Good morning. Ah, Wyoming, the state known for Yellowstone, bison burgers, and… escalators?

Well, more a lack of escalators. The entire state only has two. Yep, that’s right – 97,914 square miles of natural beauty and… two escalators, both in Casper, both in banks.

Why, you ask? Well, much like questions of alien life, the universe’s origins, and why we park on driveways and drive on parkways, life is full of yet-to-be solved mysteries.

And now, let’s be like the cows and NOOOOOOOS!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.48 minutes to read.

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

–Lao Tzu (6th century B.C.)

If the entire country was at a concert and the performer asked, “how we feeling America?” – the answer probably wouldn’t be “optimistic.”

According to the most-recent WSJ-NORC poll regarding the attitudes, behaviors, and attributes of the general public, more than three-quarters of Americans think people from Generation Alpha (aka anyone born after 2012) won’t have better lives than themselves – the highest percentage in history. The survey has been conducted every few years since 1972.

🏊 Let’s dive right in… The data, which included responses from 1,000+ adults, showed Americans’ dim hopes for the future were in large part due to widespread economic pessimism. Four in five US adults described the current state of the economy as “poor” or “not so good,” and nearly half said they expected it to get worse in the near future.

• Americans who held a negative outlook on the economy cited a wide range of major concerns, including inflation (65% of respondents), housing costs (43%), and the price of healthcare and prescription drugs (41%).

Though unlike a Snuggie, these economic concerns aren’t one-size-fits-all. Another possible explanation for pessimism towards future generations, per the WSJ, is that Americans are losing faith in the power of a college education to improve their financial prospects. Some 56% of US adults currently think a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost to obtain, up from 46% when the question was last asked in 2017.

📉 Zoom out: Overall, the WSJ-NORC survey data shows that Americans are just feeling blue, da ba dee da ba da – and especially so over the past few years.

• Just 12% of US adults currently describe themselves as “very happy,” the lowest level dating back to 1972. Prior to 2021, that figure had never fallen below 27%.
• On the flip side, 30% of Americans said they are currently “not too happy,” representing the highest level on record. Before 2021, that number had never risen above 17%.

📊 Flash poll: Do you think that life for Generation Alpha (people born after 2012) will be better than it has been for you?

Strongly agree

Agree/Somewhat agree

Neutral

Disagree/Somewhat disagree

Strongly disagree

🇲🇳 A Mongolian boy was named the country’s new spiritual leader by the Dalai Lama. Earlier this month, the eight-year-old was revealed as the 10th reincarnation of Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche, making him the third-most important spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism. The move is expected to anger the Chinese government, which has previously insisted it will only recognise Buddhist leaders appointed by its own officials. In 1995, when the Dalai Lama named a new Panchen Lama (the second-most important spiritual leader), the child was arrested by Chinese authorities and replaced with their own candidate.

🇷🇼 The Rwandan government commuted the 25-year prison sentence of Paul Rusesabagina, the man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda. Rusesabagina, who saved over 1,000 Rwandans from genocide in 1994, was convicted of terrorism charges in 2020, as part of a trial that was widely criticized by the US and other nations as being politically motivated. Rwandan officials told the AP on Friday that Rusesabagina was pardoned after a request for clemency by the US and Qatari governments, and that the 68-year-old has committed to living the rest of his life in America “in quiet reflection.”

🇱🇧 Lebanon is currently operating with two time zones (they usually only have one), following a Daylight Savings dispute. The small Mediterranean country typically sets its clocks forward an hour on the last Sunday in March, the same as most European countries. But on Thursday, Lebanon’s government announced plans to push the start of daylight savings by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. And while some local institutions were onboard with the move, others refused and opted to change their clocks anyways, leading to mass confusion across the country yesterday.

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Since its founding in 1976, Apple products have always been at the forefront of culture-defining technology: the personal computer, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and now... virtual reality?

Well, not exactly. According to an NYT report published yesterday, Apple's highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headset, expected to launch in June, is facing internal skepticism.

🥽 A deeper dive… Unlike the iPod, which made our music collection portable, or the iPhone, which gave us a personal swiss army knife of technology in our pockets, the VR/AR headset is, according to eight anonymous current and former employees who spoke with the NYT, “a solution in search of a problem.”

• Plus, the technology needed to make the headset work doesn’t exactly… exist yet. Meaning Apple has to build new chips and wearable displays from scratch – rather than the iPhone, for example, which was built largely on existing tech.

As a result, the rumored-to-cost $3,000 headset sounds like something made by the dad from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids – i.e., carbon fiber-framed ski goggles with a hip battery pack, outward cameras to capture reality, and two 4K displays to watch anything from live sports to your Instagram feed. (Also reportedly included is a “reality dial,” which users can turn to increase or decrease how much of the real world they’re able to see.)

​​🎮 Metaversus: One thing is certain, however – the VR/AR headset will give users access to the metaverse, which, according to a 2022 McKinsey report, could be a $5 trillion industry by 2030.

💬 Quoted… “Sparks of artificial general intelligence.”

• Last week, Microsoft researchers released a preprint paper that concluded OpenAI’s GPT-4 shows early signs of artificial general intelligence, which means its capabilities are at or above the average human level. Though Vice, which first reported the study, said the researchers appeared to “dial back their own splashy claim” in the paper itself.

📱🗑 Number of the Day: 300,000 = the average number of cellphones that are thrown away every single day in the US.

🤯 Did You Know?... One in four American cowboys were Black.

📖 Worth a Read: How TikTok broke social media → (The Economist)

⌛ Early fundraising for Parallel Flight Technologies is ending soon, so let’s recap the biggest use-cases for the "Tesla of drones" and their superior lifting/flight-time capabilities

• 👩‍⚕️ Medical equipment/donor blood in times of emergency, supplies to firefighters/military personnel on the frontlines (partnered with US Air Force)
• 👩‍🚒 Automated forest fire prevention with zero risk to operators (partnered with USDA Wildlife Services)
• 👷‍♀️ Countless commercial/logistics/industrial applications…. aka being able to fly 100 lbs for 90 mins, a massive improvement over existing tech, will fundamentally change how buildings are constructed.

And PFT's drones do all this while at the same time reducing carbon footprint by 90%, and operating costs by 50-75% when compared helicopters!

🚀 Parallel Flight Technologies' CEO is a former Tesla engineering leader, and they’re also backed by NASA, NSF, as well as $9 million in previous investments. Not to mention, the commercial drone market is projected to grow from $42 billion to $582 billion by 2030… and PFT is poised to capitalize.

Learn more about how to become an early investor before the fundraising round closes.**

• ☝️ Astrophotographers Andrew McCarthy and Jason Guenzel recently published this 140-megapixel picture of the Sun, which they stitched together from 90,000+ individual images.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 Twitter is currently worth $20 billion, CEO Elon Musk said in a company-wide email last Friday; Musk bought the social media platform for $44 billion last October.
• 🏦 First Citizens Bank will purchase a large chunk of Silicon Valley Bank, the FDIC said this morning; the deal will see First Citizens assume ~$72 billion of SVB assets at a discount of $16.5 billion, but ~$90 billion in securities and other assets will remain “in receivership for disposition by the FDIC.”
• 🏢🏠 Working from home has nearly decreased to pre-pandemic levels, per a Labor Department report released last week; ~73% of businesses said their employees teleworked rarely or not at all last year, up from 60% in 2021; that figure was ~77% in 2019.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 The Men’s Final Four was… finalized yesterday; No. 5 Miami will face off against No. 4 Connecticut and No. 5 San Diego State will play No. 9 Florida Atlantic University; both games take place this Saturday. | The Women’s Final Four will include yesterday’s winners No. 3 LSU and No. 2 Iowa; the tournament’s remaining Elite Eight games will be played tonight.
• ⚔️🐶 John Wick: Chapter 4 raked in $73 million in domestic ticket sales this past weekend; that’s the second biggest opening weekend for any film so far this year.
• 📺 Succession kicked off its fourth and final season on HBOMax last night. | Arrested Development will remain on Netflix, Vulture reported on Friday; the first three seasons will leave Hulu by the end of this year, making the entire series exclusively available on Netflix. (Background)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🪐 Five different planets – Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Uranus, and Mars – will be visible in the night sky for viewers across Earth this week, with the best viewing opportunity coming just after sunset tomorrow.
• 💻 Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who made the famous 1975 prediction that the capacity and complexity of microchips would double every two years (aka Moore’s Law), died on Friday at the age of 94.
• 🦈 Two megamouth sharks – a rare species that’s been spotted less than 300 times – were recently captured on video together for the first time in history.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🌪️ At least 26 people were killed in Mississippi and Alabama after a massive tornado touched down on Friday for roughly an hour; yesterday, President Biden declared a federal state of emergency in four Mississippi counties damaged by the storm.
• 🖱️ The Federal Trade Commission proposed a new “click to cancel” rule that would require all companies serving US customers to make the process of canceling a subscription as simple as enrolling.
• 🚰 Philadelphia on Sunday warned that the city’s drinking water could be contaminated by a nearby chemical spill; after running tests, officials later said the tap water would be safe to drink at least through tonight.

CLICKBAIT

• 💪 A psychologist shares the No. 1 exercise highly successful people use to be happier.

*Sponsored post

On Friday, we covered the Florida Department of Education’s proposal to extend a controversial law that restricts public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity to all grades K-12, instead of just grades K-3.

❓ Our question to you: How do you feel about the Florida Education Department’s new proposal?

• 👍 Strongly agree: 27%
• 📈 Agree/Somewhat agree: 10%
• 🤷 Neutral: 7%
• 📉 Disagree/Somewhat disagree: 9%
• 👎 Strongly disagree: 47%

Click here to read more of the best responses from Friday’s poll.

+Note on sample size: We received 12,550 votes and 1,162 longform responses.

Monday: Final day of the NCAA Women’s Elite Eight

Tuesday: National Home Price Index for January

Wednesday: National Vietnam War Veterans Day

Thursday: MLB Opening Day🥳; weekly unemployment claims

Friday: US personal consumption expenditures price index, aka the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, released

Ninety-one-year-old John Jepkema recently became the oldest person ever to cross the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim.

🧗‍♀️ Age is just a number... The Colorado man spent months preparing for the five-day trek by walking five- to- eight miles each day, five days a week. 

• "I would walk 3 miles to morning coffee with a 30-pound pack and then walk back home," he said.
• While the hike happened in 2019, John was recently acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the oldest person ever to make the 25+ mile journey.

Guess the definitions of these Greek/Latin root words:

1. Rupt
2. Sarc
3. Tact
4. Vap
5. Vulg

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Rupt = Break (e.g., rupture, erupt)
2. Sarc = Flesh (sarcoma, sarcophagus)
3. Tact = Touch (tactile, contact)
4. Vap = Lack of (evaporate, vapid)
5. Vulg = Common (divulge, vulgarity)

**The Parallel Flight sponsor block was written and/or published as a collaboration between The DONUT's in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of The DONUT. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. The DONUT may receive monetary compensation from the issuer, or its agency, for publicizing the offering of the issuer’s securities. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice. This is a paid ad. Please see 17(b) disclosure linked in the campaign page for more information.