Good morning. Huge news over here at DONUT HQ: yesterday we had our very first ALL-HANDS MEETING!!

You’re probably thinking, “Hm, sounds like a pretty normal thing to do.”

Sure, for a normal company. But not us. We’re wacky. Our fearless leader Peter wanted to wait two-plus years before getting everyone together to – and he said this in a super Godfather voice – “make sure everybody was loyal to the family.”

He makes us all watch the Godfather movies on repeat even the third one which stinks but he says “life is full of ups and downs, donuts and do nots.”

Anyway, the all-hands was great. We finally talked and consoled one another. Then we fired Peter.

Now? We do all-hands every day.✋✋🏼✋🏿✋🏾✋🏻✋🏾

And now, ONTO THE – naaaah, we’re just kidding Peter, we love you. But please, no more Godfather 3 – NEWS!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.98 minutes to read.

“Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.”

–Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently sent a letter to party leaders in Congress, urging them to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling before the US officially reaches its borrowing cap later today. Bear with us as we explain this one – it’s complex but important, and impacts the global economy in a very real way.

☝️ First things first: The US government almost always spends more money in a given year than it takes in via taxes and other revenue. To cover this shortfall, known as the federal deficit, the government borrows money by selling Treasury bonds to investors around the world, who expect the US to pay them back with interest.

Together, these back payments make up America’s national debt, which currently sits at juuuust under $31.4 trillion. That figure also happens to be the maximum amount the US government is currently authorized to borrow by law, aka the federal debt ceiling.

• America’s debt ceiling can only be raised by an act of Congress. Doing so doesn’t incur any new government spending, but instead authorizes the Treasury to borrow more to pay for expenses Congress approves through a separate process.

📅 That brings us to the present-day… House Republicans, who took the majority in the chamber earlier this month, are insisting that any agreement on raising the debt limit also include federal spending cuts, a demand that Senate Democrats and the White House have rejected.

🏛️ So, what happens if the ceiling is reached?... If the US fails to pay interest payments to bondholders, then the federal government would be in default for the first time ever. This would lower America’s credit rating, increase the cost of the national debt, and potentially set off a global economic crisis.

• However, a possible government default is still months away. If Congress fails to reach a deal on the debt ceiling before today’s deadline, the Treasury can take “extraordinary measures” to manage cash flow under the $31.4 trillion limit – though Secretary Yellen said those measures would likely be exhausted by early June.

+Blast from the past: In 2011, Congress held a similar standoff over government spending and the debt limit. Despite lawmakers reaching a deal two days before a potential default, the situation caused a downgrade of the US credit rating, which led to a stock market crash.

🇳🇿 New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern announced plans to resign next month. In her surprise announcement yesterday, Ardern said she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job, and will officially step down on February 7 ahead of a general election set for October. It’s still unclear who will replace Ardern as the new Labour Party leader and prime minister, with internal elections set for Sunday. Ardern became the world’s youngest female head of government when she was elected prime minister in 2017 at the age of 37.

🇨🇳 Marvel movies are returning to China for the first time in three years. The latest sequels to Black Panther and Ant-Man will be released in theaters across China next month, marking the first Marvel movies to debut in the country since Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2019. China’s government, which tightly controls the domestic movie market, has never explained why it banned the next five Marvel films after that. The original Black Panther earned $105 million in China, while Ant-Man and its first sequel made a combined $226 million.

🇺🇦 Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi and some of his top officials were killed in a helicopter crash yesterday. A government helicopter carrying six ministry officials and three crew members crashed into a kindergarten in Kyiv, killing at least 14 people, including one child and everyone onboard the aircraft. There were no initial signs of foul play, per WaPo, with Ukrainian officials saying they still haven’t determined whether the crash, which occurred in a dense fog, was an accident or related to the war. Monastyrskyi is the highest-ranking Ukrainian official killed since Russia invaded nearly 11 months ago.

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Like walking through a field of thorns after escaping from a giant pair of evil scissors, the cuts keep coming for the tech sector. Both Microsoft and Amazon began a round of layoffs yesterday – 10,000 workers and 18,000 workers, respectively – joining tech industry peers Meta, Alphabet, and Salesforce, who have also announced job cuts over the past few months.

And while each company is different, most are blaming their headcount reductions on macroeconomic conditions and the possibility of a future recession. Microsoft CEO Satya Natella, in an email sent to employees announcing the layoffs, said the company is seeing its customers cutting back on spending and working to “do more with less.” Amazon’s worldwide retail chief also mentioned uncertain economic times in a memo announcing the company’s cuts.

But there’s something else at play, too. Both companies scaled up headcount significantly to meet pandemic-era demand… and are now beginning to reorient themselves amid broader cost-cutting measures.

• Amazon added 310,000 jobs in 2021, one year after growing its workforce by half a million employees (it currently has ~1.5 million workers).
• Microsoft added 40,000 employees from June 2021 to June 2022, bringing its total headcount to 221,000 employees. The year before that, the tech giant added 18,000 employees.

💼📉 Zoom out: It’s not just the tech sector that’s sounding like a 2023 version of Jim Mora (layoffs?!). 61% of business leaders say their organizations will likely have layoffs in 2023, according to a newly-published report from Resume Builder.

The average US knowledge worker spends 47 seconds on any one computer, phone, or tablet screen before switching to another screen, per new research from scientists at UC Berkeley and Microsoft, which also found attention spans have been shrinking in America for nearly two decades.

🧠 More details… The researchers have used sophisticated computer logging techniques to measure Microsoft employees’ attention spans dating back to 2004.

When they first started, workers averaged 150 seconds on one screen before switching to another. By 2012, that number had declined to 75 seconds – and by 2021, it was 47 seconds, with the average worker checking their email inboxes 77 times per day.

• From Gen Z to Boomer, and from entry-level worker to CEO, the researchers observed a similar decline in attention span across all age groups and job positions.
• They also cited other studies over the same period that replicated their results within three seconds.

📸 Big picture: Still with us? Great😅. We just have one more fact to share: according to a Microsoft Canada study, the average human attention span fell nearly 25% from 2000–2015 to reach 8.25 seconds – or a lower attention span than a goldfish. (Though some scientists have pushed back on that claim.)

💬 Quoted…​​ “In December I started seeing him on TV… I recognized his face, and it just turned my stomach when I saw him.”

Disabled veteran Richard Osthoff has accused George Santos, the newly-elected Republican congressman from New York, of stealing $3,000 from the GoFundMe campaign for Osthoff’s dog, per CBSNews (😳). Santos has denied the claim.

• Santos, who has already been accused of lying about his religious past, work history, and – per a NY Times report published yesterday – that his mother was working in the South Tower when 9/11 happened, was granted roles on two House Committees this past Tuesday.

💰🏛 Stat of the Day: More than 1 in 3 members of Congress (92 Democrats and 104 Republicans) received political donations from former FTX execs, including SBF, per a new report from Coindesk.

🤯 Did You Know?... When a Prime member visits Amazon.com, there’s a 74% chance they end up buying something, per a recent study from website traffic measurement firm Millward Brown Digital.

📖 Worth a Read: The Chess World’s New Villain: A Cat Named Mittens → (WSJ)

• ☝️ Meet Atlas, a new humanoid robot from Boston Dynamics with brand-new hands allowing it to pick up and drop (or throw) heavy objects.

*Correction: Yesterday’s image depicting a star being swallowed by a black hole was an artists’ illustration of what Hubble captured, not actual pics from Hubble itself. This is the 35th correction out of the 260 newsletters we’ve published since January 2022.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 All three major indexes fell yesterday. (Dow: -1.8% | S&P: -1.6% | Nasdaq: -1.2%) | Retail sales for December dropped by a seasonally adjusted 1.1% month-over-month, the largest decrease in 2022.
• 🏦 Genesis will file for bankruptcy in the coming week, per multiple reports; the crypto lender gave loans to now-bankrupt Alameda Research and Three Arrows Capital.
• 🏠🍎 Apple announced an updated HomePod smart speaker yesterday; it costs $299, and comes with humidity/temperature sensors and Matter protocol integration. | In other Apple news: the tech giant has paused development on its augmented reality (AR) glasses, per Bloomberg, shifting focus to its mixed-reality (AR and VR) headsets slated for release later this year.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 Maya Moore, the winner of four WNBA and two NCAA Championships along with two Olympic gold medals, announced her retirement from basketball on Monday; Moore paused her career in 2019 to help overturn the wrongful conviction of her childhood friend and future husband Jonathan Irons, who was released in 2020.
• 🍿 M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to thriller film M3GAN, has been officially slated for a 2025 release; M3GAN has made over $91 million globally on a $12 million budget (and is still in theaters).
• 📺🏅 ESPN was the only major TV network to see an increase in 2022 viewership (+14%), per a report from Chartr.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🔭 Astronomers have captured the most distant radio signal from a galaxy ever recorded, from a system located 8.8 billion light-years away.
• 🚀 NASA is funding an experimental new nuclear rocket design that could eventually take astronauts from Earth to Mars in just 45 days; using current tech that journey takes ~7 months.
• 😬 US-based media publication CNET is currently reviewing the 75+ AI-written articles it’s posted since early November, after Futurism first reported major errors in at least one article. (Background)

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🙏 Sister André of France, believed to be the oldest person in the world, died Tuesday at the age of 118.
• ✈️ The FAA is investigating a collision yesterday morning between a JetBlue plane and the tail of another parked aircraft at JFK International Airport; it’s the second such incident at JFK in the past week.
• 🌎 The State Department is launching a new program today that will allow thousands of everyday Americans to privately sponsor refugees and help them resettle in the US.

CLICKBAIT

• 🐈 Quirky cat photography that’ll make you smile.

Yesterday we covered how there’s been a big uptick in unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings by members of the US Armed Forces.

❓ Our question to you: Do you think any UAP sightings are actually alien in nature?

• 👍 Yes: 38%
• 👎 No: 40%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 22%

Follow-up question for the “Yes” folks: Do you think the aliens have good or bad intentions for humanity?

• 👍 Good: 79%
• 👎 Bad: 21%

Click here to read some of the best responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 8,441 votes, and 553 longform responses.

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• The Army Corps Of Engineers released a 2023 calendar of giant cats attacking US infrastructure → (Sunny 106.3)
• Police dog accused of stealing fellow officer's lunch → (CBS Detroit)
• German riot police tormented by ‘mud wizard’ at proposed coal mine protest → (The Global Herald)
• Australian woman breaks archery world record using her feet → (UPI)
• Swedish gov't moves to get rid of permits needed for dancing → (APNews)

CROWDSOURCED

Have you ever encountered a glitch in the matrix, quirky animal behavior, or even just a hilarious first grader? Tell us about it here for a chance to be featured in next Thursday’s newsletter.

👨 Who: Joe S. from Cincinatti, OH

💬 The experience: "When I was pretty young, I had an irrational fear of thunderstorms, and once a week I would hear this low grumbling noise while I was in bed drifting off to sleep. This noise would scare me as it sounded like a storm coming in right outside my window. Fast forward a year or so for me to realize on my own that it was my father rolling the dumpster out to the curb for trash day."

P.S. Don’t forget to share your odd or hilarious experience with us here.

Jay Withey is a mechanic in Cheektowaga, NY. And when the town was hit with a record-breaking blizzard last month, stranding himself and many others in their cars, he sprang into action and became a hero overnight. 

❄️ Quick thinking... Jay pulled over as the blizzard swooped over the roads; it didn't take long for him to realize he needed to find shelter – and fast. 

• The mechanic broke into a nearby school building and rescued nearly two-dozen other stranded New Yorkers from their cars, helping them take shelter and wait out the storm. 

🦸🏻‍♂️ Everyday hero... Last week, Jay was rewarded for his efforts by former Bills running back Thurman Thomas. His prize? Two tickets to next month’s Super Bowl LVII.

Which major city (pictured above) resides in both Europe and Asia?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

👆 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 who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

Istanbul, Turkey