Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🚁 Drone delivery expansion
• 🇮🇷 Iran protest update
• 🧑‍🦲 “Baldmaxxers”

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.37-minute read (1,163 words).

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"The person who never made a mistake, never made a discovery."

–Samuel Smiles (1812-1904)

Drones crashing into windows and squashing your carton of eggs used to be the punchline of tech jokes. Now? They might actually save you when your kid reminds you at 8 pm that they need cupcakes for school tomorrow.

Walmart announced plans to expand drone delivery to 150 additional US stores within the next year, up from about two dozen currently, making sky deliveries available to tens of millions of new shoppers.

How it works: Walmart customers place orders through the Wing app (and soon the Walmart app), similar to DoorDash or Instacart. Store staff then pick and pack the items into lightweight cardboard baskets and attach them to drones, which fly autonomously while monitored remotely by humans.

• Packages are lowered into customers’ yards or doorsteps via tether, so landings aren’t necessary.
• Walmart says most drone deliveries—currently free for Walmart+ members—will arrive in 30 minutes or less.

The service is already up and buzzing in Dallas, and heading soon to other major US cities like LA, Miami, and Cincinnati.

Walmart isn’t flying solo

Several other big players in the tech industry are betting on drones:

• Amazon is currently scaling Prime Air, its drone delivery service, with plans to deliver ~500 million packages/year via air by 2030.
• Drone delivery startup Zipline partners with retailers, prescription drug centers, restaurants, and other businesses across the US.
• Uber Eats is currently testing drone drops in select cities through a partnership with drone company Flytrex.

Looking ahead…One of the biggest hurdles to widespread adoption of drone deliveries across America is poised to disappear in the near future. Until recently, federal rules required drones to stay within the operator’s line of sight, forcing companies to apply for individual waivers or post observers along flight paths.

But under a new FAA rule in the final stages of being implemented, commercial drones will be allowed to fly beyond visual line of sight.

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Handcrafted from dense felted wool with a molded, vegetable-tanned leather sole. The kind of comfort that becomes a simple daily pleasure.

There’s no doubt that AI is making work faster across the corporate world, according to a report published yesterday by HR software company Workday.

But data also shows that AI is simultaneously creating more work for its human coworkers, who are now forced to spend extra time cleaning up messy AI outputs.

By the numbers

Workday surveyed 3,200 employees who said they are using AI—half in leadership positions—at companies in North America, Europe, and Asia with $100+ million in revenue and 150+ employees.

• Their report found that 87% of employees are using AI at least a few times a week, while 46% use it daily.
• 77% of employees report they are more productive due to AI use over the past year, with the vast majority (85%) saying they personally save 1-7 hours/week on their tasks.

However…While AI is helping employees complete tasks faster, the report found these productivity gains alone don’t necessarily translate to better outcomes, since AI also quietly absorbs a lot of time and energy to fix its mistakes.

• Some 37% of employees’ time savings due to AI end up being lost to "rework," or extra time spent on correcting errors, rewriting content, and verifying the outputs of AI tools.
• Workday found just 14% of respondents say they get consistently net-positive outcomes from AI use.

Zoom out: Workday’s findings line up with a recent MIT study that found companies’ productivity gains from AI have been mostly underwhelming thus far, despite the tech’s transformative potential.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🇨🇳 China reports record-high $1.2 trillion annual trade surplus in 2025, despite a 20% decline in exports to the US.
• 🏬 Saks Global, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, files for bankruptcy roughly a year after the two luxury department chains merged in what was supposed to be a powerhouse deal.
• 🏘️ Home sales rose 5.1% in December, marking the biggest monthly gain in two years, per new NAR data; even with the boost, last year saw the lowest amount of existing-home sales since 1995, at 4.1 million.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🚔 Timothy Busfield, the actor/director best known for his role in West Wing, turned himself in to authorities after receiving child abuse charges related to a TV series he was directing.
• 🏈 Oregon QB Dante Moore announced plans to return to the Ducks in 2026, despite being projected as a top-five pick in this year’s NFL Draft; Moore led Oregon to the CFP semifinals last week, where they lost to #1 Indiana.
• 📺 Euphoria announces Season 3 will premiere in April, following a four-year hiatus.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦖 Largest-ever analysis of Tyrannosaurus rex fossils suggests the fierce predator took ~40 years to become fully grown, an age milestone which “very few” T. rex reached in their lifetimes.
• 🛰️ Four astronauts left the ISS and returned to Earth yesterday due to a crew member’s unspecified medical concern, which was first identified last week; the space station will temporarily be staffed by three astronauts, its smallest crew in years
• 🦣 World-first discovery of ancient wooly mammoth remains in the stomach of an ancient wolf cub suggests that wooly mammoths went extinct due to climate warming, and not human hunting.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🇮🇷 The death toll from ongoing anti-gov’t protests in Iran has surpassed 2,500 people, with arrests exceeding 18,000, according to a US-based rights group; other reports say the death toll is as high as 12,000+ in Iran, which is under a nationwide internet and cell-phone blackout; the Iranian gov’t’s top judiciary official yesterday called for swift trials and executions for protesters.
• 🇬🇱 President Trump said anything less than US control of Greenland is “unacceptable” in a social media post ahead of a high-stakes meeting yesterday with top Greenland and Denmark officials; afterwards, the Danish and Greenland officials said they hadn’t persuaded Trump to abandon trying to annex the island.
• 🏛️ Department of Homeland Security clandestinely purchased a device in late 2024 that may be tied to the debilitating and mysterious condition called “Havana Syndrome”; the device reportedly cost eight figures, is backpack-sized, and has components of Russian origin. | The FBI searched the home and devices of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson—who covers the Trump admin's reshaping of the federal gov’t—as part of an investigation into a Maryland system administrator accused of "accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports."

☝️ A new 3D scan of a 157-year-old shipwreck in Lake Michigan has just been released by NOAA Ocean Exploration, allowing users to explore the vessel digitally for the first time. Researchers created the scan after a week-long expedition last year using underwater imaging robots.

🤔 Did you know? There’s an underwater post office in the South Pacific—and yes, it actually works. Just off Hideaway Island in Vanuatu, the world’s only under-the-sea post office lets visitors snorkel or scuba dive about 10 feet below the surface to mail waterproof postcards home. A flag above the water signals when postal workers are on duty.

📰 Worth a read: Meet the cowboy who never clocks out

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• The most popular baby names from 100 years ago
• How to become a tree
• Meet the “baldmaxxers”

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Yesterday we covered OpenAI’s recent soft-launch of ChatGPT Health, a new feature that connects to consumers’ wellness apps and medical records to give personalized medical advice.

❓ Our question to you: Have you personally ever asked ChatGPT for medical advice?

• Yes: 26%
• No: 74%

❓ Follow-up question: Would you ever share personal health information with ChatGPT, like health app data or medical records, in order to get more accurate answers or advice?

• Yes: 15%
• No: 85%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 674 votes and 72 longform responses.

What’s the tallest mountain in the contiguous US? Test link

💍 A Texas preschool teacher was surprised with a mini bridal shower at the same school where she first met her fiancé as a child. The celebration, courtesy of her tiny pupils, featured flower crowns and a whole lot of “aww.” 

Mount Whitney

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