The White Lotus effect - 70% of Millennial and Gen-Z travelers picked their destinations based on pop culture - especially the TV shows they’re binging (Read More). Spring break travel could exceed pre-COVID levels this year, with 2.6 million travelers a DAY booking flights (Read More). But how are they gonna pay for all this? Nearly half of American parents with adult children continue to support them financially — to the tune of $1,442 a month on average (Read More).
- Pay rose at historically fast rates for low-wage workers in the U.S. between 2019 and 2022, even after adjusting for inflation — for those at the bottom of the scale it is still not a living wage (Read More).
- Buy Now Pay Never? Gen Z are charging more to their cards, including large transactions such as housing, car payments, and student loans (Read More). In the first two months of this year, the share of BNPL orders for groceries increased 40% over the year-earlier period (Read More).
- Nearly ? of Gen Z and Millennials always feel lonely (Read More).
- You’re Hired! The number of apprentices has increased by more than 50% in the last decade as students reconsider the value of college after high school (Read More).
- 69% of people say their manager is the person with the biggest impact on their mental health (Read More).
- The Fed hikes interest rates by 0.25% as it continues to battle against inflation - the 9th time they’ve raised rates in the past year (Read More).
- Take that Columbia House! New rules from the US government could soon let Americans more easily cancel free trials and subscriptions they no longer want, according to the Federal Trade Commission (Read More).
- TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew assured Congress that TikTok intends to remove US user data from its servers and to move all data to American soil by the end of the year (Read More). There are currently three bills in Congress that could affect American access to TikTok; two would legislate an outright ban of the platform, while the other would give the government the power to ban any technologies that are deemed a national security risk (Read More).
- First Citizens Bank has agreed to buy most of Silicon Valley Bank. The purchase of $72B in assets will come with a 23% discount of $16.5B, while approximately $90B in securities and other assets will remain in receivership for disposition by the FDIC (Read More). Close to 190 banks could face Silicon Valley Bank's fate, according to a new study (Read More).
- Bitcoin has spiked 24% this month and is up more than 70% year-to-date, as banking turmoil led some investors to seek alternative places to park their cash (Read More).
- Tiger Beat! Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Akon, and other celebs agreed to pay a combined $400K to settle SEC charges related to their paid promotions of crypto tokens Tronix and Bittorrent (Read More).
- AI ?took? created my job! A guy asked ChatGPT to turn $100 into "as much money as possible." Less than a week later, Jackson Greathouse Fall had started a business and website, offering products and tips to help people live more sustainably (Read More).
- ChatGPT casually dropped an app store, meaning it can browse the web, write and run Python and more (Read More).
- Google made its AI chatbot, Bard, available to the public (Read More).
- Microsoft's Bing search engine and Edge browser are now equipped with an AI-powered image creator, using OpenAI's DALL-E to generate images from text prompts (Read More). The company has seen a 15% increase in page visits since releasing AI-powered search (Read More). Microsoft also launched its new Loop app, a Notion-like hub for managing tasks and projects (Read More).
- GitHub announced GitHub Copilot X a "ChatGPT-like experience in your editor" powered by GPT-4 (Read More).
- Adobe unveils its new generative AI tool, Firefly (Read More).
- Canva announced 10 new features to their Creative Suite, many powered by AI (Read More).
- According to OpenAI Research and the University of Pennsylvania, roughly 80 percent of US workers could have at least 10% of their tasks affected by AI generators like ChatGPT (Read More).
- Boom Roasted! Companies hoping former employees won't blast them on social media can no longer use severance agreements to achieve that outcome according to The National Labor Relations Board (Read More).
- Disney is raising their minimum wage to $18 an hour after making a deal with union workers (Read More).
- Walmart is laying off hundreds of US workers at five e-commerce fulfillment centers (Read More).
- Bed Bath & Beyond is cutting 1,300 more jobs in New Jersey (Read More) and closing hundreds of stores nationwide as it continues to push off bankruptcy (Read More) - shares dropped below $1 (Read More).
- ESPN is preparing for layoffs as its parent Disney is set to slash 7,000 jobs and $5.5 billion in costs (Read More).
- Indeed announced that it is letting go approximately 2,200 people go, ~15% of their headcount (Read More).
- Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, will lay off 400 employees as part of this workforce reduction (Read More).
- Americans are buying Ozempic from Canada and Mexico to save hundreds each month (Read More).
- Moderna said it will price its Covid vaccine at $130 per dose once the government winds down its emergency program to make it available for free. The US government was getting it for $15–$26 per dose (Read More).
- An Idaho hospital is planning to stop delivering babies, partly due to the ‘political climate’ (Read More).
- Existing home prices fell 0.2% in Feb 2023 YoY, breaking an 11-year-streak of continuous annual increases (Read More) even as Home sales spiked +14.5% MoM (Read More). The typical homebuyer's down payment was down 10% year over year (Read More).
- Uber Eats is removing 5,000 online-only “virtual storefronts” that serve up the same menu (Read More).
- GameStop jumped >40% during the week after posting its first quarterly profit in two years (Read More).
- Allbirds introduced the first zero-carbon shoe, the “M0.0NSHOT” with materials such as sugarcane-based foam and eyelets made of bioplastic (Read More).
- White Claw is expanding into the vodka market with the release of White Claw Premium Vodka, a line of bottled regular and flavored vodkas (Read More).
- Beyoncé and Adidas have decided to mutually part ways from their Ivy Park partnership (Read More).
- Foot Locker plans on closing 400 locations across the country by 2026, as well as 125 Champs Sports stores as it looks to streamline & improve sales (Read More).
- Apple will reportedly spend $1 billion a year to produce and distribute theatrical movies, with the possibility of partnering with rival studios to enter the space (Read More). Movie theater stocks rallied after the announcement (Read More).
- Netflix plans to release 40 games this year and has 70 more in the works (Read More).
- Backed by big investors, trampoline arena SlamBall is back and set to return in July (Read More).
- TikTok has partnered with Major League Soccer for a multi-year deal that includes in-app programming and exclusive content (Read More).
An art project by Ai Weiwei lets you extend a middle finger anyplace you can find on Google Maps (Read More).
