🏦 Markets: Investors have a lot of information to consider this week, including a town hall event on Thursday featuring Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell. The future of interest rates is a big factor on Wall Street these days, and there might be some clues revealed during that event.

Other economic indicators will be dropping over the next few days, including updates about the housing market and the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, which will provide a glimpse into the latest inflationary trends.

We know it may sound too good to be true. But thousands of investors are already smiling all the way to the bank, thanks to the fine-art investing platform Masterworks.

These results aren’t cherry-picking. This is the whole bushel. Masterworks has built a track record of 16 exits, including net returns of +10.4%, +27.3%, and +35.0%, even while financial markets plummeted.

But art? Really? Okay, skeptics, here are the numbers. Contemporary art prices:

• outpaced the S&P 500 by 131% over the last 26 years
• have the lowest correlation to equities of any asset class
• remained stable through the dot-com bubble and ’08 crisis

Got your attention yet? Early Chirp readers can skip the waitlist with this exclusive link.

🏈 Safety dance: When Shenandoah University brought out a safety during a recent football game against Juniata, the player came out and chalked up a quarterback hurry. It was the 5’ 6” junior’s first appearance in a game — and the first ever of a female (other than a kicker) in the history of the NCAA. Despite her team’s loss, Haley Van Voorhis described the experience as “amazing” and said her intention was to “do [her] thing” and show “what women can do” if given a chance.

🎤 Ushered in: Fans of the NFL and R&B alike now have a reason to tune in for the Super Bowl in February. Grammy award winner Usher has been confirmed as the headlining act in the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show. The news was released on Sunday and the “Yeah!” crooner called it “an honor of a lifetime” to perform on the massive stage. While checking a big item off of his bucket list, Usher vowed to bring a “show unlike anything else” his fans have seen before.

🦩 Flip the bird: Lake Michigan is home to a wide array of wildlife, but a group of creatures locals aren’t used to seeing recently made an appearance in Wisconsin. Five flamingos reportedly arrived in Port Washington and started walking along the beach much to the surprise of those in the area. It’s the first time the bird has been seen in the state, but flamingos have been spotted in other unusual locations, apparently forced to move north when Hurricane Idalia hit last month.

🌠 Rock star: NASA is touting the success of a first-of-its-kind mission this week after a capsule landed back on Earth following a seven-year journey billions of miles out into space. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was able to collect rock samples and other elements from an asteroid, giving researchers a unique opportunity to learn more about the universe. The capsule will likely be opened today or tomorrow, but it will be some time before the contents can be weighed.

The surprise hit film “Oppenheimer” has brought a lot of attention to the development of the atomic bomb, but for residents of Los Alamos, New Mexico, this period of history has always hit close to home.

It’s where testing during the top-secret Manhattan Project took place, ultimately leading to the creation of the very first nuclear warheads. Now there’s a related project underway there.

An ambitious program

The world is in a precarious place these days with nuclear threats from Russia, China, and North Korea pointing to the potential for a devastating war. In preparing for such an uncertain future, it’s vital for America’s nuclear arsenal to remain in proper working order, which requires a lot of upkeep and modernization.

Where better to take on that mission than in the birthplace of the atomic bomb?

Here’s a brief overview of what’s taking place at the Los Alamos National Laboratory:

• Almost 17,300 employees are currently working there.
• That number has increased by roughly 3,300 in just two years.
• Workers are part of a $750 billion nuclear overhaul program.

The town’s location and deeply engrained sense of secrecy surrounding nuclear weapons made it a perfect choice for this project, but there’s a downside.

A major interruption

Since most of the people working at the laboratory commute from other areas of New Mexico, the population of Los Alamos more than doubles during the workweek.

This has led to major concerns about the availability of housing, a huge spike in traffic, encroachment into neighboring forests and Native American land, and a host of other potential ramifications.

Nevertheless, in an area where many locals can trace their family tree back to those who were somehow involved in the Manhattan Project, keeping the U.S. nuclear defense system in operation is worth the sacrifice.

There’s an entire generation of young adults who never lived a day without widespread access to the World Wide Web. But for those of us who are a little older, it’s possible to remember those days in the early to mid-'90s when only a select few people had the capability of logging on (via a chaotic and slow landline) to surf the internet.

The university roots

Tracing the modern internet back to its absolute earliest days requires a look at the comparatively prehistoric programs used primarily by specialists and university departments to communicate with each other way back in the ‘60s. But over the next three decades, the systems became more user-friendly and cheaper to produce, meaning that more and more people received access to the net.

The web used around the world today is a largely homogenized user interface that allows ordinary folks to make sense of the highly complex internet. Much of the credit for that progress goes to researchers and early adopters in the land down under.

The Aussie initiative

It’s now been 30 years since the first websites started showing up on computers in Australia, which was made possible by the establishment of the country’s first web server in 1992.

That server was made possible by David Green, who was working at the Australian National University in Canberra, and when word started to spread, his fellow citizens were eager to learn more.

When 1995 began, there were only about 200 websites. By the middle of the same year, that number had multiplied many times over. And there were hundreds of thousands by the time the 21st century rolled around.

The entire world was learning about the web during these years, but Australia’s independent streak made it a clear leader in this brave new digital world.

Just six years ago, Jeffrey Simpson and Jared Chassen were business partners who launched a New York real estate development company that’s now valued at $1 billion. But the glory days are far behind them now and they’re currently at each other’s throats in court.

What they’re saying

For his part, Simpson is accusing the co-founder of Arch Companies of attempting to “wrest control” of the company away from him, asserting that he should be paid restitution for personal injury.

Describing Chassen’s behavior as a “coup d’etat,” Simpson is accusing his ex-partner of attempting to fire him, locking him out of the company’s office, and preventing him from accessing corporate funds.

But Chassen says that Simpson is guilty of misappropriating funds, noting that it was Simpson who fired him first.

It seems that they went back and forth attempting to fire each other, and now a clearly exasperated judge has the unenviable task of trying to sort the whole mess out.

“Kind of flabbergasted”

Judge Joel Cohen heard the case and, at least on the surface, it seemed that Simpson would have the upper hand. Although both men are listed on the company’s website as cofounders, relevant documents indicate that Simpson’s share is 1% greater than Chassen’s. That wasn’t enough to convince Cohen to rule in Simpson’s favor, though. Instead, the judge chastised both of them in a recent hearing, insisting that they were both acting in a “frankly childish” manner.

“I’m really kind of flabbergasted by this,” he said. “I don’t get surprised by too many things.”

Thanks to Cohen’s intervention, both men have been reinstated to their respective positions. But with projects across New York and beyond, it’s unclear what impact their bad blood will have on the company’s future.