Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🧑‍🏫 America is facing a teacher shortage
• 💰 The music industry is selling out
• 🔭 NASA’s search for the next Matt Damon

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.95-minute read.

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“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

–Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

Get out those apples, because maybe one per day will make the teachers stay. School districts across America are currently scrambling to deal with a nationwide shortage of educators for all levels, according to new data.

While it’s hard to know exactly how short schools are, since no national database precisely tracks the issue, here’s what we do know: during the 2022-23 school year, an estimated 320,000 teaching positions across the US were either vacant or filled by non-certified educators, up from 200,000 the previous year, according to the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

• Things haven’t been any better this school year, with 86% of all US public school districts saying they struggled to hire teachers.

Driving the trend… Experts point to a wide range of factors, including pandemic-induced exhaustion, low pay, worries about gun violence, staffing shortfalls, contentious political battles over what they can or can’t discuss in the classroom, and constantly changing remote learning and other Covid protocols.

📸 Big picture: There are currently 567,000 fewer educators in America’s public schools than before the pandemic, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, representing an overall drop of more than 15%. And this trend doesn’t appear poised to reverse itself anytime soon.

• In December, the most recent month with available data, the US education sector hired just over 0.54 employees for every open position created, close to its lowest-level on record (set in 2022).
• The proportion of college freshmen in America who intend to major in education has fallen from between 10%–13% in the early 1970s to 4.3% in 2018. The number of US graduates who majored in education dropped by more than half over that same period, while America’s overall population increased by ~56%.

📊 Flash poll (long-form): Calling all 20,000+ classrooms using the DONUT: How would you deal with America’s teacher shortage? The best answers will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.

• Submit a response here.

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🇭🇹 Former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s wife was among 51 people indicted in his assassination. Former First Lady Martine Moïse, the ex-prime minister, the former chief of National Police, and dozens of presidential aides were all among those indicted in connection with President Moïse’s assassination during a home invasion in 2021. The indictment doesn’t provide any direct evidence of the First Lady’s involvement, but accuses her of conspiring with former PM Claude Joseph to kill the president and replace him with herself. Some analysts say current PM Ariel Henry has used the case to persecute political opponents and clear himself and his allies of suspicion in President Moïse’s assassination.

🇨🇳💉 China is experiencing a surge in domestic sales of weight-loss drugs. While diabetes drugs like Ozempic technically aren’t available for weight-loss in China, local consumers are able to purchase them online by simply declaring they have diabetes (no proof required). An estimated 200 million Chinese adults are obese, marking the largest total of any country, per global investment banking firm Jeffries – though China’s overall obesity rate ranks in the middle of the pack compared to the rest of the world.

🇺🇳🇺🇸 The US vetoed a UN resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The Biden administration said the Arab-backed resolution may interfere with ongoing efforts to arrange a temporary cease-fire in exchange for the release of all hostages held by Hamas. Separately, Israel’s economy contracted at an annual rate of 19.4% in Q4 of last year, with a majority of the drop attributed to low consumer spending and the call-up of army reserves due to the Hamas war, according to new data published this week.

Music catalog rights are like Hansel from Zoolander – so hot rn. Universal Music Group announced yesterday that it’s acquiring a minority stake in Chord Music Partners, a private-equity joint venture that owns 60,000+ songs from artist catalogs like The Weeknd, John Legend, Lorde, Kid Cudi, Ellie Goulding, and more.

Deal points: Universal is acquiring a 25.8% stake in Chord for $240 million, providing Universal with the opportunity to invest in artist music catalogs without having to purchase them outright. It’s also the latest music-catalog deal to be announced over the past couple of weeks:

• Musician Rod Stewart recently sold his song catalog rights to Icon Artists Group for ~$100 million.
• Sony Music Group earlier this month reportedly paid $600 million to acquire 50% of the rights to Michael Jackson's entire music catalog.

Buying music is a big industry. More than $5 billion was spent on music rights acquisitions in 2021, according to an estimate by Music Business Worldwide. But as interest rates have risen, private equity-backed deals for song rights have slowed – in large part because rising rates made it harder to justify loading up the assets with the amount of debt they planned to use, The Financial Times reports.

🖐️ Yes, but… Investor interest in the space is like Chris Hemsworth without the Thor costume on – still strong. Case in point: the band Queen is reportedly seeking $1.2 billion for the rights to its entire catalog, and is close to reaching a deal.

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💬 Quoted… “It’s mind-boggling the amount of stuff that’s trying to be done here.”

• Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has a to-do list longer than Drake’s… well, a mile long. The fund has been tasked with carrying out plans for a $48 billion property development in the desert, building a global airline to compete with current aviation giants, completing a merger with the PGA Tour, and overseeing a $100 billion investment into chips and electronics. And with all of this on the table – perhaps unsurprisingly – the Saudi wealth fund is quickly running out of money. Last month, officials said the fund’s cash levels fell by roughly three-quarters in 2023 compared to the previous year, reaching a total of ~$15 billion. Saudi officials say they plan to borrow large sums of money from international creditors to keep funding their ambitious projects, and are also planning to sell a significant amount of stock in Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil giant with a market cap of ~$2 trillion.

🪐 Stat of the Day: NASA is seeking four volunteers to spend a year doing their best impression of The Martian – aka living and working inside a 1,700-square-foot Mars simulator. Though keep in mind that not just anyone can apply. The volunteers are required to look like Matt Damon, walk like Matt Damon, and talk like Matt Damon have certain STEM qualifications and experience in the field.

🤔 Did You Know?... UPS plans out the routes for its delivery trucks so that ~90% of their turns are right turns, since left turns are seen as less efficient due to sitting in traffic longer. Which means UPS drivers checking the turns on their routes are consistently channeling Matthew McConaughey – all right, all right, all right.

📰 Worth a Read: Westarctica: The micronation with a real-world purpose → (Big Think)

• ☝️ The winners of the Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 were announced this week; the contest featured 6,500+ entrants from around the world.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Fit & Flourish Giveaway

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -0.6%; Dow: -0.2%; Nasdaq: -0.9%); shares of chipmaker Nvidia dropped more than 4%.
• 🚗 Ford cut prices on its Mustang Mach-E electric SUV by up to $8,100. | 📈🧳✈️ American Airlines is raising the price of a checked bag from $30 to $40 (or $35 if booked online in advance); the airline is also eliminating the ability to earn frequent flyer miles if tickets are purchased through a third party (such as a travel agency).
• 📝 Walmart posted strong Q4 earnings yesterday; the retailer also confirmed that it's acquiring smart TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📺⚖️ FuboTV, the sports-centric streaming service, is suing to block a new joint sports streaming service from ESPN-parent Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox that's expected to launch this fall.
• 🍿🪲 Director Sam Mendes is teaming up with Sony for a series of four theatrical films about The Beatles; each film will be from the perspective of a different band member.
• 🏈🏆 The College Football Playoff approved a “5+7” playoff model for this coming season; the top five conference champions automatically qualify, while the final seven playoff slots are at-large bids.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with The Intelligence Age

• 🌌 Astronomers recently discovered the fastest-growing black hole in recorded history; it swallows up the mass equivalent of one Sun every day, and has a mass ~17 billion times larger than our Sun.
• 🐸 The flea toad – which is actually a recently discovered species of frog – is the smallest living vertebrate ever recorded, with a total of length 0.3 inches when fully grown, per a new study.
• 🔬 Israeli scientists have grown a pair of tiny “laboratory testicles” they say could eventually help develop a treatment for male infertility, which affects 10-15% of American men.

*From our partners: 🧠 The Intelligence Age: The AI Newsletter for Business Leaders… Get a non-technical, no-hubris breakdown of what’s happening in AI and what it means for your business. Join 51,000+ readers now.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌐 International law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, seized the web infrastructure of ransomware gang LockBit – aka the most deployed ransomware variant globally in 2022.
• 🇬🇧🇺🇸 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared in court yesterday to appeal extradition from the UK to the US; he’s facing 17 charges under the Espionage Act for releasing classified documents exposing civilian casualties in the US war in Iraq.
• ⚖️ Two adult men were arrested for murder in connection with last week’s mass shooting at the Kansas City Super Bowl victory parade; two other juvenile suspects were arrested last week on gun-related charges and resisting arrest. | ⚖️ Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally “unborn children” in a wrongful death lawsuit; the decision could impact access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments in the state. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔 In what month are you most likely to die?

Residents of the Ridge Pinehurst Senior Center in Lakewood, Colorado, didn't know what to expect when showing up to the annual "Love Your Neighbor" Valentine's Day party last week. 

Sure, they knew there would be snacks in music and maybe a bingo game – but many of them were surprised to find handwritten notes from children around the community created just for them. 

❤️ Don't forget your elders... The senior center worked with schools around the community to collect 3,000+ cards for their residents to open at the celebration. 

• “For most of our residents, it’s been a long time since they were able to have a true Valentine’s," Lori Closs, an associate executive director at the center, told Denver7. "And this really shows them that the community is behind them... It just enlightens them. They love to see and feel the love that our community brings to them.”

❓ Trivia: What do you call a group of apes?

🌳 True or False?... Redwood is just another name for a sequoia tree.

🤔 Riddle Me This… If you multiply this number by any other number, the answer will always be the same. What number is this?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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❓ Trivia: A shrewdness of apes

🌳 T/F: False

🤔 Riddle: Zero