Good morning and welcome back. If you're having trouble getting out of bed, just remember: one great thing about long weekends is they make for short workweeks.🥳

But on a more serious note: Thank you to the fallen for making the ultimate sacrifice.🇺🇸🙏

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.60 minutes to read.

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man."

–Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

Average US gas prices hit a record high of $4.62 per gallon over the Memorial Day weekend, per data from AAA.

⛽ Why is it so expensive?... Broadly speaking, a mishmash of several things.

• When the Covid pandemic first hit, crude oil prices fell to record lows and remained cheap for most of 2020, leading major suppliers to slash production. Oil demand is now roughly back to where it was pre-Covid, but oil production – which takes a lot longer to restart – has only partially recovered.
• Gas prices also jumped in the aftermath of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Many developed nations imposed retaliatory energy sanctions on Russia, which supplies ~10% of global oil demand.
• In recent months, gas companies have also switched to the more expensive summer blend of fuel, which can add up to 15 cents per gallon.

🧠 In the know: The price of gas is directly linked to the cost of crude oil (from which it's refined). Every $10 increase in the cost of a barrel of crude adds roughly 25 cents to the price of a gallon at the pump.

👀 Looking ahead… According to a recent JPMorgan report, the nationwide average for a gallon of gas could surpass $6.20 by August, after California crossed the $6 threshold this month for the first time in state (and US) history.

There are roughly 1.4 million fewer US college students now than before the pandemic began, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

🎓 A deeper dive… 662,000 fewer students enrolled in US undergraduate programs this spring compared to last, marking the 12th straight year that enrollment has declined. Overall, the number of college students fell 4.7% from Spring 2021, which itself was a 3.5% decline from the previous year.

• Community colleges accounted for more than half of the decline this spring, and have lost over 827,000 students since the pandemic began.
• Despite student losses in other areas, elite colleges and universities have continued to attract an overflow of applicants. All eight Ivy League schools are at or near all-time highs, along with institutions like Stanford, MIT and Duke.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: While the pandemic is blamed as the primary reason for college enrollment declines since 2019, falling birth rates are expected to play a much larger role in US enrollment going forward.

• Births fell 17% across the US from 2007 through 2020, which means the current dip in enrollment is likely going to accelerate once that population starts reaching college age in a few years.

More than 6,500 flights were canceled over the weekend, according to data from flight-tracking website FlightAware. Delta was the worst-hit among US airlines, with more than 9% of its operations eliminated on Saturday.

🚫✈️ What’s going on?... “Weather and air traffic control, vendor staffing, [and] increased Covid case rates contributing to higher-than-planned unscheduled absences in some work groups,” per Delta’s Chief Customer Experience Officer Allison Ausband.

It could get worse for the industry, too.

• Many forecasters believe the number of travelers this summer will match or even surpass the good-ole pre-pandemic days.
• But airlines have thousands of fewer employees than in 2019, and that has at times contributed to widespread flight cancellations.

📸 The big picture: ​​All of the above + fuel prices are contributing to steeper fares and reduced carrier schedules (which also leads to higher fares). American planned to fly as much as 94% of its 2019 schedule during this quarter, while United expected to fly 87% and Delta planned to fly 84%.

• Domestic airline flights for this summer are averaging more than $400 for a round trip, 24% higher than this time in 2019, and 45% higher than a year ago, according to travel-data firm Hopper.

💭Just imagine… all the useful things you could learn if you took control of your content feed. The amount of time we waste reading junk or looking for decent content is appalling.😖

If we put all of that time toward learning about something meaningful, our lives would be far different.

They’d be better. We’d be more informed. We’d be more advanced in our fields and interests. We might have learned skills we didn’t even know we could. We might’ve been exposed to something new that became a lifelong passion.

🥱 Wrap it up already… the point here is we waste a LOT of time in our pursuit of knowledge/entertainment. (Thanks, Captain Obvious.)

Why not let those things come to you every morning instead?

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💰🎓 The White House on Friday denied a WaPo article reporting that the Biden administration has decided to cancel $10,000 in federal student loan debt per borrower.

• WaPo cited three internal sources, two of which said the cancellation would only apply to Americans who earned less than $150,000 last year (or $300,000 for joint filers); these criteria would encompass 97% of all federal student debt holders.
• All three sources claimed President Biden had planned to announce the debt cancellation this past weekend before the school shooting in Uvalde, TX, changed his timing, though a White House spokesperson said “no decisions have been made yet.”

📸 The big picture: Last month, the Biden administration extended the pause on federal student loan payments – initiated at the start of the pandemic – through August 31.

• More than 40 million Americans owe a combined ~$1.6 trillion in federal student debt, an amount larger than credit-card or auto debt. Nearly 80% of federal borrowers made no payments during the pandemic freeze.
• Canceling $10,000 in debt for every student borrower – a campaign pledge from Biden – would cost the US government roughly $245 billion, according to the nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

+Dig deeper: From the Left | From the Right | See the 360° View

• ☝️🌋 You’ve heard of Sharknado… but what about a sharkcano? NASA satellites recently captured footage of a major eruption from the massive underwater volcano, which is home to at least two species of sharks.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US stocks rose across the board on Friday (Dow: +1.8% | S&P: +2.5% | Nasdaq: +3.3%), with all three major indexes closing the week up at least 6%; domestic markets were closed yesterday for the holiday.
• 🇷🇺🛢️ The European Union agreed on a plan to block more than two-thirds of Russian oil imports, with exceptions carved out for landlocked countries like Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
• 🏘️ The number of US homes for sale is 9% higher than the same time last year.
• 🪙 The price of Luna 2.0 (aka Terra 2.0) – the reboot of a failed crypto venture with a market cap above $40 billion as recently as last month – fell from nearly $20 to under $5 on Saturday. (Background from the DONUT)

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 The NBA Finals are set: The Golden State Warriors will face the Boston Celtics, with Game 1 set for Thursday in San Francisco.
• 🍿 Top Gun: Maverick set an all-time Memorial Day weekend box office record, earning $156 million over four days; its Fri-Sun haul of $126 million marks the first time a Tom Cruise-led film surpassed $100 million in a single weekend.
• ⚽️ Real Madrid beat Liverpool 1-0 to win the UEFA Champions League; Liverpool fans were pepper-sprayed trying to enter Champions League final in Paris; French officials say ~70% of tickets presented by Liverpool fans were fake. (Dig deeper.)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🐉 The fossil of a flying “dragon of death” was recently discovered in Argentina, per a new peer-reviewed study; the school bus-sized creature is the largest pterosaur ever found in South America.
• 🪐 NASA’s InSight Mars lander has likely reached the end of its mission due to the craft’s solar panels becoming fully coated in dust; InSight first touched down on the red planet in 2018.
• 💻 The world’s most powerful supercomputer is officially back on US soil; a massive computer in Tennessee became the first machine ever to perform one quintillion operations per second (aka a billion billion), though China has reportedly operated two such devices in secret for over a year.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🍓 The FDA is investigating a Hepatitis A outbreak linked to organic strawberries sold at Walmart, HEB, Trader Joe's, Aldi, Kroger and other major grocers.
• 🔥 A pair of fires that merged to create the largest wildfire in New Mexico history were both started as planned burns by the US Forest Service, NM’s governor announced on Friday.
• 🚨 Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving Saturday evening. (From the Left | From the Right)
• 🏛️ The DOJ is investigating the city of Uvalde’s law enforcement response to last week’s mass shooting; according to reports, the gunman spent over an hour inside the school before he was killed by a federal agent despite local officers being at the scene for much of the attack. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… "A man dressed as an old lady jumps out of a wheelchair and attempted to smash the bulletproof glass of the Mona Lisa. Then proceeds to smear cake on the glass and throws roses everywhere, all before being tackled by security."

A 36-year-old man was arrested and placed in psychiatric care yesterday after attempting to smear the Mona Lisa with cake as part of a climate protest. 

• No images have been released depicting the actual incident unfolding, so all we have to go on are firsthand descriptions and images/videos from Twitter. (Like the ones above.)

🌊⛑️ Stat of the Day: Roughly one-third of America’s 300,000+ public pools were closed over the weekend due to a severe lifeguard shortage, per the American Lifeguard Association.

🤯 Did You Know?... In modern physics, the double-slit experiment is a demonstration that shows light and matter both display characteristics of waves and particles.

• Confused? Just watch this quick video.

📖 Worth a Read: Alex Honnold, the World's Boldest Climber, Just Became a Dad. Now What? → (Fatherly)

"I have no idea how to fly the airplane"... is all flight instructor Robert Morgan heard over the radio from a plane already in the air. 

The aircraft's pilot had gone incoherent from a possible medical condition, forcing passenger Darren Harrison to step into the cockpit.

• Thanks to Robert's calm guidance, Darren was able to safely land the plane at Palm Beach International Airport. No one was injured in the process.

🛬 Mind = boggled... "Did you say the passengers landed the airplane?" said one American Airlines pilot who witnessed the landing. "Oh, my God. Great job!"

+Bonus: We first covered this story in our Hot Corner section a few weeks back.

Can you guess the definitions of the following root words?

1. Bio
2. Geo
3. Derma
4. Auto
5. Pneu

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

1. Life
2. Earth
3. Skin
4. Self
5. Air/breath