Good morning. It’s Tuesday, May 20 — that awkward time of year when your calendar says “almost summer,” but your to-do list says “absolutely not.”

On this day, two icons were born: Honoré de Balzac, the French literary genius who basically wrote 90 novels about how everyone is doomed by money and ambition. And Cher — the only person who can survive every decade, every trend, and every breakup in rhinestones and sequins. One gave us La Comédie humaine, the other gave us Believe. Both served drama.

Thanks for reading and for leaving us your feedback — seriously, every comment makes our day (and occasionally fuels our ego). We’re glad you’re here.

Today’s stories:

• Crypto crashes Wall Street’s fancy club

• Big Tech now wants your symptoms too

• CERN briefly lives the alchemist dream

• Superwood: tough enough to flex steel

• Netflix builds Hollywood in New Jersey

• Blue rock fetches mega yacht money

• Your DNA, now Regeneron’s problem

• Think it — and your iPhone listens

• AI flopped, humans rehired. Oops

• Dick’s laces up for sneaker war

• Custom DNA saves baby’s life

  and more…

Wall Street kept its cool Monday, despite Moody’s giving the U.S. a downgrade and Washington inching closer to a tax plan that looks like it was designed with a calculator on fire.

Moody’s dropped America’s credit rating from a perfect Aaa to a slightly less flattering Aa1, blaming the country’s growing debt and the rising cost of borrowing. As if that wasn’t enough budget drama, the House Budget Committee gave a thumbs-up to Trump’s latest tax-and-spend bill—one that’s expected to toss trillions more onto the deficit pile.

And yet, stocks barely blinked. The S&P 500 rose a tiny 0.09%, the Dow climbed 137 points (0.32%), and the Nasdaq did its best impression of a flatline, up just 0.02%. Meanwhile, Treasury yields jumped, the dollar dipped, and investors pretended everything was fine.

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Airbnb Will Now Send a Chef, Trainer, or Masseuse to Your Rental 

Airbnb just launched a new feature called Airbnb Services, which lets you book private chefs, makeup artists, personal trainers, and even massage therapists to show up at your rental — or your house. It's now live in 260 cities, with prices starting under $50. Because the hotel competition is brutal, local crackdowns are everywhere, and travel demand is meh. Airbnb needs a glow-up, so it’s tossing in glam squads and yoga instructors. They're hoping this makes you pick a rental over a hotel — since washer/dryers and extra bedrooms aren’t sexy enough anymore.

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Coinbase enters the S&P 500. Coinbase just became the first crypto company to officially join the S&P 500. That’s right — the platform once known for volatility is now part of the most vanilla index in finance. Shares dipped 1% Monday but are still up 25% since the news leaked. CEO Brian Armstrong called it proof that crypto is "here to stay" and said now everyone’s basically got Coinbase in their 401(k), like it or not. Wall Street, meet Web3. Put your ties on.

Dick’s is buying Foot Locker for $2.4 billion. Dick’s Sporting Goods just announced it’s buying Foot Locker for $2.4 billion in cash and borrowed money in an attempt to dominate the Nike sneaker market and expand globally. Foot Locker’s been trying to turn things around, but with weak sales and tariffs dragging it down, the stock dropped 41% this year — making it ripe for the picking. Now shareholders can either take $24 a share (a 66% premium) or swap for a tiny slice of Dick’s stock. Foot Locker CEO Mary Dillon called the deal a “testament” to her team’s hard work. Translation: they cleaned up just enough to get bought.

Amazon and Nvidia are shoving AI into healthcare. Big Tech is officially playing doctor now. Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple are racing to shove AI into every corner of healthcare — from writing your medical notes to simulating surgeries to suggesting what pills you need after Googling your symptoms at 2 a.m. Amazon’s pushing a chatbot that gives health advice and sells you stuff. Nvidia’s building AI tools for X-rays, ultrasounds, and robot surgeries. Microsoft’s AI scribe, Dragon Copilot, is trying to free doctors from typing 80 hours a week. Apple’s just hanging back with your Apple Watch, quietly tracking your every step, snore, and irregular heartbeat. All of them want a piece of healthcare’s $4 trillion pie. Will that actually mean better care? Will see.

Regeneron buys 23andMe’s DNA and dignity for $256 million. Regeneron is scooping up most of 23andMe’s assets for $256 million after the once-buzzy DNA testing company faceplanted into bankruptcy. The pharma giant is grabbing the company’s Personal Genome Service, health platform, and research division — basically everything but the broken furniture. 23andMe, once valued at $6 billion and riding high on spit kits and ancestry hype, went public in 2021 and promptly unraveled. It also spent $400 million buying Lemonaid Health — which Regeneron doesn’t even want. That part’s getting shut down. RIP. Regeneron says it’ll “help people learn about their DNA.” Translation: data goldmine. The deal still needs a court’s OK, but it’s expected to close this fall — and your genetic secrets are now officially worth less than a quarter of an AI startup.

Baby Gets First-Ever Personalized Gene Fix

A baby with a deadly, untreatable condition just became the first human to get a personalized gene-editing treatment — and it worked. Doctors used new NIH-backed tech to fix a rare disorder called CPS1 deficiency. From diagnosis to life-saving therapy took just six months. And the best part is that this platform could be reused and tweaked for other rare diseases. Basically, it’s custom DNA repair — like a tailor, but for your genes. 

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Apple wants you to control your iPhone with your brain now. Apple is working on tech that lets people control iPhones with their thoughts. Teaming up with brain-implant company Synchron, they’re creating a standard so developers can build mind-control features for Apple devices — like the Vision Pro, iPads, and iPhones. Synchron's implant, the Stentrode, sits in a vein near your brain and translates thoughts into movement. One ALS patient already used it to explore the Swiss Alps in VR. Apple’s pushing the update later this year, because obviously touchscreens are just too 2010.

Scientists turn lead into gold. CERN scientists basically lived out an alchemist’s fantasy and turned lead into gold — for about a millionth of a second. Using the Large Hadron Collider, they smashed lead ions together at nearly light speed. The impact knocked off a few protons, briefly creating actual gold atoms. The gold lasted just a microsecond. In total, they created 86 billion gold nuclei, which adds up to about 29 trillionths of a gram. So no, you’re not getting rich off science magic. But medieval alchemists would’ve lost their powdered wigs over this one.

This startup made wood stronger than steel. Scientists in Maryland just did what your DIY uncle never could: they made wood stronger than steel. It’s called Superwood, and it’s not a Marvel character — it’s real, commercial, and coming for construction sites this summer. It started with professor Liangbing Hu, who figured out how to crush, cook, and chemically zhuzh up timber until it became 10x stronger and 50% tougher than steel. It resists fire, pests, rot, and probably your judgment. His startup, InventWood, is now building a plant to start pumping it out, backed by $15 million in climate-flavored venture cash.

Klarna goes back to humans. Klarna spent the last year bragging about how its AI chatbot replaced 700 humans. Now it’s hiring people again. All because customers were getting “lower quality” help, according to the CEO. And they're not alone. A new IBM survey shows that 75% of AI projects flop and only 16% actually scale up. Companies are still dumping money into AI because they’re afraid of being left behind — not because the tech works. It’s all vibes, no results. Some legendary fails: Air Canada’s bot made up a refund policy. McDonald’s AI added bacon to ice cream and once tried to serve someone 260 McNuggets. Klarna’s AI wasn’t that bad — just mid. And in 2025, that’s apparently enough to bring back humans.

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10.3-Carat Diamond Sells for $21.5M

A 10.3-carat blue diamond called The Mediterranean Blue just sold for $21.5 million at Sotheby’s in Geneva. Bidding lasted about 2.5 minutes before two phone people fought it out to the bitter (shiny) end. The winner is some anonymous bidder with excellent taste and probably too many yachts. The gem started as a 31.94-carat rough diamond mined last year in South Africa. It took a full year of staring at it and another six months of cutting to turn it into this cushion-cut blue beauty. It sold just above its $20 million estimate, prompting polite applause from the crowd.

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Netflix is building a $900M studio on an old Army base. Netflix just broke ground on a $900 million studio complex in central New Jersey, transforming a forgotten Army base into a Hollywood-sized production machine. The project, called Netflix Studios Fort Monmouth, will include soundstages, backlots, post-production suites — the whole shiny package. Over a third of the funding is courtesy of New Jersey taxpayers, thanks to state tax credits offering up to 35% off production costs and 40% off digital post-production. Who would've guessed New Jersey would be coming for Hollywood’s crown?

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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