a combined $23.1 billion on Super Bowl LVIII.
• Food: This coming Sunday, Americans are expected to eat 1.45 billion chicken wings (enough for everyone in the US to eat 4 apiece), 8 million lbs of corn tortilla chips, and 250 million lbs of avocados (good for the biggest avocado-consumption day of the year).
• Commercials: Brands are shelling out ~$7 million for 30 seconds of ad time. That’s roughly in line with last year, but a Neil Armstrong-sized leap from the $42,000 per ad that brands paid for the inaugural Super Bowl in 1967.

🏈 Oh yeah – and the game itself: The 49ers are two-point favorites over the Chiefs, according to the BetMGM NFL odds. And, in case you were wondering, Taylor Swift will be able to attend.

💬 Quoted… “[President Biden] willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen."

• In a 345-page report published yesterday afternoon, special counsel Robert Hur concluded that President Biden willfully retained classified information that posed "serious risks to national security,” and that he read them aloud to his ghostwriter on at least three occasions. However, Hur said he didn’t think prosecutors could pursue a criminal case against Biden over retaining the classified material, in part because there were some innocent explanations that jurors might find convincing. Hur also said Biden’s memory appears to have "significant limitations" based on interviews in which he forgot several pieces of information, including when he was Vice President and when his son Beau died.

+Dive deeper: From the Left | From the Center | From the Right

📺🏈 Stat of the Day: If you’re one of the aforementioned 110 million people tuning into this year’s Super Bowl, you may wanna keep a telescope handy – because the stars will be out. More than 40% of the commercials shown during last year’s game featured multiple celebrities, a ~6x increase from 2010, per the WSJ – and this year should be more of the same. Expect to see Lionel Messi, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Vince Vaughn, and Wayne Gretzky, among others. But one light shines above them all: Serena Williams. The tennis legend has appeared in seven Super Bowl commercials since 2016, the most of any celebrity – which, if you think about it, kinda makes sense with all the racket surrounding the game (ba-dum-tsh!🥁).

🤔 Did You Know?... Women are over 73% more likely to be injured in a vehicle crash than men, per car safety equity group Verity Now.

📰 Worth a Read: Anger, sadness, boredom, anxiety – emotions that feel bad can be useful → (The Conversation)

• ☝️ Boston Dynamics’ Atlas – widely considered the world's most advanced humanoid robot – has learned to pick up and manipulate objects as heavy as 30 lbs, per a newly published video.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Binoid

• 💰 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +0.1%; Dow: +0.1%; Nasdaq: +0.2%); the S&P briefly crossed 5000 for the first time in intraday trading.
• 📈 Arm, the SoftBank-controlled chip designer, closed the day up 48% after reporting strong quarterly earnings and guidance. | 📉 PayPal shares dropped 11% on weak 2024 guidance.
• 🛌 Delta Airlines is opening a new tier of "premium" airport lounges in New York, LA, and Boston this year. | ✈️🌐 Hawaiian Airlines this week is rolling out complimentary in-flight Wi-Fi via SpaceX’s Starlink.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a brand-new Oscar category recognizing the best casting directors each year; it’s the first new Oscar since best animated feature in 2002. | 🎭🎤 Tim Robinson is taking his popular Netflix sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave on the road, with 10 live shows across the country starting in early April.
• 🇨🇱🏌️ Chilean golfer Cristobal Del Solar shot a 13-under (57) at a tournament in Colombia yesterday, marking the lowest-ever score in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
• 🇷🇺📺 Tucker Carlson released an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Olyra

• ⚛️⚡ A UK laboratory set a new world record for the most energy produced by a nuclear fusion reaction; 69 megajoules for 5.2 seconds, or enough to power 12,000 homes for the same amount of time.
• 🌡️ Earth’s temperature was more than 1.5°C warmer than the preindustrial era in the 12 months ending January, per the EU’s climate-monitoring service; it marks the first time that temperature threshold has been breached over a full year.
• 🤖 Google is changing its AI chatbot’s name from Bard to Gemini, releasing a dedicated Gemini mobile app, launching a premium AI subscription service, and adding Gemini to Google’s voice assistant. | 🗣️ The tech giant also announced plans to join an industry effort to create “nutrition labels” identifying when and how a piece of content was produced or altered (including with AI); the move is similar to one Meta also made this week.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ✈️💥 Two JetBlue planes collided on the tarmac at Boston Logan International Airport yesterday morning, damaging both aircraft but causing no reported injuries.
• 🚫 Grocery stores across the US – including Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Albertson’s – are recalling a wide range of food products due to possible listeria contamination.
• 🗳️ Former President Trump won yesterday’s Nevada GOP caucuses, earning all of the state’s 26 RNC delegates; challenger Nikki Haley wasn’t on the ballot since she participated in Nevada’s GOP primary on Tuesday (losing to “None of these Candidates”).

(HELPFUL) CLICKBAIT

• 💼 Communication is key: The most in-demand skills of 2024, per LinkedIn.

Thousands of golden retrievers and their owners came together on February 3 in celebration of National Golden Retriever Day.

Where was the gathering, you ask? Well, of course... Golden, Colorado.

🦮 Goldens in Golden... The event started in 2019, and includes free puppuccinos and swag bags, community events for dogs and their owners, and plenty of pup playtime. 

• Even though this year was pounded by a heavy snowstorm, the event went off without a hitch. 
• "It’s a big Disneyland for them. And, uh, yeah, for us, I'll be honest with you. I'm kind of excited about this,” said golden owner Charlie Alfrey. “It’s a vacation for us, too. We laugh that he’s brought us on his vacation. So we’re excited to be here.”

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Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make. Easy peasy! (The rules, at least.)

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Red wine vinegar
• Tomato paste
• Dijon mustard
• Sugar
• Dried oregano
• Garlic powder
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Pepperoni
• Mozza balls
• Black olives
• Red onion
• Bell pepper
• Iceberg lettuce
• Romaine lettuce
• Parmesan cheese

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Tomatoes
• Vegetable oil
• Large eggs
• Sesame oil
• Chicken bouillon powder
• Sugar
• White pepper
• Salt
• Green onion
• Jasmine rice

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Flour
• Baking powder & soda
• Ground cinnamon
• Salt
• Brown sugar
• Butter
• Zucchini
• Neutral oil
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Sour cream
• Chocolate chips

(keep scrolling for the answers)

☝️ Recipe #1: Pizza salad

✌️ Recipe #2: Chinese tomato egg stir fry

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Chocolate chip zucchini bread