Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 📝 America’s report card is out
• 🤔 What happened in the D.C. helicopter-plane crash?
• 📱 Facebook Likes + predicting personalities

… and more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.32-minute read (1,150 words).

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"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

–Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

The results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka “America’s Report Card,” were published this week by an Education Department agency.

The report tracks the performance of US students in fourth grade and eighth grade, with assessments taken every few years.

This year’s headline? Students have continued to lose ground on reading skills in the wake of the pandemic, and have also made little improvement in math.

• Reading: Researchers found 60% of fourth-grade students and a record-low 67% of eighth-graders scored at a basic or better reading level in 2024, down from recent peaks of 69% and 78%, respectively, in the mid-2010s.
• Math: The report found a slight improvement in fourth-grade scores, with 76% at a basic or better level (up from 75% in 2022). But just 61% of eighth-graders showed the same proficiency, marking the lowest such figure since 1996.

Diagnosis unknown

Federal officials and researchers say there aren’t any definitive explanations for the recent decline in US students’ test scores, a trend which emerged several years prior to the pandemic – but they have several suggestions.

• Many experts note that schools have faced a string of new challenges in recent years, including rising student misbehavior, teacher burnout, cellphone distractions, chronic absenteeism, and public schools coming under increased political scrutiny.

It’s not just kids: A new paper from researcher Nat Malkus indicates performance declines have also been recorded in recent tests of adults’ skills, suggesting the problem could lie outside the classroom. In particular, Malkus cites the unprecedented amount of screen time for both children and adults in recent years.

Looking ahead…Studies have established a strong relationship between test scores and early career wages, implying that a decline in literacy levels can potentially lead to the US economy losing trillions of dollars in earnings over time.

📊 Flash poll (long-form): Calling all 25,000+ classrooms using the DONUT: What do you think is needed to get America’s young students back on track? The most thoughtful answers will be featured in Monday’s newsletter.

• Click here to leave a response.

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America likely experienced its worst aviation disaster in almost a quarter century on Wednesday night, when an Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet hundreds of feet above the near-freezing Potomac River in Washington D.C.

What happened? As American Airlines Flight 5342 – carrying 60 passengers and four crew members from Wichita, Kansas – was heading in to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport, a US Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers apparently flew into the plane’s path.

• All 67 people involved are believed to have died in the crash, according to authorities. Rescue crews had recovered at least 28 bodies from the crash site as of yesterday evening (here’s what we know about the victims, who include two renowned Russian figure skating coaches as well as a group of young skaters).
• If the deaths of all on board are confirmed, the crash would represent the deadliest aviation disaster on US soil since 2001. It also stands as America’s first mass casualty commercial aircraft crash since 2009.

What caused the collision? It’s currently unclear. Officials yesterday said there was nothing unusual about each aircraft’s flight paths leading up to the collision, nor were there any adverse flight conditions. Transmissions show an air traffic controller instructed the Army helicopter to avoid the jet nearly 20 seconds before the crash – and again just seconds before.

• In a national address yesterday, President Trump repeatedly cited DEI policies at the FAA as having some role in the plane collision, though he didn’t provide any evidence.

👀 Looking ahead…The National Transportation Safety Board expects to complete its preliminary investigation into the crash within 30 days.

This week, the country’s biggest office-to-residential space conversion – a 1,300 apartment remodel of a million-square-foot brick building in Manhattan’s financial district originally constructed to house computers – hit the market.

In a past life: The 55-year-old building, designed to look like a punch card because…well…computers, served as an operations center for a bank, the newsroom for The Daily News, and office for JPMorgan.

In its new life: You could say it’s seen the light; there are significantly more windows👆. Rents range from $3,000+/month for a studio to ~$10,000/month for three-bedroom apartments to ~$12,000/month for those penthouse views.

And the building must be keeping up with its weekly therapy appointments – because it also received a huge internal upgrade. Amenities include a fitness center, spa, two pools, bowling alley, karaoke room, basketball court, and two pickleball courts.

Two birds, one stone: The idea behind the increasing number of office-to-residential conversions is simple: ~20% of US office buildings are vacant (a figure even higher in certain areas *cough* Austin *cough*), while at the same time the country is facing a residential housing shortage in the ballpark of 4 million–7 million homes.

📈 2024 was a record year for office-to-apartment conversions. The number of apartments scheduled for conversion from old office spaces numbered 55,300, up from 12,100 in 2021 (+357%).

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US markets rose across the board (S&P: +0.5%; Dow: +0.4%; Nasdaq: +0.3%); 4 out of every 5 stocks in the S&P increased, per the AP. | 💰 US GDP grew 2.5% in 2024, and 2.3% in Q4, per new data; that's compared to 3.2% for all of 2023.
• ⚖️ The DOJ moved to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks; it marks the first antitrust challenge during President Trump’s second term.
• 📦 UPS shares fell 14% after the company announced a cut to its Amazon deliveries. | 🍏 Apple posted quarterly earnings that beat top and bottom line estimates; iPhone sales fell 11% in China. | 📱 Meta will pay ~$25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit brought by President Trump after the social media platform suspended his account following January 6. | 🤖 OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise $40 billion at a valuation as high as $300 billion; SoftBank is in discussions to invest $15 billion–$25 billion.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Asutra

• 📺 Netflix unveiled its streaming plans for 2025, which includes Knives Out 3, the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, and Squid Game’s third and final season.
• 🏀🔍 Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is under federal investigation over whether he manipulated his performance as part of an illegal sports betting scheme while playing for Charlotte in 2023; it’s part of a wider probe into alleged game-rigging across US sports, which already led to criminal charges and a lifetime NBA ban for forward Jontay Porter.
• 👕 The Blue Man Group’s 34-year run in New York City officially comes to an end on Sunday.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☄️ A newly discovered asteroid has a ~1% chance of striking Earth in 2032, NASA announced this week; our planet is struck by an asteroid this size – 130 to 330 feet across – roughly every few thousand years.
• 🐁👬 Chinese scientists developed a new method for breeding baby mice who have two dads, with the babies surviving until adulthood.
• 🏥 Kansas recorded 742 cases of tuberculosis across the state last year, one of the largest outbreaks since the CDC started tracking TB in the 1950s. | 💊 The FDA approved a new type of nonopioid painkiller for acute pain: Journavx, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with MANSCAPED®

• 🏛️ Three top Trump admin nominees faced Senate confirmation hearings yesterday: Health Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard, and FBI Director nominee Kash Patel.
• 🤝 Israel and Hamas exchanged a new group of hostages and prisoners yesterday after an initial delay over what Israeli authorities called unacceptable chaotic crowds at the handover in Gaza.
• 🇺🇸🇨🇺 President Trump instructed the Pentagon to prepare the military base at Guantanamo Bay to house up to 30,000 unauthorized migrants who committed crimes in the US. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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Fjords aren’t the only thing flowing in Norway. The country’s sovereign wealth fund – the largest in the world – posted a record-breaking annual profit of ~$222 billion on Wednesday, a deluge of coin driven in large part by the growth of its US tech stock holdings.

The fund is managed on behalf of the Norwegian population. Set up in the 1990s to invest excess revenues from Norway’s oil and gas industry, the fund currently owns 1.5% of all listed stocks globally, making it the world’s largest single investor.

As of this writing, the fund’s value tops $1.78 trillion – the equivalent of ~$319,900 per Norwegian citizen.

☝️ The Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, which aims to be the world's tallest building when completed, has resumed construction after a seven-year pause; the planned 200+-story building would stand ~3,300 feet high, and is now scheduled to open in 2028.

🤔 Did You Know? A 2015 study found computer models need just 10 Facebook Likes to predict a user’s personality more accurately than a work colleague, 70 Likes to outperform a friend or roommate, 150 Likes to surpass a family member, and 300 Likes to beat out a spouse.

📰 Worth a Read: Deadly caterpillars could help design life-saving drugs

🖱 Clickbait: These baby names are at risk of going extinct in 2025

💸 It took David Clarke 10 years to decide what to do with the £100,000 (~$122,000) he inherited from his late mother. He put the decision into the hands of his neighbors, blindly mailing 600 residents letters and then putting together a panel from their responses to make the decision. He ended up splitting the money across four charities, each of which received £25,000 (~$31,000).

🛁 Archaeologists have made a "once-in-a-century" find in Pompeii, uncovering an ornate bathhouse buried under the ground for ~2,000 years.

♟️ Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi has won multiple national and international chess championships and is well on his way to becoming a grandmaster. Oh, and he’s only 13. Even more impressive? Tani and his family are refugees from Nigeria and were living in a homeless shelter when he won his first New York State championship.

🕷️🧔‍ Sticky and everywhere: Scientists may have figured out how to replicate Spider-Man’s web-slinging abilities.

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Our weekly news quiz just dropped. See how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

Below are three lists of ingredients. Your job is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Honey
• Water
• Rice vinegar
• Soy sauce
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Cornstarch
• Egg
• Canola oil
• Chicken cutlets
• Salt and pepper
• Rice
• Green onion

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Eggs
• Milk
• Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Spinach
• Goat cheese

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Flour
• Cocoa powder
• Baking powder and soda
• Salt
• Butter
• Vegetable oil
• Dark brown sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Buttermilk
• Powdered sugar
• Marshmallow cream

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How to enter: Click this link + enter your email. Then picture yourself with some free dope wall art and a cool G to blow😎.

☝️ Recipe #1: Honey soy chicken

✌️ Recipe #2: Spinach frittata

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Whoopie pies