Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖🥊 The AI chatbot war is in full swing
• 🗳️ The Supreme Court restored Trump’s ballot eligibility
• 🎶🎮 How musicians are using videogames

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 5.02-minute read.

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

"Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there."

–Will Rogers (1875-1939)

Yesterday, we incorrectly said Oklahoma’s softball team lost its NCAA-record 71-game winning streak to Louisville, when Oklahoma actually lost to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Apologies for any confusion.

Note: This is the 47th correction out of the 525 newsletters we've published since January 2022 (for context, each newsletter contains 20+ news events).

Anthropic, the Amazon- and Google-backed AI startup founded by former OpenAI employees, launched a new chatbot yesterday that it says outperforms ChatGPT-4, Google’s Gemini, and other similar products.

The new chatbot, called Claude 3 Opus, is able to understand text and photo inputs, though it lacks the ability to generate images. It officially launched yesterday for $20/month, with a less powerful version offered for free.

• Anthropic says Claude 3 Opus is particularly useful when analyzing scientific data or generating computer code – though it also outperformed the latest versions of ChatGPT and Gemini across every other category in a series of tests used to measure a chatbot's capabilities.
• These categories include math problem solving, undergraduate level knowledge, graduate level reasoning, and the ability to process visual inputs.
• Additionally, Claude 3 Opus can summarize up to ~150,000 words (aka an average Harry Potter book), while ChatGPT-4 can summarize ~25,000 words.

Anthropic is also emphasizing safe and responsible AI development. In an effort to help users feel they can trust their results, Anthropic says Claude 3 Opus will make every high school English teacher in America proud and start citing sentences from reference materials to back up its responses.

🤖💬 Looking ahead… Claude 3 Opus joins a wide range of existing AI chatbots on the market – some of which have differentiated themselves by specializing in certain areas. For example:

• When it comes to software coding, GitHub’s Copilot and ChatGPT-4 are widely considered the best available options.
• Gemini seamlessly integrates with nearly all of Google’s products (including Gmail, Drive, Meet, etc.).
• ChatGPT-4 and Microsoft’s Copilot – which is separate from GitHub – are among the handful of all-inclusive chatbots that can generate and edit images.

Getting your info out of the hands of data brokers requires tons of negotiation, but it protects you from spam, increased rates, and people search sites... and not to mention cybercrime and people taking loans out in your name fraudulently.

• This takes the average person 304 hours, but Incogni does it for you automatically. 
• They tackle all data broker types, letting you regain complete control of your privacy and protecting you from the online bad guys.

Keep your data safer than ever with Incogni – save 55% with code DONUT55.

🇫🇷 France became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right. While abortion has been legal in France since 1975, local activists launched efforts to make abortion rights irreversible following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The new amendment, which had the support of ~80% of French citizens, was officially approved in a 780-72 parliamentary vote yesterday.

🇪🇺 The EU fined Apple ~$2 billion for limiting music-streaming competition. The bloc’s antitrust penalty came after an EU investigation – prompted by a Spotify complaint – found that for the past decade, Apple has unfairly restricted music streaming rivals from promoting cheaper alternatives outside its App Store. Apple unsuccessfully argued that the EU’s investigation didn’t find any credible evidence of consumer harm.

🇩🇪🇷🇺 Russia leaked a conversation involving high-ranking German military officers. The 38-minute audio leak, posted by Russian state-funded media on Friday, includes topics like the possible delivery of advanced missiles to Ukraine – which Germany’s government has publicly rejected – and the fact that some British troops were deployed in Ukraine. German authorities haven’t questioned the leak’s authenticity, though they framed it as a Russian "hybrid disinformation attack" intended to sow discord.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states lack the authority to ban presidential candidates on the grounds that they engaged in rebellion or insurrection, rejecting a series of attempts to ban former President Trump from the 2024 primary ballot.

The case centered around a Colorado Supreme Court decision in December that disqualified Trump from the state GOP primary ballot for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prevents anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding state or federal office.

• In yesterday’s 9-0 decision, the Court found that Colorado and other states lack the power to reject presidential candidates for violating Section 3, since it could create a “chaotic state by state patchwork” that disrupts national elections.
• The Court also ruled 5-4 that Section 3 can only be enforced via an act of Congress, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the Court’s liberal bloc in arguing that the decision is too restrictive.

The impact: The ruling means that former President Trump is officially restored to presidential primary ballots in three states which had previously deemed him ineligible (Colorado, Maine, and Illinois). It also ends similar ongoing legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy filed in several other states.

👀 Looking ahead… The Court's decision came a day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states including Colorado will hold their primary contests.

☀️ Get the results you’ve been waiting for through Hers, and enjoy thicker, healthier hair by summertime thanks to Minoxidil*. Hers combines Rx ingredients with hair-supporting vitamins to not only regrow hair, but to help it thrive.

👩‍⚕️ Access dermatologist-developed treatments personalized to your hair needs 100% online, with no office or pharmacy visits required. If prescribed, Hers ships directly to your door for free.

Check out Hers results and prescription options here.

As any millennial who can still sing the Madden ‘04 soundtrack knows, videogames and music have long gone hand in hand. And over the past few years, musical artists have been increasingly signing deals to debut new songs in videogames, in some cases weeks before those tracks are released on streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify.

• Up-and-coming rapper Odetari released his latest album on “Mega Noob Simulator,” a free fighting game on Roblox, before it reached streaming platforms. Tens of thousands of people attended the December launch event.
• Also in December, a radio friendly version of Eminem’s 2020 hit “Godzilla” was played at a Fortnite event. It re-entered Spotify’s top songs charts the next day, reaching No. 63 in the US.
• NBA 2K, the popular basketball videogame series, every Friday releases a new mix of tunes that play in the background of the game.

Behind the trend: Record execs have long operated under the assumption that most people’s musical tastes are solidified during their teenage years – and videogames are popular with young folks. About three-quarters of Americans under the age of 18 play video games, per a 2023 report from the Entertainment Software Association.

👀 Looking ahead… Growth from music streaming services like Spotify is slowing. And industry leaders are betting the music industry’s next wave of growth comes from licensing music in three key areas: social media, fitness apps (ex: Peloton), and videogames.

💬 Quoted… “One thing that people have told me is that my voice – they were surprised at how soothing and calming my voice was.”

• Turn down for what? Guided meditation, apparently. In a new NPR interview, Lil Jon revealed how he transitioned from a loud, energetic rapper to his latest project – narrating a guided meditation album called "Total Meditation." Lil Jon said he first took up meditation over a decade ago to deal with anxiety and stress (OKAY!), as well as to help keep calm before performing onstage (YEAH!).

💸🚘 Stat of the Day: Alef Aeronautics, a SpaceX-backed startup attempting to make roads obsolete, said it has reached 2,850 preorders for its futuristic flying car, the Alef Model A (👆) – which, at $300,000 a pop, represents a combined order value of $850+ million. If everything goes according to plan, Alef says its Model As will start zipping across US skies at cruise speeds of ~110 MPH by the end of next year.

🤔 Did You Know?... About 1 in every 4 animal species known to science is a type of beetle.

📰 Worth a Read: The con man who sold the Eiffel Tower — twice → (The Hustle)

• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the best science images of February, according to the journal Nature.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with moomoo

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -0.1%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: -0.4%).
• ✈️ ​​JetBlue and Spirit Airlines are calling off their planned $3.8 billion merger due to regulatory hurdles. | 🏬 Macy's received a higher buyout offer ($6.6 billion) from two investment firms weeks after rejecting their prior takeover bid.
• ⚖️🐦 Four former top Twitter execs sued Elon Musk, alleging he owes them more than $128 million in severance payments because they weren’t fired for cause. (Read more)

*From our partners: 📊🤔 Not sure where to start with investing?... Moomoo helps to show you the ropes with free tutorials and a paper trading tool to help build confidence, and provides advanced trading tools for once you’re ready. Sign up and deposit to receive up to 15 free shares.**

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎶 Taylor Swift is related to the famed poet Emily Dickinson, according to genealogy company Ancestry.
• 🏈 Jason Kelce, the longtime Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro center, officially announced his retirement from the NFL after 13 seasons. | ⚾ The Philadelphia Phillies and pitcher Zack Wheeler agreed to a 3 year, $126 million contract extension.
• 🎮 10,000+ NCAA athletes have accepted EA Sports' NIL deal and will be featured in the company's upcoming reboot of its college football videogame.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Scott Kemper Imagery

• 💊 Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill that doesn’t require a prescription, will be available later this month in major US pharmacies and online.
• 🔬 In a first-of-its-kind experiment, scientists created mini organs from cells floating in the fluid that surrounds a fetus in the womb; researchers say the breakthrough could help monitor and treat congenital conditions before birth.
• 👂🌌 Listen to the cosmos: NASA released three new sonifications – aka data from space turned into sound – of images taken from its Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.

*From our partners: 🖼️ Liven your walls with stunning landscapes and iconic destinations… Images of nature in your workspace are shown to boost focus, productivity, and mood. Save 20% on paper prints from Scott Kemper Imagery with code PAPER20 – sale ends Thursday.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🥟🚫 Trader Joe’s recalled 61,000 pounds of store-branded soup dumplings for possibly containing hard plastic. | 🍔 A 70-year-old Wisconsin man recently extended his own Guinness World Record by eating his 34,000th Big Mac.
• 📁 Jack Teixeira, a 22-year-old former Air National guardsman, accepted a 16-year prison sentence for leaking highly classified Pentagon documents early last year.
• 🗳️ Nikki Haley won her first 2024 Republican presidential primary on Sunday, defeating Trump 63%-33% in Washington, D.C.; a total of 2,035 people voted.

CLICKBAIT

• ✈️🌌 An inside look at NASA's newest space plane.

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

• 😴 A quarter of American adults (25%) say they take at least one nap per day. (Read more)
• 🚫📉 The percentage of US adults who support banning TikTok fell from 50% to 38% between March and December of last year. (Read more)
• 📺 The cost of televisions as a category has declined by 98% in the US since 2000. (Read more)
• 🌿 54% of Americans now live in a state where recreational marijuana use is legal, up from 0% at the start of 2012. (Read more)
• 🇺🇸 As of 2018, an estimated 74% of all US adults were overweight and nearly 43% of adults were obese, per CDC data. (Read more)

Yesterday, we covered Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that the ChatGPT-maker broke its founding agreement to pursue AI research for the good of humanity instead of profit.

❓ Our question to you: What are your thoughts on the idea that artificial intelligence represents an existential threat to humanity?

• 👍 Strongly agree: 35%
• 📈 Kinda agree: 30%
• ↔️ Neutral: 12%
• 📉 Kinda disagree: 12%
• 👎 Strongly disagree: 11%

Click here to read some of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 4,479 votes and 382 longform responses.

UK trash collectors Steve Whitehouse and Kevin Marriott were making their daily rounds last week when they noticed flames tearing through a home.

Steve said that as soon as he noticed a young woman yelling for help from her balcony, all he could think about was getting to her "as quickly as possible."

• Steve proceeded to climb up to the second-story balcony three times to rescue a man, a woman, and a dog from the house fire. 
• "One rescue would have been remarkable," said commander Chris Green. "To save the lives of two people and a dog is staggering. We will be putting him forward for official recognition."

❓ Trivia: In which year did GM introduce the Corvette?

🗽 True or False?... New York City was originally called New Amsterdam.

🤔 Riddle Me This… What travels through cities and fields, but never moves?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

❓ Trivia: 1953

🗽 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: A road

*Based on separate individual studies of topical and oral finasteride and minoxidil.

**Terms and Conditions apply; please visit moomoo.com/support/topic4_410 for details.