👋 Hello there,
Welcome to another edition of the Stellar Recap, a weekly newsletter where I share interesting content you may have missed over the week. This issue features 78 bullets.
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📊 Business, Economics & Personal Finance
On Mar. 15, benchmark cocoa futures surged to a record $8K/ton, up 25% in 1 week and 215% higher than last year. The price rose to ~$9K/ton of Fri. The cocoa market is projected to be short 374K tons this season, up from a shortfall of 74K tons last season.
An estimated 491M users log into Facebook just to use Marketplace. Marketplace launched in 2016 and has 1B+ monthly active users today.
With a median salary of $38K 5 yrs after graduation, liberal arts and performing arts majors topped the Fed Reserve’s list of the worst-paying college majors.
The average cost to charge an electric car at a public charging station in the US is $0.45/kWh. Prices are lowest in Nebraska at $0.17/kWh and highest in W. Virginia at $054/kWh. A typical EV with a 300 mi. range usually takes ~75-100 kWh to go from empty to full.
After adding 3K new locations in 2023, Starbucks is now the 2nd-largest fast food chain in the world, just behind McDonald’s.
An NFT of a dog wearing a hat sold for $4M. WIF, the associated meme coin, has a valuation of ~$3B. The $4M spent on the NFT would generate an income of $215K/yr if it was invested in risk-free Treasury bills.
~3.5M couples in India spent ~$75B on their wedding celebrations between Nov. 23 - Dec. 15, 2023.
Hidden Valley sold $1.3B worth of ranch dressing in the US last year (🔒WSJ).
In 2022, unionized workers in the US earned ~10%-15% more than their nonunion peers and their median net wealth was ~1.7x higher ($338.5K vs. $200K). The ratio of median union household wealth to median nonunion household wealth was significantly higher for households of color than for white households.
A new survey of US companies showed that 79% plan to give pay raises this year, the lowest since 2021. The average company expects to offer a raise of 4.5% this year, down slightly from the 4.8% average bump given in 2023.
A survey of hiring managers found that 40% list jobs that aren’t actively being filled. An analysis of LinkedIn posts estimated that 1.7M potential jobs there are likely “ghost openings.”
Japan hiked interest rates for the first time in 17 yrs (🔒NYT). The Bank of Japan’s target policy rate was raised to a range of 0 - 0.1% from -0.1% last Tue.
Mondelēz is rolling out a new recipe for its Chips Ahoy! cookies. The tweak to its 61-yr-old recipe includes more cocoa and vanilla. Chips Ahoy! accounts for 53% of the chocolate chip cookie market in the US.
The DOJ and 15 states sued Apple last Thurs., saying its iPhone ecosystem is a monopoly that drove its “astronomical valuation” at the expense of consumers, developers, and rival phone makers.
Data from Kelly Blue Book showed that the average price of an EV in the US in Feb. was ~$52.3K, down from ~$54.9K in Jan. and only ~$5K more than the average transaction price for a new combustion engine vehicle.
The Biden administration announced it’s canceling another $6B in student loan debt for 78K public service workers last Thurs. To date, the administration has offered relief to ~4M borrowers, including 870K public service workers. ~7K public service workers received forgiveness before the Biden administration.
The cost of robusta coffee futures hit an all-time high of ~$3.5K/tonne on Mar. 7 (🔒NIKKEI Asia). Prices were ~$3.4K last Tue. Vietnam is the largest grower and production there is expected to fall 12%.
The average Wall Street bonus fell slightly in 2023 to $176.5K, down ~2% YoY. The overall bonus pool was $33.8B, which was largely unchanged from 2022 but spread out over more employees (198.5K vs. 191.6K).
A report by the Council of Economic Advisers estimated that 10% of US workers have jobs that are highly vulnerable to being affected and possibly displaced by AI. Workers in lower-income and less-skilled jobs are the most likely to experience disruption.
🧘 Health, Healthcare & Safety
The chances of dying in a plane crash went from 1-in-350K between 1968-1977 to 1-in-13.4M between 2018-2022. There hasn’t been a fatal crash involving a major commercial airline in the US since 2009. Globally, there were 0 fatal commercial jet crashes and just 6 fatal commercial aviation incidents that resulted in 115 deaths globally last year.
The EPA banned chrysotile asbestos, which is the last asbestos still in use in the US. It’s still used in certain types of gaskets, car brakes, and other materials, per the EPA. The carcinogen is linked to 40K+ deaths per year in the US. The EPA will phase in the prohibitions over ~5 yrs.
Rare, pokemon-like toxic blue dragons are washing up on Texas beaches and researchers are cautioning people to appreciate them at a distance.
~44.9K US medical school grads applied for 41.5K available residency positions during this year's Match Day and ~94% of positions were filled. The rate of filled primary care residencies fell 1.4 % pnts and only 92% of pediatric residencies were filled compared with 97% in 2023.
A new study found that, of the 16K+ chemicals found in plastics or thought to be used in them, at least 4.2K are “persistent, bioaccumulative, mobile, and/or toxic.”
Recent findings suggest that the risk of developing Long Covid increases with each additional infection such that by the 3rd infection, patients have a 40% chance of developing long-term symptoms.
The number of remote monitoring services billed to Medicare grew ~1,700% (🔒WP) in the 2 yrs after the agency allowed more reimbursements for doctors to keep track of patients' vital signs between office visits. Total payments for the 4 most common billing codes for remote monitoring rose from $5.5M in 2019 to $101.4M in 2021 which is the latest year for which data is available.
A new study based on the eating habits of 20K US adults found that an 8-hr eating plan (aka intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating) was linked to a 91% higher chance of cardiovascular death than a more traditional 12- to 16-hr diet. Some people are skeptical of the findings.
The FDA approved the 1st therapy for a rare and fatal genetic disorder called metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). The drug, Lenmeldy, will carry a wholesale price of $4.25M, making it the world’s most expensive medicine.
An Indian biotech company called ImmunoACT can produce CAR-T cancer therapy for ~$30K-$40K, which is ~1/10th of the price of comparable products now available. The safety profile also appears to be better than some US-approved CAR-T therapies.
120K+ dengue cases have been reported in Argentina this season (🔒Reuters). A majority of cases were in the last 2 mo. The country is on track to break previous infection records.
🎓 Lifelong Learning
An exploration of what makes airplanes fly by looking at the forces generated by the flow of air around the aircraft’s wings.
The origin of every US state’s name (~22.5 min. video). Also see this etymological map of the US and capital cities.
Every Mon., Merriam-Webster publishes crossword puzzles with a twist: 25 clues are definitions from its dictionary, and each one has a solution that starts with a different letter of the alphabet. Starting letters you’ve used appear in circles and are shown in the A-Z list. At the end of the puzzle, the 1 letter that hasn’t been used is the missing letter.
A fun, free way to create and share a map.
🌴 Lifestyle & Travel
The best destinations for women traveling solo, according to Afar.
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is the best botanical garden in 2024, according to readers of USA Today.
Fredericksburg, TX, is the top family-friendly destination in 2024, according to Yelp.
A 620-mi. trail called the Michinoku Coastal Trail (MCT) in Japan takes hikers up to stunning viewpoints and into resilient communities eager to share their culture and cuisine (🔒WSJ).
A map of all the thermal springs in the US.
🗳️ Politics, Security & International Affairs
A state of emergency has been declared in southern Iceland after another volcanic eruption occurred, marking the 4th since Dec.
Donald Trump’s lawyers told a NY court that he couldn’t secure a $454M bond to appeal his civil fraud judgment, after approaching 30 bond companies. If the court doesn’t reverse the requirement for the bond and halt its enforcement, the state can begin seizing Trump’s assets on Mar. 25.
Virtually every group of voters under age 70 has become much less likely to register as Democrats (🔒NYT) with respect to Republicans since 2019. But most of the decline is from an increase in independents and not a surge in Republican registrants.
The Dept. of Education gave out $1.4B between 2010-2016 in its Investing in Innovation or i3 grant program and a new report showed that only 26% of the 112 interventions yielded any positive benefits for students and no negative harms.
A new study found that just 1.6% of state legislators qualify as “working class” (i.e., they currently or recently worked in manual labor, the service industry, a clerical job, or a labor union job), compared to 50% of the US working population. Alaska has the highest share with 3 out of 60 lawmakers, while New Hampshire has the highest total number with 8 (out of 420 legislators).
Sri Lanka’s official astrologers are split for the 1st time on deciding the best date for New Year celebrations. The majority set the dawn of the traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year on the night of Apr. 13 but some dissenters believe that the time is wrong and will lead the country into “disaster.”
The Biden administration’s National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy spells out a 4-phase plan for establishing a charging and refueling network for medium- and heavy-duty trucks by 2040. The goal is for zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to make up at least 30% of sales by 2030 and 100% by 2040.
The VA plans to shed 10K employees next fiscal year. Most of the reductions are expected to come from the Veterans Health Administration. The Veterans Benefits Administration is also anticipating a 4% reduction in its workforce.
41% of Americans named China as the US’s greatest enemy, making it the top perceived adversary for the 4th straight year. China ranks 1st among Republicans (67%) and independents (40%) but is a distant 2nd to Russia among Democrats (18%).
A branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility last Fri. for an attack in Moscow that killed at least 133 people according to reports as of Sat. afternoon.
Bloomberg reported that China and Russia made a deal with Houthi militants (🔒) to provide political support for the Yemen-based group in exchange for allowing their ships to sail through the Red Sea without being attacked.
A US resolution calling for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” as part of a deal in Gaza failed in the UN Security Council on Fri., after Russia and China vetoed the measure
⏩ Pop Culture, Art, Sports & Entertainment
A record 68M US adults wagered an estimated $15.5B on NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments in 2023. The odds of predicting a bracket perfectly are 1 in 2 to the 67th power, or 1 in 147,573,952,589,676,412,928, or about 1.47 quintillion, assuming that each team has a 50/50 chance of winning. ~850 of the 22M+ brackets submitted on ESPN were still unbroken as of last Thurs. and only 34 brackets in Yahoo Fantasy Sports’ challenge remained perfect.
According to the ALA, 4,240 book titles were flagged for censorship across US K12 schools and libraries in 2023, up ~65% YoY. Public libraries saw a 92% increase in book challenges, while school libraries saw an 11% increase. ~47% of the books were by or about LGBTQ+ authors or authors of color.
The best shows to stream this spring, according to TV Guide.
Graffiti artist Banksy confirmed that a new mural on a London wall is his. It features green paint sprayed to look like foliage behind a bare tree.
Spotify paid $9B in royalties to musical artists in 2023. ~66K artists made $10K+ in royalties (up 16% YoY), 11.6K artists made $100K+, and 1,250 artists made >$1M.
A survey by Morning Consult found that 29% of Gen Alpha parents said their youngest child uses slang they don’t understand (🔒) like “Bet” (which expresses agreement), “GOAT” (meaning Greatest Of All Time), and “sus” (short for suspicious).
French bulldogs were the most registered purebred dog in the US last year for the 2nd straight year, according to the AKC. ~98.5K French bulldogs joined the AKC pack last year, after 108K in 2022.
Ars Technica ranked 20 time-travel movies based on a balance of scientific accuracy and entertainment.
Songs with a tempo <79 bpm represented 39% of radio plays in 2023 (🔒Billboard+), up 29% YoY and the highest level in a decade.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld has a net worth of >$1B (🔒Bloomberg), thanks in large part to the ~$465M he’s earned from syndication deals from his sitcom. He also received $94M from a steaming deal with Netflix and ~$100M from his tours.
🏡 Real Estate
An analysis of Census data showed that the US metro with the longest housing tenure is Johnstown, PA (🔒NYT). ~50% of Johnstown homeowners have owned their home for 24+ yrs. Jacksonville, NC has the greatest share of short-tenure owners. ~50% of homeowners there have owned for 5 yrs or less. At the state level, Hawaii has the largest share of households who have owned their home for 24+ yrs while Arizona has the largest share of <5-yr homeowners.
The average cost of rent for apartments aimed towards students in Tallahassee, FL, increased by >30% in the past 3 yrs to $839/mo. Data from Zillow showed that the median price of a rental listed on the app is falling (by $125 YoY), but at a median price of $1.4K/mo., rentals on Zillow cost much more than student apartments.
Rents fell 7% YoY in Austin, the biggest drop of any US city, per Apartment List.
New data showed that ~308.9K single-family homes and condos in the US were flipped in 2023, down 29% YoY and the largest annual drop since 2008. The average gross profit fell to $66K, down 28% YoY. The average time to flip a home increased to 169 days, up 2.4% YoY.
An FHFA study estimated that the number of homeowners who were “locked into their homes” due to high mortgage interest rates accounted for 57% of the decrease in home sales in Q4 2023 and prevented ~1.33M sales between Q2 2022 - Q4 2023.
🌎 Society
New data showed that there were ~2.066M marriages in the US in 2022. 31 states reported an uptick in marriage rates while 12 showed a decline. Nevada maintained its status as the state with the highest marriage rate (25.9 per 1K people).
A new report from the Census showed that ~6.7M people or ~3.6% of US adults lived with their grandchildren in 2021. Nationally, ~33% of grandparents living with their grandchildren under the age of 18 were responsible for their care. Alaska, Hawaii, and states in the Southeast and Southwest had the highest share of grandparent-grandchildren households.
Based on life evaluation data from the Gallup World Poll, Finland is the happiest country in the world while Afghanistan is the least. The US dropped to #23 from #15 last year, marking the first time it fell out of the top 20 since the ranking began in 2012. Depending on the region, there were wide gaps by age and agender. For example, countries in Central and Eastern Europe show a 1+ pnt gap (on a 10 pnt scale) in happiness between the youngest and the oldest groups.
A new YouGov poll showed that just 39% of gen Zers and 43% of millennials correctly identified their generational label. Overall, 27% of all responders selected some other label. Older adults were more likely to say they have some or a great deal in common with others in their generation.
🧪 Science, Climate, Environment & Technology
A new study found that the Cloud has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. The Cloud is defined as the full gamut of tech infrastructures that make online activity possible. A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50K homes.
A new study found that Britain has 6x+ as many giant sequoia trees as California. British redwoods are younger, so they’re not as tall as their American counterparts.
A newly unsealed report from Harvard University finds that Francesca Gino committed “research misconduct intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly.”
Researchers showed a new way to hack AI assistants to respond to prompts they would normally reject using ASCII art.
In 2023, all but 1 of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution were in Asia, according to IQAIR. 83 cities were in India.
Researchers studied 120 Facebook pages that posted at least 50 AI-generated images each. Collectively, the posts they analyzed had hundreds of millions of interactions, mostly from real people who were earnestly responding to the “art” and were unaware that the images were made by AI.
A study of 14K farms in California found that organic farms can lead to an overall increase in pesticide use in a region if they’re interspersed with conventional farms.
A new study estimated that 51 of the 164 countries and territories it analyzed are likely to suffer from high to extremely high water stress by 2050.
A visual exploration of which plants have the most potential in a changing climate.
Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, said that “For every one paper that is retracted, there are probably 10 that should be.” (🔒NYT)
Wishing you a good week
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