Good morning. It’s Tuesday, April 22 — and while you’re contemplating your next online order of things you absolutely don’t need, we’re quietly reminding you it’s Earth Day. First celebrated in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson (yes, that’s a real name), Earth Day marked the start of the modern environmental movement. A bunch of students and hippies got together and protested pollution. Now it’s mostly brands posting about how they “love the Earth” while selling you $48 bamboo socks. But hey — spring has finally sprung, your allergies have clocked in, and the week is still fresh. There’s time to make it count. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the newsletter — and have a good week.

Today’s stories:

• ChatGPT identifies photo locations with shocking accuracy

• Seattle hacked with Bezos crosswalk deepfakes

• Scientists reveal new eye-stimulated color “olo”

• Capital One-Discover merger gets green light

• Ultra-luxury cruises woo the wealthy crowd

• NASA's oldest astronaut returns from orbit

• Lyft enters Europe with FreeNow takeover

• $1.6M custom Rolex Daytona up auction

• Ryan Gosling Joins Star Wars

  and more…

Stocks nosedived Monday, with the Dow plunging nearly 1,000 points — its worst April showing since 1932. The dollar stumbled to multi-year lows, gold hit a shiny new record, and Treasury yields climbed like they just got bad news from their financial advisor.

Adding fuel to the sell-off: Trump threw shade (again) at Fed Chair Jerome Powell, stirring up drama over central bank independence. Meanwhile, global trade talks offered about as much progress as a group chat trying to pick a restaurant.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq each dropped over 2%, led by a tech slide that was anything but magnificent. Tesla skidded 7%, Nvidia lost 6%, and Amazon, Meta, and AMD each gave up 4%. Even Caterpillar got clawed down 3%, proving nobody's immune when the market mood goes full doom-scroll.

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Capital One Buys Discover

Capital One’s $35 billion takeover of Discover just got the regulatory thumbs-up, putting two of America's cashback-loving credit card giants one step closer to becoming one mega-wallet. The Fed and OCC gave the green light, despite Discover getting slapped with a $100 million fine for overcharging fees for, oh, just 16 years. But hey, they said sorry and are paying it back, so... clean slate? Capital One says the merger wraps May 18. 

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Lyft buys its way into Europe. Lyft is officially hopping across the Atlantic, dropping nearly $200 million to buy FreeNow — a European mobility platform currently owned by BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The deal nearly doubles Lyft’s market reach and hands them keys to big cities like Paris, Milan, and Frankfurt, where FreeNow already offers everything from taxis to e-scooters. FreeNow operates in 150+ cities and recently hit break-even, which in startup-speak means “we’re not bleeding cash anymore.” Lyft’s CEO called the timing “great,” which is what CEOs always say right before praying it works.

Ultra-rare Rolex Daytona hits auction. A platinum Rolex Daytona with a diamond-set mother-of-pearl dial is hitting the Sotheby’s Geneva auction block on May 11 — and it’s expected to rake in up to $1.6 million. This 1999 Ref. 16516 is one of only four privately commissioned Daytonas — a big deal, considering Rolex doesn’t usually take custom orders unless you’re basically royalty. The collector behind it remains anonymous, rich, and likely allergic to stainless steel. It’s the first time this watch has ever hit auction, so expect deep pockets, shallow humility, and some very tense paddle-raising.

Cruises, but make them rich-people approved. Turns out cruises aren’t just for buffet mobs and screaming toddlers anymore. Thanks to a wave of ultra-luxury ships, even the snobbiest travelers are now voluntarily boarding boats. Picture this: sunrise over the ocean, a Frette robe, mimosas delivered by your personal butler, and a whirlpool tub on your private terrace. You’re not dreaming — you’re just $14,000 lighter and sailing on a floating five-star hotel. Big names like Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, and even Bernard Arnault are throwing yachts into the game. We’re talking free-flowing Moët, “diamond dust” facials, and destinations that scream “you can’t afford this,” like the Arctic, Antarctica, and tiny French ports with more rosé than people. Basically, cruises got a rebrand — and now even the anti-cruise crowd is all aboard.

Strongest Alien Evidence Yet

Astronomers say they’ve found the “strongest evidence yet” of life on a planet 124 light-years away. The planet, K2-18b (catchy), might be an ocean world, and researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope spotted two chemicals in its atmosphere — DMS and dimethyl disulfide — that, on Earth, only come from living things like marine algae. It’s not proof, just a big cosmic maybe. More data is needed, more debate is happening, and no one’s yelling “we found aliens” just yet.

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ChatGPT can now guess where you are. There’s a new viral trend that’s equal parts cool and creepy: people are using ChatGPT to figure out the exact location of random photos. Welcome to the age of “reverse location search,” where your Instagram Story might as well come with GPS coordinates. OpenAI’s newest models, o3 and o4-mini, can now reason through images. That means cropping, zooming, rotating, and CSI-level enhancing until they figure out where a photo was taken — sometimes down to the bar, restaurant, or street corner. Someone even fed it a pic of a purple rhino head in a dark bar, and o3 correctly ID’d a speakeasy in Williamsburg. Because while this is fun and games for now, it’s not hard to imagine the privacy nightmares coming down the pike. Screenshot someone’s story, ask ChatGPT where they are, and boom — you’re halfway to digital stalking. OpenAI hasn’t exactly rushed to address this in its safety reports either.

NASA’s oldest astronaut turns 70. Most people hit 70 with some cake, a few balloons, maybe a brunch. Don Pettit celebrated his by plummeting back to Earth in a Soyuz capsule after 220 days in orbit. The NASA veteran — now the agency’s oldest active astronaut — spent his birthday wrapping up a seven-month mission on the ISS with two Russian cosmonauts. Together, they orbited Earth 3,520 times and racked up a casual 93.3 million miles, proving that age is just a number when you’re literally defying gravity. He landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, no party hat in sight, but probably with the best “what I did for my birthday” story of all time.

Scientists “discover” new color. Scientists say they’ve discovered a new color — yep, one humans supposedly haven’t seen before. It’s called “olo,” and it appeared after researchers used laser pulses to stimulate specific cells in the eye. People described it as somewhere between blue and green, but different enough to feel… new. Some experts are skeptical, others are calling it remarkable. Either way, it’s a fun reminder that even in 2025, the world still has a few surprises left — even if they’re hiding in your eyeballs.

Bezos Voice Hijacks Seattle Streets

Seattle pedestrians got an unexpected side of dystopia last week when crosswalks started talking like Jeff Bezos — literally. At least six signals were hacked to play AI-generated Bezos deepfakes pleading, “Please don’t tax the rich.” The fake Bezos warned of billionaires fleeing to Florida and dropped a bizarre, deeply disturbing reference to Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering a healthcare CEO. It’s unclear who’s behind the hack, but one thing’s certain: Seattle’s crosswalks have officially entered their unhinged era.

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Congrats on your degree! Now fetch that coffee. The job market’s so bleak, even college grads are applying for internships like it’s 2012 again. Glassdoor says it’s seen a bump in recent graduates going after summer intern spots — because apparently, a degree now gets you a LinkedIn badge and a polite “no thanks.” Glassdoor just dropped its list of top internships for 2025, and while most applicants are still students, more fresh grads are throwing their hats in. According to the company’s internship head, it’s becoming “a stepping stone” for early-career pros. Translation: internships are the new entry-level job. Welcome to late capitalism — where you finish school and still get paid in “experience.”

Ryan Gosling joins Star Wars. Ryan Gosling is suiting up for Star Wars: Starfighter, hitting theaters May 2027. It’s set five years after The Rise of Skywalker and promises “all-new characters” in a “never-before-seen” timeline — aka the Star Wars version of making it up as they go. Shawn Levy’s directing (he did Deadpool & Wolverine), and Gosling’s trading Ken’s rollerblades for a lightsaber. 

Don’t be that person at security. Get your REAL ID. Starting May 7, travelers without a REAL ID or passport get the full TSA experience — extra screenings, longer delays, and the very real chance of not making it past security. PreCheck status won’t help. Smaller airports won’t even have separate lanes for ID-less wanderers. Fly round-trip without proper ID and you risk being cleared once and stranded the second time. REAL ID enforcement is here. Bring it or brace for chaos.

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TikTok of the day: watch here