NASA finds life in space?

Supersonic travel returns. Prehistoric life: eat or be eaten. POTUS paycheck.

Good morning. The official countdown to Valentine’s Day is on—11 days until couples clog every restaurant, single people pretend to love it, and capitalism wins again. But hey, love is love—whether it’s overpriced prix fixe menus or a quiet night of solitude.

Meanwhile, in 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle. And back in 1966, Luna 9 landed softly on the Moon—unlike most modern relationships, which crash and burn more often than not.

It’s February. Anything can happen. Maybe even love. Or maybe just more bad decisions. Either way, let’s get into today’s news:

  • Asteroid might crash Christmas 2032—maybe

  • Millennials are rich—just not spendable rich

  • Life’s building blocks delivered by asteroid

  • Presidency pays well, but ages you faster

  • Apple thrives on subscriptions, not sales

  • Empty offices turn into vertical farms

    and more…

Stock market

Crypto

Wall Street took a hit on Friday after the White House decided to stir the pot with fresh tariffs. Starting Saturday, the U.S. will slap a 25% tax on goods from Mexico and Canada, plus a 10% tariff on Chinese imports—because what’s global trade without a little chaos? Investors, naturally, weren’t amused. The S&P 500 slid 0.5%, the Dow dropped 0.8%, and the Nasdaq—after briefly pretending everything was fine—ended down 0.3%. Turns out, the market isn’t a fan of economic food fights. 

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Millennials’ Net Worth Quadrupled

Image: U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Millennials’ net worth has skyrocketed from $3.94 trillion to $15.95 trillion in five years, according to the Federal Reserve. But most of them don’t feel rich—because this so-called wealth is mostly tied up in home values and retirement accounts, not actual cash. Dubbed “phantom wealth,” this paper fortune doesn’t help with daily expenses. Between 2019 and 2022, home prices shot up 44%, making homeowners look wealthier on paper while still stressing over grocery bills. So, technically, millennials have money—just not the kind they can actually use.

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Apple hits 1 billion subscriptions. iPhone sales may be slipping, but Apple’s subscription empire is thriving. The company raked in a record-breaking $26.3 billion in services revenue last quarter, bringing its 2024 total to nearly $100 billion. With over 1 billion subscriptions across the App Store, iCloud, Music, TV+, and more, Apple has officially mastered the art of making people pay forever. Expanding services like Apple Arcade, Fitness+, and Tap to Pay keep the cash flowing—because why sell a phone once when you can charge for everything monthly?

MrBeast wants to buy TikTok for $20B. Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, has teamed up with a group of investors—including the CEO of Roblox and some crypto guys—to throw a $20 billion bid at TikTok. They think it’ll take $25 billion to seal the deal, but there’s one tiny problem: TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, says it’s not for sale. So far, the group hasn’t even gotten a response. MrBeast, ever the businessman, is keeping his options open and might jump ship to whichever bid looks most promising. He called the situation “big things cooking,” but right now, it’s looking more like a cold stove.

NASA Finds Life’s Ingredients in Space Rock

Image: NASA

Asteroid dust brought back by NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission contains amino acids, nitrogen, and salty traces of an ancient water world—strong evidence that asteroids may have delivered the building blocks of life to Earth. The 122-gram sample from asteroid Bennu, collected in 2023, is the largest ever retrieved from deep space. Scientists found water-friendly minerals and pieces of genetic material, hinting that life’s origins may have started with cosmic debris. Basically, Earth’s first care package may have come from space—courtesy of a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid.

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Asteroid has 1.3% chance of ruining 2032. Space agencies are tracking asteroid 2024 YR4, which has a 1.3% chance of slamming into Earth on December 22, 2032. In cosmic terms, that’s actually pretty high. Experts say it’ll “most likely” be a near miss, but just in case, global planetary defense teams are on standby. Because if there’s even a small chance of Earth getting smacked by a space rock, someone should probably keep an eye on it.

Supersonic comeback: Concorde’s successor takes flight. Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 test plane broke the sound barrier over California, hitting Mach 1.122 (750 mph) at 35,000 feet. The 34-minute flight marks a major step toward bringing back supersonic passenger travel, two decades after Concorde retired. CEO Blake Scholl called the flight “phenomenal” and says they’re ready to scale up.

Dino bone shows 76-million-year-old bite mark. Researchers in Canada found a fossilized dinosaur bone with a 4mm croc-like bite mark, proving that even 76 million years ago, something was always getting eaten. The bone belonged to a young flying reptile, meaning this unlucky dino either crash-landed into danger or got snatched mid-air. Scientists say this rare find offers insight into ancient predator-prey dynamics—basically, life in the Cretaceous was just as brutal as expected.

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Empty Offices Now Growing Kale, Not Meetings

Image: Calgary Tower

With demand for office space tanking, some buildings are ditching desks for dirt—turning into vertical farms instead. Thanks to artificial lighting and controlled temperatures, old office buildings are proving shockingly good for growing kale, cucumbers, and other crops.

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How much money the U.S. President makes. The U.S. president takes home $400,000 a year, plus a $50,000 expense account, $100,000 for travel, and $19,000 for “entertainment.” That adds up to $569,000 annually—not bad for a job where half the country hates you at any given moment. Beyond the paycheck, there are perks: free housing in the White House, private medical care, and transportation that includes Air Force One, Marine One, and a motorcade that could clear a traffic jam in seconds. Sounds glamorous, but the trade-off is brutal—zero privacy, constant criticism, and the kind of stress that guarantees a shocking before-and-after photo by the end of the term.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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