Good morning, and a warm welcome to those receiving this email for the first time in a while (or ever). We resolved an issue with certain email providers, which had prevented us from sending to those addresses.

In today’s edition:

• 🇺🇸 State of the nation
• 🦷 Tooth Fairy inflation
• 🎥 Paramount wins WBD

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.86-minute read (1,028 words).

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"Success does not consist in never making mistakes, but in never making the same one a second time."

–George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

President Trump delivered his State of the Union address to Congress this week, in a record-long 1 hour and 48 minute speech that made extensive use of American heroes in attendance.

But outside of the US Capitol, what’s the current state of the nation after the first year-plus of Trump’s second term?

Economy: The annual inflation rate stood at 2.4% last month, lower than the 3% in January 2025 when Trump returned to the White House. Overall, US GDP increased by 2.2% last year—the slowest pace since 2022—while major stock indexes saw annual gains ranging from 13%-21%.

• Over in the jobs market: the unemployment rate stood at 4.3% last month, up slightly from 4.2% in January 2025.
• At the same time, US employers added just 181,000 new jobs last year, the lowest annual total in over two decades outside of a recession.

Immigration: Trump’s admin has made cracking down on unlawful border crossings and deporting immigrants living in the US illegally a main point of emphasis in his second term.

• Under the aggressive push, ICE and Border Patrol agents surged into major US cities and sometimes clashed with residents (notably in Minneapolis).
• Overall, the number of migrants caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border last fiscal year fell to the lowest level since 1970, while ICE arrested 746 people/day from January-October of 2025.

Foreign affairs: President Trump has been involved in a wide range of major foreign policy actions over the past year-plus.

• They include brokering a fragile ceasefire deal in Gaza, capturing autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and pressing European countries to increase defense spending.
• Other actions include a tariff campaign targeting nearly every country (recently struck down by SCOTUS), threatening to take over Greenland from fellow NATO ally Denmark, creating a Trump-led Board of Peace, and escalating pressure on Iran to dismantle its nuclear program.

Federal budget: The US gov’t ran a ~$1.8 trillion budget deficit in FY 2025, lower than the previous two years, as overall spending ($7.1 trillion) continued to rise. Tax bills for many Americans are projected to decrease for 2025 following the passage of the GOP-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which prevented previous tax cuts from expiring.

Energy & Climate: Trump’s admin has prioritized boosting US energy production by removing certain regulations for nuclear- and fossil fuel-based power sources. At the same time, the admin has pulled back from renewable energy sources, and recently repealed the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” classifying greenhouse gases like CO2 as threats to public health.

📊 Flash poll: In general, do you have a positive or negative opinion of President Trump’s job performance just over a year into his second term?

• Positive
• Negative
• Unsure/other

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Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

🍽️ Restaurants that raised prices by more than 10% last year were more likely to report lower profits compared to restaurants below that figure, down from a 15% threshold last year.

🦷 The Tooth Fairy is paying an average of $5.84/tooth this year. That's up from $5.01 in 2025, and $1.30 back in 1998.

⚖️ Senior partners at America’s largest law firms charge as much as $3,400/hour, with average rates increasing by 16% last year among the top 50 biggest firms.

🥇 Norway’s 18 gold medals at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games is the most by any country in Winter Olympics history.

🤖 In mid-2024, ChatGPT usage was split roughly 50-50 between personal and work use. Today, personal use represents 70% of messages, compared to 30% for work.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🎥 Paramount wins WBD bidding war: Netflix says it won’t match Paramount’s latest offer for WBD, after WBD’s board determined the bid from the David Ellison-led company was better than Netflix’s.
• 🤖🍔 Burger King is launching AI-powered headsets for employees, which can recite recipes, alert managers, and evaluate the friendliness of customer interactions.
• 🎰 Prediction market Kalshi fines and suspends an editor of MrBeast’s YouTube channel and a former GOP gubernatorial candidate in California for potential insider trading; it represents the first-ever disciplinary actions publicized by Kalshi.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📺🏎️ Apple and Netflix announce rare shared-rights deal where Season 8 of Drive to Survive (premiering today) and an upcoming F1 race will appear on both platforms.
• 🏈 NFL Scouting Combine workouts kick off in Indianapolis; pre-draft event runs through Sunday, with QBs/WRs/RBs all scheduled for Saturday.
• 🎭 Megan Thee Stallion to make Broadway debut in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. | 🚨 Rapper D4vd named as suspect of Los Angeles county grand jury murder investigation.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🪐 Planetary parade to appear in the night sky on Saturday, with six planets all appearing at once for a brief period.
• 🧠 Brains of super agers—or people aged 80+ who retain mental clarity similar to those decades younger—produce new neurons at twice the rate of their peers, new research shows.
• 👟 Harvard engineers discover process behind why basketball shoes squeak, finding that the process involves miniature lightning-like sparks.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🌍 Third round of US-Iran nuclear negotiations begin in Geneva; both sides make "significant progress" in first day of indirect talks, says Oman’s foreign minister, who’s mediating the negotiations.
• 🤖 Anthropic rejects US military’s ultimatum and refuses to permit its Claude AI models to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to declare Anthropic a supply-chain risk if it refuses to comply, a label typically reserved for companies from hostile countries.
• 🏛️ Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Oversight Committee as part of its probe into Jeffrey Epstein; Clinton says she has no information about any criminal activity by Epstein, and doesn’t remember ever meeting him; former President Bill Clinton’s testimony in the Epstein probe is set for today.

👆 Smithsonian Magazine launched an interactive map called 250 Places to Celebrate America, in honor of the country’s upcoming 250th birthday. The map spotlights some of America’s most dramatic, surprising, and wonderfully weird destinations across the country.

🤔 Did you know? A standard 2×2 LEGO brick can withstand roughly 4,240 newtons of compressive force—equal to 950 pounds pressing down—before it fails. This means a single brick could theoretically support the weight of ~375,000 other bricks stacked on top of it.

📰 Worth a read: Tech companies are making their robots cute to try and win over humans.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• 8 creative ways to build your village
• Baby born to UK mother after womb transplant
• Your muscles retain memories of strength and weakness

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How well did you pay attention this week? Find out here.

1. The ratio of cats to dogs at a shelter is 4:7. If there are 44 animals total, how many are cats?
2. f(x) = 2x+3; what's the value of f(4)?
3. What’s the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 10 units? (Use 3.14 for π)

🐢 Giant tortoises are officially back on Floreana Island in the Galapagos. Over 100 juveniles were recently released on their ancestral home, marking the first time the species has been seen on the island in 180 years. 

1. 16
2. 11
3. 10π, or 31.4 units

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