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Good morning and welcome to Tuesday.
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⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today’s newsletter takes 4.71 minutes to read. (With the 360° view: +3.45 minutes.)
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
"Heroes don't need to talk about what they did."
–W.P. Kinsella (1935-2016)
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👇📰 Quick Bits
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🌎 U.S. to World: “Come On In”
 Image: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
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🎁 Yesterday, the U.S. officially ended a pandemic travel ban for 33 countries that had been in place for over a year and a half.
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Incoming travelers from the UK, EU, Brazil, India, China, etc., must be fully vaccinated and present a negative COVID test within 72 hours of departure. Some exceptions exist for minors and those who live in countries where vaccines aren’t accessible.
🔢 By the numbers…
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The countries affected by the travel restrictions comprise just 17% of all countries worldwide but accounted for 53% of all overseas visitors to the U.S. in 2019.
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This means airlines are dancing a happy dance. Delta’s international bookings have increased 450% since the government’s announcement in September about lifting the ban, and United Airlines’ trans-Atlantic bookings for the rest of the year have exceeded its 2019 levels.
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Airlines aren’t the only ones dancing – the whole travel industry is. Home rental platform VRBO reported a more than 160% increase in searches for U.S. vacation homes by foreign travelers since the government’s announcement, Travel + Leisure reports.
📝 Bottom line: Relaxing the restrictions is a big deal, both for separated families who can now be reunited and for the travel industry – and it’s been a pretty tough couple years for the two.
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💰 “Hands Off My Money” –Millennials, Probably
 Image: Gifak-net
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🎁 Wealthy millennials are increasingly relying less on financial advisors and opting to invest on their own, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by research firm Aite-Novarica Group.
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 Image: WSJ
In 2010, 57% of households with a net worth of at least $500,000 headed by a person under 45 had a “strongly” or “mostly” self-directed investing style. In 2019, that number was 70%.
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Nearly half of those households planned to take an above-average level of risk in exchange for an above-average rate of return, up from 35% a decade ago.
✋ Yes, but… Wealth management firms are betting that young people will relent and hire a financial advisor once they get older.
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“When you start to go from the wealth accumulation phase to the retirement phase, the world gets much more complicated,” said Jed Finn, COO of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. “People don’t think they need advice until they need advice.”
📈 Zoom out: More than half of all traders count themselves as millennials, AKA the generation that grew up stanning boy bands and videogames... so maybe nothing's really changed after all.
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Younger folks are also looking to invest in riskier assets like crypto and startups, which usually aren’t an option with mainstream advisors.
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🔥 The Hot Corner
💬 Heard Through the Grapevine… “I owe an apology to Jack Ciattarelli's campaign — and to Phil Murphy's campaign for that matter — because inaccurate public polling can have an impact on fundraising and voter mobilization efforts. But most of all I owe an apology to the voters of New Jersey for information that was at the very least misleading.” –Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, in an op-ed for The (Newark) Star-Ledger.
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Context: Murray was apologizing for a poll six days before the election that showed incumbent Democratic Gov. Murphy up by 11 points over his Republican challenger Ciattarelli. (Murphy ended up winning by a single point.)
🔢 Stat of the Day: Alphabet has officially doubled its value during the pandemic, surpassing a $2 trillion market cap yesterday.
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Alphabet, Tesla, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are the only U.S. companies in the illustrious four-comma club. There’s no word yet on whether its newest member, Tesla, has officially undergone the secret initation ritual.
📖 Worth a Read… We now know the big bang theory is (probably) not how the universe began
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🔥👖 Sponsored by unspun 📱🔥
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The Ballad of Ashley: Finding the Perfect Pair of Jeans
The sound of her iPhone alarm jolted Ashley awake. Her first thought of the day was, “Ugh, I have to go jean shopping.” She hit the snooze button and pulled the blanket over her head.
The feeling of impending doom wasn’t because she hated clothes shopping – nay, it was because she specifically hated shopping for jeans. It was hard, frustrating, and SO time-consuming to find a pair that actually fit.
“I’ll just have a quick scroll before getting out of bed,” Ashley thought, opening her email to read the DONUT. It was there she was hit in the face (figuratively, of course) by an ad for unspun, a sustainable startup promising her the perfect fitting pair of jeans – all from a quick 3D iPhone scan.
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
⚖️ Steele Dossier Source Arrested
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 Igor Danchenko leaving a federal courthouse in Virginia on Thursday; Image: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
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🎁 Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst who served as a central source for the disputed ‘Steele dossier’ that alleged ties between former President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 election, was arrested last week and charged with five counts of lying to the FBI.
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It marks the third indictment in special counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation into possible misconduct by U.S. law enforcement during the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
📅 Background… Durham was appointed by former AG William Barr in May 2019 to examine the origins of the FBI's 2016 investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia (which ultimately led to the Mueller report).
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A December 2019 report from DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz criticized the FBI for “significant errors” in its investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign but said political bias wasn’t a primary factor in its launch. It also refuted claims that the Steele dossier was what prompted the investigation.
📝 A deeper dive… Danchenko was interviewed by the FBI in 2017 in an attempt to verify a political opposition report written by former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele, whose firm was initially hired by anti-Trump Republicans but turned to the Clinton campaign for funding after Trump won the nomination.
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The Steele dossier was published in full by BuzzFeed in 2017. It alleged that Trump campaign members had conspired to cooperate in Russian election interference to benefit Trump, among other things.
Many of its claims are unproven and have been repeatedly denied by Trump and others.
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Thursday’s indictment alleges Danchenko knowingly lied to the FBI – and Steele – about conversations with "sub-sources" that in fact never happened or came from somewhere else.
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Some of the false information in the Steele dossier supplied by Danchenko was later used to obtain a surveillance warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page.
⚖️ Zoom out… Two other people have been indicted as part of Durham’s investigation – an FBI attorney who prepared the surveillance application for Page and a D.C. attorney who specializes in cybersecurity (both of whom were also charged with making false statements).
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⌛ BRB, Moving to Portugal
 Image: Giphy
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🎁 Portugal’s Parliament approved new labor laws on Friday in response to the explosion of remote work caused by the pandemic, Euro News reports.
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📋 Details, details: Companies with more than ten employees in Portugal...
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Can now face fines for contacting workers outside their normal working hours except in exceptional circumstances. They’re also forbidden from monitoring employees while they work at home.
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Must contribute to expenses that workers have incurred as a result of switching to remote working, like bills for electricity or internet, but not water.
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Grant parents with kids under eight years old the ability to work remotely without arranging it in advance; in other words, working from home until your child turns eight is now a right in Portugal.
Also interesting to note: Superiors are expected to organize face-to-face meetings at least every two months with staff in an attempt to combat loneliness.
💻 Looking ahead... Prior to the pandemic, remote work was the exception, not the rule – and now it’s the “new normal.” Around 90% of workers want more flexibility in when and where they work, and nearly 80% of companies intend to make “moderate to extensive hybrid work changes,” according to an Ernst Young survey of 1,000 global business leaders.
+Bonus: To reinvent work, we have to destroy the clock.
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🍩 DONUT Holes…
 Image: Maxar Technologies
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☝️ China has built mock-ups of U.S. Navy ships in its Taklamakan desert, according to satellite photos from Maxar Technologies. (See the 360° view on China’s arms buildup.)
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🎤 Astroworld follow-up: Rapper Travis Scott pledged to refund all attendees, pay the funeral expenses for the 8 victims, and cover mental health counseling for festival-goers; he also canceled his headlining slot at this weekend's Day N Vegas Festival; Scott and fellow rapper Drake are facing multiple lawsuits over their performance at the festival; Event organizer Live Nation is also facing lawsuits.
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🐦 The black-browed babbler, a bird believed to be extinct because it wasn’t seen for 172 years, has been caught on camera.
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🇳🇮 Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega won re-election in a vote that the U.S. and other international observers have described as illegitimate.
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🔒 A group of six private equity firms agreed to take security giant McAfee private in a $14B deal.
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📈 Ethereum reached a record high of $4,700 yesterday; bitcoin rose 7% to reach $66,250.
+Later today: College basketball officially tips off.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🤖 Look Ma, No Needles
 Image: Cobionix
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🎁 A startup named Cobionix invented a robot that can administer vaccines without having to use a needle.
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If you’re someone who REALLY hates needles, you’re not alone – it’s estimated that up to 25% of Americans share the same fear, with many saying it causes them to skip out on vaccines.
🚫💉 Shots fired… A company founded at the University of Waterloo’s tech startup incubator recently created the first robot capable of performing needle-free intramuscular injections.
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Instead, it uses a high-pressure fluid jet – no thicker than a human hair – to painlessly inject the vaccine’s contents into the patient’s tissue.
🏥 Zoom out: The real value of Cobionix’s robot lies in its versatility and ability to complete directives fully autonomously – and with just a few small tweaks and coding changes, the robot can perform an entirely new set of tasks.
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Apart from healthcare, it could also be used in the cleantech and hospitality industries.
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🤗 Dose of Positive
🥔 The Pride of New Zealand
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 Images: USAToday
You probably remember the record-breaking 17-pound potato named Doug we covered in last week’s Weird Wide World.
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This “mutant-like” vegetable was discovered in August by New Zealanders Colin and Donna Craig-Brown, who have become something of a celebrity around their small farm near Hamilton.
📸 Live for the moment… The couple is having all the fun they can manage with Doug before they eventually turn him into potato vodka. (Like, a lot of potato vodka.)
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“We put a hat on him.” shared Donna, “We put him on Facebook, taking him for a walk, giving him some sunshine… It’s all a bit of fun.”
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🌏 Sweet Spot
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Which country first invented dairy-based ice cream ?
A) England
B) Italy
C) Japan
D) China
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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Simply:
1. Copy your unique referral link.👇
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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D) China
While the ancient Romans often enjoyed desserts made from snow, China's Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.) are believed to be the first creators of the milky ice cream we enjoy today.
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The founder of the dynasty, King Tang of Shang, reportedly kept 94 “ice men” on hand to lug ice to the palace to make a dish made of heated & fermented milk, flour, and camphor.
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