Good morning. It’s Thursday, March 20, and the Earth is still doing its celestial thing. Today is the spring equinox, meaning the sun is doing its twice-a-year balancing act, making day and night almost equal. In the Northern Hemisphere, this means spring is here—hence the flood of people suddenly pretending they like hiking. Meanwhile, on this day in 1969, John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar, officially solidifying their status as the most talked-about couple in rock history. That’s your history and astronomy lesson for the day. Now go forth, embrace the season, and enjoy the read.

Today’s stories:

• Boston Dynamics robots now teaching themselves

• Google drops $32B on cloud security gamble

• BYD’s new charger makes Tesla look slow

• Astronauts return after 9 months in space

• Strategy bets another $500M on Bitcoin

• Boeing stock soars as cash burn slows

• New planets found, but don’t pack yet

• Chicago dyes its river green, again

• Harvard joins the free tuition club

  and more…

Wall Street rallied Wednesday, with the S&P 500 clawing back more losses from its late-February slump after the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its plan for two rate cuts in 2025. The Dow jumped 383 points (0.92%) to 41,964.63, while the S&P 500 rose 1.08% to 5,675.29. The Nasdaq led the charge, climbing 1.41% to 17,750.79.As expected, the Fed held rates steady at 4.25%-4.5% but stuck to its forecast for two cuts this year—though it admitted growing “uncertainty” around the economic outlook. Translation: rate cuts are still on the table, but don’t get too comfortable just yet.

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Google Drops $32B on Wiz

Google just made its biggest, riskiest purchase yet—spending $32 billion to acquire cloud security startup Wiz. The goal is to close the massive gap between Google Cloud and its rivals, Amazon and Microsoft, who are raking in over $100 billion each from cloud services, while Google sits at just $43 billion. Ouch. The AI boom isn’t slowing down, and Google is betting Wiz can help secure its spot in the race. But first, it has to make the merger work and avoid regulators who love throwing wrenches into big deals. CEO Sundar Pichai says security is more important than ever, AI is a double-edged sword, and Wiz + Google Cloud will make everything safer. For $32 billion, it better.

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Boeing shares take off. Boeing stock jumped 6% Wednesday after CFO Brian West assured investors that the company is finally burning less cash and getting its factories back on track. After years of safety scandals, production disasters, and a $14 billion cash drain in 2024, this was the kind of news Wall Street wanted to hear. West, speaking at a Bank of America conference, said cash burn could improve by “hundreds of millions” this quarter. Even the Pennsylvania fastener factory fire in February won’t mess with Boeing’s production goals—thanks to “elevated inventory,” aka a giant parts stockpile. Boeing hasn’t posted an annual profit since 2018, but hey, investors love a comeback story. For now, the stock is flying again. Let’s see if it stays in the air.

Strategy drops another $500M to hoard more Bitcoin. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is selling $500 million in preferred stock to buy more Bitcoin—because apparently, there’s no such thing as too much crypto. The stock carries a 10% annual dividend and will be priced later this week after a mini roadshow. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Citigroup are handling the deal, which won’t be rated (confidence-inspiring). This comes right after Strategy dropped $10.7 million on Bitcoin and announced plans to issue up to $21 billion in preferred stock to grab even more. The company has basically turned into a Bitcoin hedge fund at this point. Hope it works out.

Boston Dynamics’ Robots Are Getting Smarter

Boston Dynamics’ robots aren’t just doing backflips anymore—they’re teaching themselves new tricks. Founder Marc Raibert says reinforcement learning is making machines more independent, using trial, error, and digital pats on the back to improve. In a new video, Atlas—the world’s most unsettlingly human robot—is showing off its AI-enhanced moves, trained with motion capture and animation. Boston Dynamics teamed up with the Robotics and AI Institute for this, as if robots weren’t already creepy enough.

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BYD makes Tesla look slow. BYD just unveiled a charging system that powers up an EV as fast as filling a gas tank. Yep, five minutes gets you 249 miles. No more waiting, no more excuses. Investors ate it up—shares jumped 4.1%. Meanwhile, Tesla’s fastest chargers suddenly look ancient at half the speed. BYD started as a battery company in 1995 and now pumps out more EVs than almost anyone. Elon might want to take notes.

New planets found close to Earth. Don’t pack your bags yet. Astronomers have confirmed four planets orbiting a star just 6 light-years away, making them some of the closest known exoplanets. The discovery, published last week, was made using some of the world’s biggest telescopes, including the Gemini Telescope in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope in Chile (subtle name, guys).

Nine months in space, 45 days to recover. After nine months in space, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are back on Earth, where gravity is a thing again. They splashed down off the Florida coast and are now in Houston for a 45-day recovery program to help their bodies readjust. First challenge is balancing. Without gravity, their inner ears took a long nap, so standing up can feel like stepping off a roller coaster. NASA doctors are helping them regain strength with daily workouts and medical checkups. Meanwhile, when SpaceX’s Crew-9 capsule landed in the Gulf of Mexico, a pod of dolphins showed up, possibly hoping for alien contact. Sorry, guys, just some very dizzy humans trying to remember how to walk.

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Harvard Joins the Tuition-Free Club

Harvard just announced free tuition for families earning under $200K, jumping on the Ivy League’s latest trend. Princeton, MIT, Penn, and others already did it, with Princeton flexing hardest by covering tuition, room, and board for families under $100K. Harvard, feeling the pressure, is now matching that and upping its free tuition game. With annual costs at $83K, this move was overdue. But hey, if you can survive the admissions process, at least the price tag won’t make you cry.

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Chicago turned its river green, again. It’s that time of year—Chicago has once again dumped a questionable amount of green dye into its river to kick off St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Over the weekend, Chicago once again dumped a questionable amount of green dye into its river to kick off St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Thousands showed up, cheered, and pretended this was normal. The Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union kept up their 63-year tradition, proving that if you do something weird long enough, it becomes beloved. 

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TikTok of the day: watch here