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So what are ya waiting for? Apply now by filling out THIS FORM!

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🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.76 minutes to read.

“Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it.”

–George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

It’s been two years to the day since President Biden first took office. What does America think of his presidency so far?

👇 Polls, polls, and more polls… RealClearPolitics’ polling average shows Biden’s approval rating has been trending upwards over the past six-plus months, after reaching an all-time low of 36.8% last summer.

Similarly, FiveThirtyEight’s polling numbers show a gradual increase in Biden’s approval rating since late July. Both sites combine data from hundreds of independent polls.

🔢 More recently, though… President Biden’s approval rating is trending in a negative direction. A Reuters-Ipsos poll published yesterday found it currently stands at 40%, near the lowest mark of his presidency. And a Quinnipiac poll published Wednesday pegs Biden’s approval rating at 36%, down from 40% in mid-December.

As for what’s driving the trend? Here’s a bit of timeline context: though both surveys were officially published this week, they were conducted in the midst of news breaking about the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s former office and his Delaware home.

• Polling conducted just prior to the classified docs news breaking showed Biden’s approval rating over 44% for the first time since fall 2021.

👀 Looking ahead… According to multiple sources, President Biden plans to announce his candidacy for the upcoming 2024 election “not long after” the State of the Union address, which takes place on February 7.

• In a hypothetical matchup with former President Trump – the only person to announce their candidacy so far – Biden leads by a 48% to 41% margin, per a nationwide poll conducted this month for the conservative Club for Growth.
• The poll also found Biden trailing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 42% to 45%.

📊 Flash poll: What do you think about President Biden’s job performance over his first two years?

Strongly approve

Somewhat approve

Neutral

Somewhat disapprove

Strongly disapprove

🇫🇷 More than 1 million people gathered across France yesterday to protest against government plans to raise the retirement age. Earlier this month, the country's PM unveiled a proposal that would raise the minimum age at which residents receive a full government pension from 62 to 64, and would also require that citizens work for at least 43 years to get the full benefit (instead of the previous 42). French unions have announced a series of strikes attempting to get the government to back down from its plans, but President Emmanuel Macron vowed to press ahead regardless, arguing the changes are necessary to keep the pension system financially viable.

🇨🇳 China is launching a new government-owned transportation app, state media reported yesterday. Beijing’s Strong Nation Transport app will reportedly include services for ride-hailing, cargo trucking, railways, ferries, and flights. State media didn’t provide details of why the government is introducing the platform – or whether citizens would be obliged to use it – but it did emphasize the app’s “maximum protection of users’ data security and personal privacy.” The news came one day after Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi, the largest player in the domestic market, became eligible to sign up new users for the first time in 18 months, after being banned for unspecified “vile” breaches of China’s data security laws.

🇺🇦 The US and nine European countries pledged to send more military equipment to Ukraine yesterday. The Pentagon’s commitment, valued at up to $2.5 billion, means the US has now agreed to provide $26.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia first invaded last February. The most recent aid package includes eight Avenger air defense systems, nearly 600 fighting vehicles and personnel carriers, hundreds of thousands of artillery rockets, and 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition. Separately, Germany this week said it won’t send – or allow other countries to send – German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine unless the US also sends its Abrams tanks.

👔 That’s what Richard Branson once said about his standard-sized notebook.

🎤 And Oprah Winfrey began journalling to detail concerns and stressors, now she keeps one to outline goals and aspirations.

☕ Jennifer Anniston keeps a journal to work on distressed relationships, rather than acting flippantly in person.

🗞️ And Ariana Huffington uses her journal to “audit her life” and goal-set for her many projects.

It isn’t the silver bullet to a better life, but journalling is a tried and true method for maintaining a healthy mind. That’s why 4 guys in NYC set out to build The Scribes – they knew that creating a quality journal could force a positive series of actions in one’s life.

📚🍩 We’ve been friends with The Scribes for a long time now, they’re a company and initiative we can really get behind. For every journal they sell, they donate one to students in need.👏🦸

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Yesterday, New Mexico prosecutors announced plans to file felony criminal charges against actor Alec Baldwin and the armorer of the Western film Rust, where 42-year-old cinematographer Hayla Hutchins was accidentally shot and killed in October 2021.

🤔 What happened?... Authorities are accusing the movie's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, of loading a gun on set with a live round instead of a blank. Assistant director David Halls – who is pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge – incorrectly shouted “cold gun,” then gave the loaded single-action Colt .45 revolver to Baldwin before a scene rehearsal.

While preparing for the scene, Baldwin's gun discharged a live round, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

• Investigators said they weren’t able to discover how live rounds ended up on the set, and that this question likely won’t be answered. But there was a separate live-round incident on set the same week Hutchins was killed. In that instance, Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two live rounds after being told the gun was “cold.”

Baldwin has repeatedly denied pulling the trigger of the gun that killed Hutchins, including in a 2021 interview with ABC News, saying that he had started to cock the gun and released the hammer – though gun experts argue this would be essentially impossible. Last October, Baldwin and the Rust production team reached an undisclosed settlement in relation to a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the cinematographer’s family.

👀 Looking ahead… At the end of this month, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed will each be charged with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of either 18 months or five years in prison. If a guilty verdict is delivered, the length of the sentence will ultimately depend on whether factors beyond “simple negligence” contributed to Hutchins’ death.

💬 Quoted…​​ “People are begging to be disappointed and they will be.”

In an interview with StrictlyVC published this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman downplayed the hype over the company’s yet-to-be-released successor to the language model behind ChatGPT, calling rumors that it would include 100 trillion parameters “complete bs.”

• But tbh, it’s hard to imagine an AI language model doing more. OpenAI’s has already passed all three parts of the US Medical Licensing Examination, beat out 80% of human job applicants in a blind hiring process, and is currently serving as a lawyer via proxy in a court case next month.

🏀 Stat of the Day: NBA teams were averaging 114.1 points per game entering Wednesday, the highest mark since the 1969-70 season.

🤯 Did You Know?... In 1971, the Texas legislature unanimously passed a resolution honoring the Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, for his work in "population control." State Rep. Tom Moore Jr. introduced the bill to prove that lawmakers passed legislation without doing any due diligence.

📖 Worth a Read: How donkeys changed the course of human history → (BBC Future)

📈🥳 Short Squeez is giving away 10 copies of the best finance book ever written, The Psychology of Money, and it is a must-read for anyone interested in finance and money.

Over the last year, Short Squeez has recommended over 300 books in their newsletter, and the favorite one? The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel – and they’re giving donut readers special copies of this masterpiece.🙌

🧠💵 In The Psychology of Money, Housel argues that handling money is taught as a quantitative field (math/finance). However, the way we make decisions about money is unique; at the dinner table, while traveling, in a meeting room, with perspective, experience, ego, pride and marketing. AKA there’s a lot that goes into decision making – and a lot to unpack.

Housel reinforces his findings with 19 short stories that explore how people think about money – and teaches us some timeless lessons along the way.👍

The first 10 people to sign up here get the book + 1-month of Short Squeez Insiders membership, for FREE!

• ☝️ A galactic photo shoot of the Milky Way by a team of international astronomers has revealed 3.32 billion celestial objects (mostly stars), marking one of the biggest sky surveys in history.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📺 Netflix added over 7.6 million net new subscribers in Q4 of 2022, exceeding its own projections by more than 70%. Also, founder Reed Hastings is stepping down as co-CEO and will become the company’s executive chairman.
• 📱 T-Mobile is investigating a data breach that may have affected 37 million accounts, the company announced yesterday. | Period panty brand Thinx settled a lawsuit over potentially harmful chemicals found in its underwear.
• 🚗 36% of new car buyers are paying above MSRP, per new data from Edmunds, down from 80% paying over MSRP this time last year.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎤 Taylor Swift’s Midnights generated ~$230 million in revenue for her label Universal last year (~3% of the company’s total recorded music revenues), per a new report from JPMorgan. | David Crosby, the singer-songwriter-guitarist known for The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, died yesterday at the age of 81.
• 🍿 The 2023 Sundance Film Festival kicked off yesterday, back to a partially in-person format in Park City, UT, after being fully digital for the last two years.
• 🏃🏿 Usain Bolt is missing more than $12.7 million from a Jamaican investment account, his lawyers said on Wednesday; Bolt’s balance on the account dropped from $12.8 million to $12,000.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🐀🚫🦠 Rats may not have played a critical role in transmitting the Black Death plague across Europe in the 14th century via fleas, a new peer-reviewed study published in PNAS suggests.
• 🚀🚀 SpaceX successfully launched two rockets within a 62-hour period this week, one of them carrying next-gen GPS satellites as part of a classified US Space Force mission.
• 💧 A 500-year-old mystery first posed by Leonardo da Vinci – “Why don’t all bubbles travel straight up to the surface of water?” – has finally been solved, per a new peer-reviewed study published in PNAS.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 📑 The USDA published new guidelines yesterday aimed at improving the transparency and standards of products labeled “organic.”
• ✈️ The FAA said last week’s outage that grounded all domestic flights nationwide for 90 minutes was caused by a contractor who unintentionally deleted files. (Background)
• 🏛️ The Treasury Department officially began implementing “extraordinary measures” to keep the US gov’t below its $31.4 trillion federal debt ceiling, after the deadline for Congress to act expired yesterday. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• ✈️ The best and worst US airlines of 2022.

The DONUT’s weekly News Quiz is back, baby. In just two minutes or less, see how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

♻️ Reduce, reuse... Scruff is a 13-year-old border collie with a knack for recycling. 

• The dog began picking up dropped plastic bottles on his walks about a year ago. However, each time he found a new bottle, he would drop the one he currently had in his teeth. 
• "It seemed wrong that he would pick the bottle up and then drop it again – we thought people would think we were dropping litter," said Scruff's owner, Yvonne. "So we got him to start bringing the bottles to us and we put them in a bag and then count them up at the end of the walk." 

🐶 Rightful recognition... Scruff's bottle walks quickly became an internet sensation, and he was awarded the title of "eco-dog" last month.

• The pup collected a grand total of 1,334 bottles in 2022.

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Chicken
• Flour
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil
• Prosciutto
• Mushrooms
• Wine
• Chicken stock
• Butter
• Flat-leaf parsley

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Whole milk
• Barley flakes
• Light brown sugar
• Butter
• Salt
• Raspberries
• Brown sugar
• Granny Smith Apple
• Roasted pistachios
• Chia seeds
• Cinnamon

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Mayonnaise
• Ranch dressing
• Pickle brine
• Garlic powder
• Cayenne pepper
• Large eggs

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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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.👇

☝️ Recipe #1: Chicken Marsala

✌️ Recipe #2: Nordic breakfast porridge

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Ranch egg salad