Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 💼 The four-day workweek debate is back
• 🌀 A La Niña global cooling event is on the horizon
• 🥺 Wanna buy a house together?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.67-minute read.

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“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

–Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

A few members of Congress have wholeheartedly accepted the advice of Kunu (Paul Rudd’s character) from Forgetting Sarah Marshall – the less you do, the more you do.

This week, a trio of lawmakers led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) unveiled a bill that would establish a standard four-day workweek in the US without any reduction in pay.

Over a four-year period, the bill would lower the threshold required for overtime pay from 40 hours to 32 hours, while also requiring overtime pay of at least 1.5x regular salary for workdays longer than eight hours. The measure also includes stipulations to ensure US workers see no loss in pay for their reduced hours/week.

• In a press release, Sanders cited several pilot programs and studies that found an overwhelming majority of companies that shifted to a four-day workweek saw their productivity remain consistent or even improve, despite the reduction in hours.
• He also mentioned studies that showed such a scheduling change resulted in higher worker satisfaction, decreased rates of burnout, lower childcare costs, and reduced carbon emissions.

On the flip side: Opponents of a four-day workweek argue that studies have yet to conclusively prove that companies won’t lose revenue, citing a previous four-day workweek initiative in Japan that coincided with a 20% decline in the country’s economic output between 1988 and 1996 (after which the plan was scrapped).

• Critics also say shifting to a four-day workweek without any reduction in pay would be unsuitable for a wide range of industries where services must be provided at fixed times, including transportation, retail, and hospitality.

👀 Looking ahead… The new four-day workweek bill is unlikely to gain enough support to pass both chambers and become federal law this legislative session. Similar measures were introduced by members of Congress in 2021 and 2023, but they both failed to come to a vote.

📊 Flash poll: Do you think a four-day workweek will ever become commonplace in America?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇬🇧🪙 A UK judge ruled that self-described bitcoin creator Craig Wright is… not the father. Wright, an Australian computer scientist, has claimed for years that he was the man behind Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of bitcoin’s creator – though he hasn’t provided any definitive proof, such as the passkey to Nakamoto’s wallets containing ~1 million bitcoins (which haven’t been accessed since his 2011 disappearance). In the UK lawsuit, which sought to prevent Wright from continuing to claim he was Nakamoto, the judge said evidence for his conclusion that Wright didn’t create bitcoin was “overwhelming.”

🌎 Global mortality rates for young children fell to the lowest on record in 2022. A new UN report found the global mortality rate for children under five stood at 37 per 1,000 live births two years ago, representing a 60% drop compared to 1990. Experts say the decline stems from a combination of better nutrition, water access, sanitation, and healthcare, in addition to reductions in poverty, conflicts, and famine.

🇯🇵 A Japanese high court ruled that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The judges in the case, originally brought by three same-sex couples in 2021, ruled that denying same-sex marriage to Japanese citizens violates their constitutional rights to equality and freedom. A lower court in Tokyo issued a similar ruling in a separate case this week, becoming the sixth lower district court to do so. Although the rulings don’t overturn current law, the high court decision is viewed as a landmark step towards legalizing same-sex marriage.

Earth’s climate is having a David Bowie moment – going through some ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

The ongoing global warming event known as El Niño will likely transition into its opposite event, La Niña, sometime during the upcoming months, per new data from the National Weather Service.

Background: El Niño and La Niña are opposing terms used to describe the natural climate cycle that occurs in the Pacific Ocean, where water surface temperatures shift between significantly hotter than average (El Niño) and significantly colder than average (La Niña) every few years.

Both weather events have a major impact on US climate systems. La Niña is associated with colder/wetter conditions in the North and warmer/drier conditions across the South, while El Niño’s effect is the exact opposite.

• La Niña also contributes to slightly cooler global temperatures, and increases the risk of an unusually dangerous Atlantic hurricane season.
• On the flip side, El Niño boosts global temperatures and suppresses Atlantic hurricane activity.

👀 Looking ahead… According to the National Weather Services’ updated outlook, there’s an 83% chance that the ongoing El Niño event will fade away into neutral temperature conditions between April and June of this year, and an 82% chance that a La Niña cooling event will emerge to replace it by the end of October.

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💬 Quoted… “Devin is a tireless, skilled teammate, equally ready to build alongside you or independently complete tasks for you to review.”

• This week, a startup called Cognition Labs emerged from stealth to unveil Devin, a programming tool it calls “the first AI software engineer” – and Devin’s human software engineer counterparts aren’t too happy with the news. Early reviewers of Devin say it can field requests in plain English, like building a website or figuring out a glitch, then deliver results in just a few minutes, with the ability to create and train its own little yellow minions AI systems to carry out tasks. Cognition says Devin can autonomously resolve ~14% of issues across a challenging benchmark of tests – almost triple the results from its AI competitors, including OpenAI’s GPT-4, Microsoft’s Copilot, Meta’s Llama, and Anthropic’s Claude.

👥📈 Stat of the Day: The country's top four fastest-growing metro areas over the past three years were all in Florida, according to US census figures released yesterday (Florida, man!). The Sunshine State’s population boom comes amid a broader influx of people moving to the South, while the West experienced a small – and slowing – population gain. In the Northeast and Midwest, immigration was the main factor behind slowing or reversing population losses in large metro areas, per a Wall Street Journal analysis.

🤔 Did You Know?... What’re friends for? Increasingly, buying houses. ~15% of Americans have purchased a home with a person other than their romantic partner, according to a recent report from JW Surety Bonds. And there’s lots of room for this arrangement to grow; the numbers could get higher than Shaggy and Scooby on the hunt for snacks. Over 6 in 10 Americans would co-buy a home with a friend, with Gen Z being the most willing (70%). The biggest driver of these shared purchases was affordability, with nearly 1 in 4 respondents who co-purchased a home with a non-romantic partner saying they couldn’t have afforded the purchase alone.

📰 Worth a Read: Why memory is more about your future than your past → (Big Think)

• ☝️ The third test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket – the largest and most powerful spacecraft in history – achieved multiple milestones during a nearly hour-long voyage into space yesterday morning; SpaceX lost contact with Starship minutes prior to a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean, with officials saying the ship didn’t survive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Hers

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -0.3%; Dow: -0.4%; Nasdaq: -0.3%).
• 📈 The producer price index, which measures pipeline costs for raw, intermediate, and finished goods (wholesale inflation), jumped 0.6% in February, double economists’ estimates, per new gov’t data.
• 📱 Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is recruiting an investor group to buy TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance to avoid a potential US ban. (Background) | 📦 Amazon is hosting a “Big Spring Sale” that will take place from March 20 to March 25; it’ll open to all shoppers, not just Prime members.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🐻🍳 FX’s The Bear was renewed for a fourth season, which will film back to back with Season 3.
• 🙏🎤 Shigeichi Negishi, the Japanese entrepreneur who first popularized karaoke, passed away at the age of 100.
• 📸 Princess Kate’s controversial Mother’s Day photo was processed twice in Adobe Photoshop, per the metadata of the file obtained by ABC News; the family photo was retracted by global news agencies last weekend amid concerns it was manipulated.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Incogni

• 🚫📈 The US maternal death rate has been sharply overstated since a federal policy change in 2003 added a “pregnancy checkbox” to death certificates, per a new study; instead of the US maternal death rate more than doubling since 2002, it has remained flat, researchers found; the study also says current reported rates are over 3x higher than reality.
• 🩸 A new blood test for detecting colorectal cancer correctly identified the disease in 83% of people who were at average risk and weren’t experiencing symptoms, per a New England Journal of Medicine study; the blood test also had a ~10% false-positive rate.
• 🌥️👓 Everything you should know about solar eclipse glasses – before you’ll need them on April 8.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ The father of the teen who carried out the 2021 Oxford, Michigan, high school shooting was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter yesterday, joining his wife who was convicted of the same charge last month.
• 🚫 Pornhub disabled access to all users in Texas amid a legal battle with state lawmakers over a new age-verification law.
• 📄 The federal judge overseeing the trial against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents rejected one of Trump’s motions to dismiss the case. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🦶 The history of Bigfoot, Mothman, and other popular cryptids (~5 min video).

Ten years ago, Aarrav Anil received his first Lego set. And he's been obsessed with all things building and robotics ever since. 

Case in point: The 17-year-old has represented India at more than 20 robotics competitions across the world. 

When kitchenware meets robotics: Aarrav's most recent project is the spoon you see above👆. The device uses a series of motors, sensors, and electronics to help combat the often-intense tremors brought on by Parkinson's disease while eating. 

• Aarav got the idea of the utensil after seeing his Uncle with Parkinsons struggle to feed himself last year. 

👀 Looking ahead... The "smart spoon" is currently undergoing trials at the RV College of Physiotherapy in Bengaluru.

Coming at you hotter than Texas at noon on the Fourth of July, it’s the DONUT’s weekly news quiz.

Find out how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

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

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Eggs
• Fish sauce
• Brown sugar
• Scallion
• Thai chili
• Black pepper
• Vegetable oil
• Jasmine rice
• Cucumber
• Romaine lettuce
• Siracha

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Flour
• Sugar
• Salt
• Baking soda
• Caraway seeds
• Butter
• Buttermilk

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Coconut flakes
• Egg yolks
• Eggs
• Sugar
• Cornstarch
• Ground cinnamon
• Full-fat coconut milk
• Salt
• Butter
• Vanilla extract
• Pie crust
• Whipping cream

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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Start referring.👇

☝️ Recipe #1: Kai jeow (Thai omelet)

✌️ Recipe #2: Caraway soda bread

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Coconut cream pie

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