Good morning, and welcome to Monday. In today’s edition:

• 📈 There’s a growing generational wealth gap in America
• 🇬🇭 Ghana is going nuclear
• 📝 Tesla’s Autopilot system is under the microscope

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.64-minute read (1,236 words).

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

“Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”

–George Washington (1732-1799)

Over recent decades, Americans have come to expect constantly rising prices on houses, stocks, and other financial assets. But those positive gains are heavily concentrated with older Americans, who invested years ago when prices were lower, resulting in a growing generational wealth gap.

By the numbers: Three decades ago, Americans aged 55+ owned roughly half of all US households’ combined $3 trillion in wealth (51%).

• That share has increased steadily over the following years, reaching ~70% ownership of a combined $166 trillion in US household wealth at the end of last year.
• At the same time, working-age adults have seen their share of America’s wealth steadily shrink. Households under 40 currently own 9% of overall US wealth, down from 14% three decades ago, while Americans aged 40-54 have seen their share of assets fall from ~40% in 2001 to less than 25% currently.

A large portion of the wealth gap can be attributed to real estate. This asset class, which is the largest source of wealth among US households, has driven much of the generational divide. Younger generations have seen homeownership become increasingly inaccessible – with affordability falling last year to its lowest level since 1985 – while many older Americans, who own the bulk of home equity, have benefitted from this trend.

• The generational wealth gap has also grown pronounced in the stock market, where those aged 55+ currently hold 80% of the $40 trillion owned by US households – up from a 60% share in the early 2000s.

👀 Looking ahead… Until housing demand slows, supply increases, or the Fed cuts interest rates significantly, experts say the generational wealth gap will continue to increase.

📊 Flash poll (long-form): What are your thoughts on the growing generational wealth gap among US households? The best answers will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.

• Click here to leave a response.

Editor’s note: There aren’t any op/eds today due to a lack of available coverage.

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🇫🇷 The Mona Lisa could soon receive her own room at the Louvre. The 30-inch by 20-inch painting, which currently sits in a large room with other works, is consistently rated as the Louvre’s most disappointing attraction, with visitors comparing its size to a postage stamp and complaining that crowds make it difficult to get a close-up view. Last week, the Louvre’s director proposed a new ~$535 million renovation that would place the Mona Lisa in a separate underground exhibit all by herself.

🇬🇭 Ghana is progressing towards its first nuclear power plant. Companies from the US, Russia, China, France, and South Korea have submitted competing bids to construct what will be the second nuclear power facility in Africa (after one in South Africa). The winner of the bidding process will be announced at the end of the year, with construction expected to finish in 2031.

🇨🇳 Chinese President Xi Jinping met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Both Xi and Blinken expressed a desire to stabilize their countries’ tense relationship in the Friday meeting, but also acknowledged that the two sides are currently far apart. In a CNN interview following his trip, Blinken said American officials have seen evidence that Beijing has attempted to “influence and arguably interfere” in this year’s US elections, and said he reiterated President Biden’s message to Xi not to interfere in November’s vote.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has concluded an investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assistance system, which was prompted by reports of the company’s cars crashing into parked vehicles while operating under the software.

However, despite the investigation’s conclusion, the lady-with-impressive-size isn’t quite singing. The NHTSA on Friday opened up a new investigation to assess whether the recall fix Tesla has already implemented for over two million cars actually did enough to address the agency’s safety concerns.

This new investigation is effectively an expansion of the old one. The first investigation determined that an imbalance between driver expectations and the operating capabilities of Autopilot resulted in a “critical safety gap” that led to “foreseeable misuse and avoidable crashes.”

• Effectively – the NHTSA isn’t too happy with Tesla’s branding, similar to Prince’s manager during the artist’s name-changing phase.
• While rival car manufacturers utilize words like “driver assist” in the names of their Level 2 autonomous systems, the agency says Tesla’s Autopilot branding implies full-self driving capabilities (Level 4 or 5) and can mislead consumers.

Tesla issued an over-the-air recall in December aimed at closing these holes in its systems. But more Autopilot crashes have occurred since, prompting the new NHTSA investigation.

Autonomous driving is pivotal to the future of Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has for years been touting the idea that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous robotaxis. This month, he said the company’s robotaxi would be revealed in August.

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💬 Quoted: “Pushing the boundaries of science.”

• The first race of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League was held in the UAE on Saturday. And it was… interesting. The driverless vehicles struggled to complete a lap during qualifying time trials, and would often randomly run into walls or decide to take a brief timeout. When the actual race began, things didn’t improve much. The lead racer spun out on the fourth of eight laps, causing event officials to throw up a yellow flag – and, since the AIs are programmed not to overtake other cars during a yellow flag, none of the vehicles would pass their spun-out competitor. The race eventually concluded after roughly an hour of autonomous driving.

🧒🏥 Stat of the Day: An estimated 5.4 million American children – or 21% of the US population between 12 and 17 – are currently providing care to parents, grandparents, or siblings with chronic medical conditions and/or functional decline, per a pair of new scientific reports. That figure, in addition to giving the term “childcare” a new meaning, is up from 1.3 million child caregivers in the US two decades ago.

🤔 Did You Know? The only woman ever featured on a US banknote is former First Lady Martha Washington. She appeared solo on the 1886 and 1891 series of one-dollar silver certificates, while her portrait was used again next to her husband George in 1896.

📰 Worth a Read: The English Heiress Who Masterminded a Multimillion-Dollar Art Heist and Built Bombs for the IRA → (Smithsonian Magazine)

• ☝️ South Africa celebrated 30 years since the end of apartheid and the start of its democracy with a ceremony in its capital of Pretoria; the celebration was presided over by President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose African National Congress party is widely credited with liberating South Africa’s Black majority from 46 years of institutionalized racial segregation under apartheid.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with BIA Worldwide

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board (S&P: +1.0%; Dow: +0.4%; Nasdaq: +2.0%). | 📈 Alphabet, Google’s parent company, closed above a $2 trillion market cap for the first time.
• ⚒️ Anglo American, one of the world’s top miners of copper, diamonds, and platinum, rejected a ~$39 billion acquisition offer from BHP, the world’s largest listed miner.
• 🌐 The FCC voted 3-2 to restore Obama-era net neutrality rules designed to block internet service providers from speeding up or slowing down internet speeds for online services.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 NFL Draft recap: Check out all the picks for each team, along with how well analysts think they drafted.
• 🧅📰 The Onion was purchased by Jeff Lawson, co-founder and former CEO of Twilio, in a deal with undisclosed terms.
• 🎥 Paramount Global’s board of directors is preparing to fire CEO Bob Bakish as soon as this morning, per multiple reports; the media giant is currently in exclusive merger talks with Skydance Media.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Paleovalley

• 🤔🐈 A group of theoretical physicists proposed modifications to the Schrödinger's cat paradox that could help explain why quantum particles can exist in more than one state simultaneously, while large objects apparently can’t.
• 🤖🚁 EHang, an autonomous flying-taxi company, received approval from the Chinese government for mass production, which Beijing says is a world first.
• 💉 At least three women were infected with HIV after receiving “vampire facials” from an unlicensed spa in New Mexico, per the CDC.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🚫🎓 The University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony scheduled for next week, citing security concerns related to campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. | 📣🇵🇸 Pro-Palestinian student protests spread to dozens of universities across the country over the weekend, including Arizona State, Maryland, Michigan, NYU, New Mexico, and UPenn.
• ⛈🌪 Two separate storm systems traveled across several states over the weekend, bringing tornadoes to Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri.
• 🏛️ The White House Correspondents Dinner took place on Saturday night.

CLICKBAIT

• 🏆✈️ There's a new No. 1 U.S. airline – and it's not Delta

Monday: National Zipper Day

Tuesday: Britain’s King Charles III to resume public duties following his cancer diagnosis

Wednesday: It's gonna be May; Florida’s six-week abortion law takes effect; the Fed will decide whether to change interest rates

Thursday: Local elections across the UK

Friday: The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, hits theaters

On Friday, we covered how student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have intensified across the US in recent days, resulting in the arrests of hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators following clashes with police.

❓ Our question to you: In general, do you support the pro-Palestinian student protests on college campuses?

• 👍 Yes: 33%
• 👎 No: 56%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 11%

Click here to read some of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 4,692 votes and 410 longform responses.

Meet Jem and Zoe, two tigers rescued from "Tiger King" Joe Exotic's wildlife park. 

❤️ New beginnings... The cats were rescued after years of abuse, and eventually made their way to Lions Tigers & Bears, an exotic animal rescue and sanctuary in the San Diego area.

• Now, Jam and Zoe are the purrfect pair of best friends, “living their best lives in their forever home."  

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words.

1. Athl
2. Bucc
3. Cent
4. Cuspid
5. Extrem

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1. Athl = Prize (e.g., athlete)
2. Bucc = Cheek (buccal)
3. Cent = Hundred (century, centipede)
4. Cuspid = Point (bicuspid)
5. Extrem = Outermost (extremity)