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- 🌊 Amazon Leaves DC?
🌊 Amazon Leaves DC?
Plus: CEO killed in NYC, Georgia unrest, & YMCA not a gay anthem?
And the word of the year is…. “brain rot.”
Oxford Dictionary dubbed “brain rot” its word of the year. Brain rot refers to the “cognitive decline attributed to excessive exposure to mindless social media content.” It’s created a new vocabulary — including terms like sigma, gyatt, skibidi, Ohio, rizz, goon, fanum tax, and Livvy Dunne — that you probably heard your Gen Z cousin bring up at Thanksgiving dinner. And, sadly, it’s likely not going anywhere.
Now, the opposite of brain rot would be your answers to yesterday’s question of the day. We asked why trust in science has declined in America, and you wrote in super high-quality answers. There was also an impressive range of views. We featured four of the best; the Rizzler, Baby Gronk, Big Justice, Duke Dennis, and Livvy Dunne would be proud of your effort.
😮 CEO shot dead in streets of NYC
📦 Washington, DC, sues Amazon
🎵 YMCA singer says song not a gay anthem
–Max and Max
KEY STORY
CEO Assassination Details
The search for the healthcare killer continued
On Wednesday, Brian Thompson – CEO of United Healthcare, one of the US’ largest health insurance companies – was assassinated in Midtown Manhattan while on his way to attend his company’s annual shareholder meeting. The assailant escaped on an e-bike into Central Park, sparking a manhunt
On Thursday, police said the shooter used a silencer and bullets engraved with the words “delay” and “deny,” tactics allegedly used by health insurance companies to avoid coverage
Police also searched a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and found a photo of the alleged culprit, a smiling young man
Dig Deeper
Amid the hunt prominent ex-NYT and now-Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz prompted online controversy for suggesting it made sense why someone would want to kill a healthcare executive
Sharing an article about Blue Cross Blue Shield, another insurance company, announcing cuts to anesthesia coverage, she wrote, “And people wonder why we want these executives dead”
KEY STORY
FBI: Hide Your Texts
US officials warned Americans to avoid SMS texting following what the chairman of Senate Intelligence called “the worst telecom hack in our… history by far”
The “Salt Typhoon” Chinese hacking campaign breached more than eight major US telecommunications companies, reportedly to spy on politicians. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile were among the affected providers
Officials said that Americans should use encrypted services – like iMessage, Google Messages, or WhatsApp – to avoid potential privacy intrusions
China denied any hack took place
Dig Deeper
White House Officials said that none of the affected telecom firms have been able to clear the hack fully and that the Chinese operation is still underway
Officials did not commit to a timetable for clearing the telecom companies' systems
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KEY STORY
AI Weather Takeover?
DeepMind, a Google-owned company in London, has developed the first artificial intelligence (AI) model that generates accurate forecasts up to 15 days in advance, per a new report in Nature
Due to atmospheric volatility, most weather models are good at predicting weather for about a week. DeepMind developed its AI weather model system GenCast with the goal of forecasting weather more accurately and for longer periods of time
According to the Nature piece, GenCast beat the industry-leading European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 97% of the time. For predictions beyond 3 days, it won nearly 100% of the time
KEY STORY
UK Junk Food Ad Ban
In a plan unveiled Tuesday, the UK government will ban ads for “less healthy” food and drinks before 9 PM starting next year to reduce childhood obesity
According to the National Health Service, one in 10 four-year-olds in the UK is considered to be obese and one in five five-year-olds suffers from tooth decay from eating too much sugar
UK health secretary Wes Streeting declared, “This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids”
The list of “junk foods” includes breakfast cereals, muesli, porridge oats, and granola
Dig Deeper
The UK government hopes the new measures will prevent 20,000 cases of childhood obesity a year. Health secretary Wes Streeting said, “Obesity robs our kids of the best possible start in life, sets them up for a lifetime of health problems, and costs the NHS billions”
The plan will take effect starting next October
Obesity costs the UK health service more than £11 billion ($14B) each year, per Secretary Streeting
RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office
✈️ A federal judge rejected Boeing's guilty plea agreement with the Justice Department over the 737 MAX crashes
🇬🇧 Muhammad became the most popular boy's name in England and Wales in 2023, with over 4,600 registrations
⚕️ Amid a discussion about anger toward healthcare companies, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) has come under fire for a proposal to limit coverage for anesthesia if a surgery exceeds a specified time limit
🪖 Syrian forces are reportedly withdrawing from Hama, a major Syrian city that stands between rebels and the capital, Damascus
🇺🇸 A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern California. A tsunami warning was initially issued before being rescinded
COMMUNITY
🧐 Yesterday’s question: Why has trust in “science” declined in America?
My name is Jessica, I am from Montreal but living in Barranquilla [Colombia]. I believe trust in science has declined for several reasons. One is that science works so well. For example, people don't trust vaccines because they don't have people all around them dying anymore like we used to when Polio and measles were a regular occurrence. When people were dying there was a noticeable difference in health when vaccines were introduced. Or how people say cancer is skyrocketing, which is not exactly true. Many types of cancers have decreased but since humans live longer because of scientific advances there is a much higher chance of getting cancer in old age than when you'd die at 50. And, of course, the internet has eroded trust in science because anyone can post anything even when it's completely false. Humans are wired to need a strong sense of identity so we automatically look for information that confirms our beliefs instead of looking at information objectively. Plus, social media has ruined people's attention spans so kids aren't as active in school and the US education system in particular is abysmal. Social media also makes it easy for people to position themselves as experts when they actually have no idea what they're talking about and don't know how to actually read a scientific paper. A huge example of this is RFK Jr. He single handledly spread misinformation about vaccines leading to the deaths of 82 people in Samoa mostly children. Another example is the food babe who fear mongers about ingredients she can't pronounce because she has a 5th grade reading level. This disproportionately affects low income people who can't afford fancy organic food but are scared of regular grown crops because of her misinformation.
The false Covid illness and Covid shot information fed to us coupled with the censorship of Doctors and researchers have made us distrust “science”.
Also, the realization that the shots they tell/force us to take are not rigorously tested.
Our eyes are opened and we cannot un-see this. Doubts will remain now forever. “Trust but verify” is what we should do but the trust is gone almost completely. It will take A LOT to get the trust back!
I'm currently a Chemical Engineering major at LSU, and when I talk to non-STEM majors about science, there is just a general misunderstanding of the basics, stemming from a lack of education in middle/high school. You can't trust something you don't understand. On top of that, social media platforms like TikTok, Reddit, Instagram, and 4chan all allow creators to spread massive amounts of misinformation about science in order to further their political points or for the creator to make a quick buck. A misunderstanding of basic science, coupled with a constant stream of misinformation about it, leads to a sense of distrust of science among the general population.
"Trust the science" has lost a lot of credibility since most universities began weeding out anyone who doesn't accept certain ideas as gospel. When you make sure that all your researchers have the same presuppositions about a topic, then any conclusions that their research comes to is always going to be suspect.
The fact is that there are great scientific minds on multiple sides of divisive topics (Covid, transgenderism, and climate change, just to name 3 hot-button topics as examples), and this fact is basically ignored by the media. When universities try to squash findings that conflict with the accepted narrative, then the only voices allowed to be heard are the ones who do not conflict with it. Therefore, we're all told that these topics are "settled science".
Because most Americans can see through this dishonest presentation of "facts", we no longer trust anything that is labeled as settled science. To us, the term has come to mean something else.
🧠 Today’s question: Should history look back on Fauci as a hero or villain?
POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour
💲 Rug Pull on that Thang: $HAWK, a cryptocurrency launched by social media personality Hailey Welch ("Hawk Tuah Girl"), crashed in value from $500M to $60M within 20 minutes of its launch, leading to accusations of a "rug pull" scam
🐻❄️ Bear Necessity: A Canadian man jumped onto a polar bear that was attacking his wife outside their home in Fort Severn First Nation, Ontario, suffering serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his arms and legs before a neighbor shot the bear
🇹🇭 Deep Misunderstanding: A 22-year-old Chinese man spent three days trapped in a 12-meter-deep abandoned well in Thailand after villagers mistook his cries for help as ghostly sounds
🇲🇽 Mexico v. Canada: Amid growing tensions between the countries related in part to Donald Trump’s tariff threats, Mexico’s president said Canada was jealous of Mexico’s “cultural riches”
🇺🇸 Badge to Black Market: A CBS News investigation revealed dozens of law enforcement leaders across 23 states have been illegally selling restricted weapons, including a small-town Iowa police chief who tried to acquire 90 machine guns for a department of three officers
EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts
Thank you to all of you who watched the Appalachian “hillbilly” video. This country is endlessly fascinating, and we can’t wait to explore it more in the year ahead (along with some more international trips…). We published a follow-up to the video last night about Ohio’s forgotten Appalachian cities. Hope you enjoy, and have a great Thursday.
–Max and Max