Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖 Amazon unveiled an updated Alexa
• 🤔 Human health: More nature or nurture?
• 🎟️ Fyre Festival is back

… and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.19-minute read (1,115 words).

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"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

–Albus Dumbledore (1881-1997)

Get ready to experience the digital equivalent of meeting a new roommate. At a live event yesterday, Amazon unveiled its revamped Alexa+ voice assistant featuring generative AI.

The new Alexa+ starts rolling out to eligible Echo Show devices in late March, with a wider release over the following months.

• It’ll eventually become available across most existing Echo and Fire TV devices, an “Alexa.com” website, and an updated phone app, per the company.
• The service will be included with a Prime membership, and cost $19.99/month for non-subscribers ($5/month more than Prime).

What can Alexa+ do?

The tech giant demonstrated a range of AI-enhanced features, including its ability to respond to multiple prompts in sequence and to act as an "agent" by taking actions without users’ direct involvement.

• Amazon also says Alexa+ is better at understanding context and more natural user language.
• The upgraded voice assistant can also choose the best AI model available for a given task with the help of Bedrock, Amazon's grab bag of AI services.

Integration is a key selling point. What makes Alexa+ stand out from other AI voice assistants is its ability to seamlessly connect with Amazon’s smart-home devices, according to execs. In yesterday’s event, Amazon demonstrated how Alexa+ can sift through Ring camera footage to answer questions like: “Can you see if anybody walked a dog in the last couple of days?”

📸 Big picture: Alexa+ represents an effort to recoup some of the enormous losses Amazon racked up trying to monetize its voice assistant, which first launched over a decade ago. As of 2021, Amazon had lost more than $25 billion on its devices business, which includes Alexa, Echo, Kindle, and FireTV hardware, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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Those with a fleece tie-blanket-making obsession may need to find a new supplier. Joann, the 80-years-old go-to plug for fabric and crafts-minded individuals, is closing all ~800 of its stores in the US, the retailer announced this week, reversing an earlier bankruptcy plan that would have left some stores open.

Going once, going twice…sold: The company’s assets were auctioned off on Friday, about a month after Joann filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in less than a year.

The auction’s winning bidder, financial services company GA Group, plans to wind down the company’s operations and conduct going-out-of-business sales at all stores over the coming weeks (pending bankruptcy court approval). In February, prior to the auction process, Joann announced plans to close ~60% of its locations.

• The craftsy retailer had been struggling financially for several years following a DIY-driven uptick in sales during the early days of the pandemic, losing market share to online retailers and brick-and-mortar competitors such as Hobby Lobby and Michaels, NPR reports.

A tough week for retail: Party City is shuttering its balloon-and-streamer-filled doors for good by end of business on Friday.

📸 Big picture: Retailers are projected to close a record 15,000 stores this year, more than double the 7,325 closures in 2024, according to Coresight Research.

The nature vs. nurture debate just got some new data. Human health and aging is significantly more impacted by living conditions and lifestyle choices than genetics, according to a new study published in Nature Medicine.

Data dive

Researchers from Oxford Population Health used data from ~500,000 UK participants to assess their genetic risks for 22 major diseases related to aging and premature death, and to track 25 key environmental factors in the participants’ lives. The scientists also measured how quickly the participants were aging biologically using a novel method involving protein in their blood.

What they found: The data showed environmental factors accounted for ~17% of the variation in risk of death, compared to less than 2% explained by genetic risk factors.

• The study found environmental factors had a greater effect on heart, lung, and liver diseases, while a person’s genes had a greater impact on whether they’d develop breast cancer or a form of dementia.
• Overall, smoking, socioeconomic status, and physical activity had the greatest impact on mortality and biological aging.

💬 Bottom line: While the study has several limitations, like focusing solely on one country, it’s led some researchers to conclude that nurture generally has more of an impact on health and aging than nature.

Spencer Rascoff co-founded Zillow, scaling it into a $16B real estate giant. But everyday investors couldn’t invest until after the IPO, missing early gains.

• "I wish we had done a round accessible to retail investors prior to Zillow's IPO," Spencer later said.
• Now he’s doing just that. Spencer has teamed up with another Zillow exec to launch Pacaso. Pacaso’s co-ownership marketplace is disrupting the $1.3T vacation home market. And unlike Zillow, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.

With $100M+ in gross profits and rapid international expansion, Pacaso is scaling fast. Investors like Softbank, Maveron, and others are already on board.

Join them as a Pacaso shareholder and lock in the $2.70 share price by tonight at midnight.**

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📊 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.01%; Dow: -0.4%; Nasdaq: +0.3%). | 🔀 The 10-year Treasury yield passed below that of the 3-month note in Wednesday trading; in market lingo, it’s known as an “inverted yield curve.”
• 💊 Eli Lilly plans to spend at least $27 billion to build four new manufacturing sites in the US.
• 🤖 Nvidia reported Q4 results that came in above analysts' expectations; revenue in the quarter rose 78%.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Dyce Games

• 🏀 WNBA superstar Diana Taurasi is retiring after a two-decade career; her resume includes an MVP (2009), three WNBA titles, and six Olympic gold medals. | ⛹️ Luka Dončić notched a triple-double in his first-ever game against the Dallas Mavericks, his former team, en route to a 107-99 LA Lakers win.
• 🎬 Michelle Trachtenberg, an actress known for her roles on Buffy and Gossip Girl, died at 39.
• 🔥 Eight years and one prison sentence later, Billy McFarland is back; Fyre Festival 2 tickets went on sale this week.

*From our partners: 🏆🗿 The greatest trivia game in the history of humankind… Six diverse categories, 2,400+ history-related questions, and gripping strategy. Save 25% on the official HISTORY Channel Trivia Game from Dyce Games.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌊 A collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a vital ocean current, is unlikely to happen this century, as some scientists claim, per a new study. | 🌍 Humans were living in African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago, per another new study.
• 🙏 An unvaccinated child who tested positive for measles died in West Texas, according to the state’s health department; it marks the first death in an outbreak that’s infected ~140 people.
• 🔴 A new NASA-funded study revealed the iron mineral ferrihydrite is likely responsible for Mars' distinctive red color, suggesting the planet once had a cool, wet, and possibly habitable environment. | 🚀 A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched into space last night carrying several exploratory craft, including a pair of Moon landers and the first-ever asteroid mining ship.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with Commons

• ✈️🏖️ Spring break travel is more expensive this year; the average trip costs $8,306, up 26% from last year and 100+% from 2019.
• 🇺🇦🇺🇸 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’s unsure whether he’ll travel to Washington on Friday to sign a proposed mineral rights deal; he also said the deal’s success depends on future conversations with Trump. | 🇮🇷 Iran boosted its stockpile of near weapons-grade fuel by 50% since late October, and now has enough for six nuclear weapons, per a new UN report.
• 🏛️ The Trump administration will reportedly require illegal immigrants living in the US to submit their personal info to a national registry or face fines and prison time. | 🏛️ President Trump proposed a $5 million “gold card” granting permanent US residency to foreigners; it would end an existing program offering green cards to foreigners who invest at least $900,000 in the US.

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YouTube is starting to rack up more titles than Daenerys Targaryen.

In addition to ranking as America’s most-watched streaming service and second-most-visited website, the Alphabet-owned video platform has now leapfrogged Spotify to become the most popular podcasting platform in the US, according to a new Bloomberg report – which states 1+ billion people are viewing podcast content on YouTube every single month.

It’s been a concerted push: YouTube has expanded its podcast analytics offerings, recommended more podcast content to users, and offered podcasters as much as $300,000 to entice them to create video versions of their shows.

Spotify is also leaning into video podcasts. In January, the platform rolled out a new partner program that lets popular podcast hosts monetize video content.

☝️You’re looking at the world’s smallest pacemaker, which was recently placed inside 12-day-old infant Mikey Oliveri’s heart; the device is the size of a large vitamin, and weighs about as much as a penny.

🤔 Did You Know? The Rosetta Stone, a large stone slab with writings in three different scripts from the ancient Egyptian period, took 23 years to decode following its discovery.

📰 Worth a Read: The quest to extend human life is both fascinating and fraught with moral peril

🖱️ Clickbait: How "Monopoly" Helped Defend The Free World

Yesterday we covered the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war as well as America’s role in the conflict, following the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

❓ Our question to you: In general, how do you feel about the way America’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has changed since President Trump took office?

• 👍 Support: 27%
• 👎 Oppose: 60%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 13%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,471 votes and 257 longform responses.

❤️ Eighty-seven-year-old Gill Green recently received the Freedom of the Parish Award from her village in Bedfordshire, UK, for 36 years of "selfless and extraordinary" volunteer service. It’s the first time the village has ever awarded its highest accolade.

🏠 ICON, a 3D-printing construction technology company, is partnering with the nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes to build a 100-home neighborhood in Austin, Texas, for people facing chronic homelessness.

🐧🦒 Get your animal art here! The Animal Adventure Park and Preserve in Harpursville, NY, revealed its upcoming gala fundraiser will feature artwork created by penguins, giraffes, capybaras, and other zoo animals.

Hell’s Canyon is located between which two US states?

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