Good morning.

It’s Wednesday, March 25. Hump day. The middle child of the week. Not exciting, not terrible, just… there.

Today, we celebrate the birthday of Sarah Jessica Parker — yes, the Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. The woman who made bad financial decisions look like a personality trait and convinced an entire generation that buying shoes instead of savings was somehow… empowering. Icon behavior, honestly.

Anyway. Take a sip of your coffee, pretend you have your life together (Carrie never really did, so you’re fine), and let’s get into it.

Today’s stories:

Stocks slipped Tuesday, giving back some of Monday’s optimism as oil climbed again and the Iran conflict dragged into week four. The S&P 500 fell 0.37% to 6,556. The Dow Jones dropped 84 points, while the Nasdaq led losses, down 0.84%. A mild pullback, but a clear shift in tone.

Markets are now stuck between headlines and reality. Donald Trump said the U.S. is “in negotiations” with Iran and hinted at a possible deal — comments that helped fuel Monday’s rally. Iran, however, told a different story, denying direct talks altogether. Translation: markets moved on hope yesterday, and are recalibrating on uncertainty today.

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United Airlines is going all-in on “premium,” aka turning flights into something that almost feels enjoyable if you pick the right seat. They’re launching a new plane called the Coastliner — think cross-country flights, but with lie-flat Polaris seats, nicer cabins, and even a snack bar you can walk to (luxury = standing for snacks now). The plane will fly from Newark to LA and San Francisco first. Basically, if you’re flying coast-to-coast and paying enough, you can now sleep horizontally instead of questioning your life choices vertically. They’re also bringing in another new jet, the A321XLR, which can fly to Europe. Business class gets beds, Saks Fifth Avenue bedding, lounge access — the full main character package. Economy gets… access to the snack bar. Don’t get too excited.

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Gap enters the AI shopping era. Gap is making sure your casual chats don’t stay casual for long. They’re teaming up with Google’s Gemini so you can shop directly inside the conversation — no tabs, no browsing, no time to rethink your choices. You ask what to wear, Gemini suggests Gap, and suddenly there’s a checkout button right there, waiting, because clearly what you needed was less friction between “hmm” and “buy.” You pay with Google Pay, Gap ships it, and everything feels very smooth, very easy, and slightly suspiciously fast. Still being tested, but coming soon.

House flipping isn’t the easy money it used to be. House flipping isn’t dead, but it’s definitely less fun than it used to be. Fewer homes are being flipped, and the profits are shrinking — the average return dropped to about 25%, which sounds nice until you realize it used to be over 50% in the good old days. Between high home prices, expensive renovations, and mortgage rates that refuse to relax, investors are finding out this isn’t the easy money play it once looked like on TV. Basically, everything costs more, deals are harder to find, and margins are getting squeezed from every angle. There’s some cautious optimism for this year — slightly better conditions, more inventory, maybe a bit of relief — but nothing that screams “easy wins.”

The IRS is sitting on your money. If you didn’t file your 2022 taxes, congratulations — the IRS might still owe you money, and they’re not chasing you down to give it back. Over $1.2 billion in refunds is just sitting there, unclaimed, because more than a million people didn’t bother filing. You have until April 15, 2026 to fix that, and after that, it’s gone. And it’s not just your basic refund — you could also be missing extra credits, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, which can actually pay you even if you owed nothing. The average refund is around $686, which isn’t life-changing, but also not something you casually donate to the government out of laziness.

ChatGPT enters real estate. A guy in Florida decided to skip the real estate agent and just use ChatGPT to sell his house — because why not experiment with your largest asset. He used it for everything: pricing, strategy, what to fix, when to list, even the marketing text. ChatGPT basically became his unpaid, always-available agent. It told him to repaint a few rooms, list mid-week, and aim higher on price — so he did, trusting the robot over actual humans with licenses. Result: five offers in three days, deal done in five, and the house sold for about $100K more than brokers suggested. He still used a lawyer at the end (even he wasn’t that brave), but says he saved around 3% in fees.

Estée Lauder and Puig might merge. Estée Lauder and Spanish beauty group Puig are talking about merging into a $40 billion giant — emphasis on talking, because nothing is actually agreed yet. Between them, they own basically everything you’ve seen in a nice bathroom: Clinique, Tom Ford Beauty, Charlotte Tilbury, Carolina Herrera… the whole “effortlessly expensive” lineup. On paper, it makes sense — skincare, makeup, and perfume all under one roof, selling you the same dream from slightly different angles. In reality, investors are not exactly celebrating. Estée Lauder’s stock dropped after the news, mostly because the company is already trying to fix its business, and adding a massive merger on top sounds like… a lot. Puig, meanwhile, liked the idea — its stock went up. Both companies say no deal yet, no promises, just conversations.

Yachts are the new hotels now. Luxury hotel brands like Aman, Four Seasons, and Ritz-Carlton decided cruises needed a rebrand — so they made them smaller, quieter, and a lot more curated. Instead of giant ships packed with people fighting over buffet lines, these are sleek yachts with fewer than 300 guests, real restaurants, and rooms that look like actual hotel suites, not something you tolerate for the view. The idea is simple: take everything people like about high-end hotels and put it on water — minus the crowds, noise, and questionable entertainment choices. No massive shows, no chaos, no “all-you-can-eat everything.” Just calm, design, and very controlled luxury. They’re betting that people who always said “I don’t do cruises” will suddenly say “well… this is different.”

Scientists in Japan spent years trying to see if you could keep cloning… forever. Like copy → copy → copy, no limit. At first, it worked. They cloned over 1,000 mice from one original, and everything looked surprisingly fine, even generations in. Then things started getting weird. By around the 25th generation, problems showed up. By the 58th, the clones didn’t even survive a day. Turns out, every round of cloning adds small genetic errors, and eventually those pile up enough to break the system completely. They even tried using special chemicals to keep things stable, and it helped… but not forever. Interestingly, when some of these later clones reproduced naturally, things improved again. Nature fixing what science kept copying.

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Your WiFi just got political. The FCC just decided your WiFi router might be a national security risk, so they’re banning new ones made overseas. Existing routers are fine — for now — but anything new coming in will need special approval, because apparently your internet box is now part of global cybersecurity drama. The concern is that foreign-made routers, especially from China, could be used for hacking, surveillance, or quietly causing chaos in networks while you’re just trying to load Instagram. No clear proof that U.S.-made routers are actually safer, but the message is clear: trust issues, but make it official policy.

11-year-old fixes reading. An 11-year-old girl just did what entire industries have been trying to figure out — make reading easier for people with dyslexia. Millie came up with the idea when she was eight, because apparently some people are building Lego at that age, and others are designing solutions to real problems. Her glasses use interchangeable colored lenses, so users can pick the shade that makes text easier to read and less visually stressful. Simple idea, big impact — which is usually how the best ideas go. So an 11-year-old had a better product idea than most adults in the room.

Isolation created a whole new version of human. Ancient humans in southern Africa basically kept to themselves for nearly 100,000 years — and their DNA shows it. Scientists found their genetics were so different, they fall outside the range of what we see in people today. Same species, very different versions. The group stayed isolated for thousands of years, likely because of distance and not-so-great conditions in surrounding areas, which made mixing with others… not really a thing. Over time, their unique genetic traits piled up, creating what researchers call an “extreme” version of human variation — which sounds polite for “very different.” Eventually, around 1,300 years ago, other groups showed up, and humans did what humans do — mixed, adapted, moved on. The bigger takeaway: human evolution wasn’t one clean path. It was messy, scattered, and happening in multiple places at once.

The chip designer now makes chips. Arm, the company that spent decades designing chips for everyone else, has decided it’s time to stop being helpful and start competing. After 36 years of licensing its tech to giants like Apple and Nvidia, it just launched its own AI chip — because clearly watching everyone else make money wasn’t fun anymore. The new chip is built for AI data centers and already has big-name partners like Meta lined up as customers, which is convenient, considering some of those same companies used to just… rely on Arm’s designs. This move has been coming for a while, but it’s still a shift: Arm is no longer just the quiet supplier in the background, it’s now stepping directly into the arena. Also notable — it’s a CPU, not a GPU, because even in the AI hype cycle, someone still has to handle the less glamorous work.

After their polo doc didn’t exactly break the internet, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are… doing polo again. But this time, scripted. Netflix is developing a drama set in Wellington, Florida — think rival polo teams, family drama, and a lot of expensive outfits pretending to have deeper problems. It’s coming from their Archewell Productions, along with some experienced TV creators, so at least someone in the room knows what they’re doing. The original docuseries quietly came and went. This new version is basically the same world, just with more drama and hopefully more viewers. They’ve got a few other projects in the works too, but let’s just say Netflix is watching closely this time.

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Turns out people like new movies. After years of sequels, reboots, and “we’ve definitely seen this before,” Hollywood is slowly realizing that original movies can actually work. Big new films like Project Hail Mary and Pixar’s Hoppers are pulling strong numbers, proving that audiences might want something new instead of part 12 of the same story. Yes, these movies are still expensive — like $200 million expensive — but when they hit, they hit hard, and suddenly everyone remembers creativity is… profitable. Of course, franchises aren’t going anywhere. Superheroes, animated sequels, and anything with a number in the title are still lined up to dominate the box office. But the recent wins show something important: people don’t just want familiar — they want interesting.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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