🐤 Cutting costs

Markets: A strong start to the week helped push all three major indexes higher as of Monday’s closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average led the advance with a 0.38% gain, followed closely by the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500.

Earnings reports played a major role, particularly the big spike recorded after Tesla submitted its first-quarter numbers. Apple also finished higher, though other tech-sector giants like Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft lost ground.

If you've ever struggled to enjoy cannabis due to the harshness of smoking or vaping, you're not alone. That’s why these new cannabis gummies caught our eye.

Mood is an online dispensary that has invented a “joint within a gummy” that’s extremely potent yet federally-legal. Their gummies are formulated to tap into the human body’s endocannabinoid system.

Although this system was discovered in the 1990’s, farmers and scientists at Mood were among the first to figure out how to tap into it with cannabis gummies. Just 1 of their rapid onset THC gummies can get you feeling right within 5 minutes!

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🧵 Meta bonus: Threads is the latest addition to the lineup of social media platforms owned by Meta, and the company is keen on increasing both traffic and engagement on the app. According to reports, a new tactic involves inviting popular creators to participate in a limited-time program to receive bonuses for posting content that fuels interest among other users. Eligible posts need 2,500+ views and cannot include certain features such as copyrighted material or a watermark from any other social media platform.

☁️ Climate prize: Environmental advocacy is common across demographic lines, but the aboriginal Australian winner of a prestigious prize is making headlines for her unique approach to the issue of climate change. Murrawah Johnson of Queensland is a 29-year-old from the indigenous Wirdi community and recently took home one of just seven Goldman prizes awarded globally. “What colonization hasn’t already done, climate change will do in terms of finalizing the assimilation process for First Nations people,” she argued.

🚗 Not playing: Apple CarPlay has become a ubiquitous feature in new vehicles owned by iPhone users, but one luxury automaker wants to preserve its brand from such Apple-ification. With a new version of CarPlay soon to be unveiled, Mercedes-Benz flatly denounced any suggestion that the program would be able to commandeer the growing expanse of screens along the dash of its latest lineup of vehicles. Apple has touted its ability to implement CarPlay features into screens other than the central display. Mercedes isn’t on board, though, and called for a “holistic software architecture” that will provide a more on-brand experience.

✔️ Changing clothes: “Seinfeld” fans might recall the episode where George convinced the Yankees to get new uniforms and chaos ensued. Now, there’s a somewhat similar issue in real-life … and it’s affecting the entire league. Nike introduced new uniforms this season, but they’ve been attacked for poor quality, small lettering, and frequent staining, prompting the MLB Players Association to take action. An official memo this week called on Nike and manufacturer Fanatics to implement specific improvements by the start of the 2025 season.

It’s been known for offering lower prices than most other supermarket chains for decades, but in the current era of inflation, Aldi has been capitalizing on its price-cutting status more than usual.

Savings by design

Prices at Aldi have been ticking up over the past few years just like other grocery stores. But the average cart of food is likely to be a lot more affordable there than at one of its rivals in the same community.

So how does it keep undercutting the competition? As Aldi exec Jason Hart explained, there are several key features of the chain that optimizes value for consumers while preserving profit for the company.

• The average Aldi is 20,000 square feet, which is less than half the size of a typical supermarket.
• Pallets are taken directly off of delivery trucks and placed onto the shelves to cut down on stocking time.
• Everything is designed to fit neatly into the aisles so every store maximizes its available space.
• With only about 2,000 separate items, the company can prioritize those that offer the biggest bargains.

Combined with the in-house brands for which Aldi has become famous, all of these small steps combine for serious savings. And judging by its rate of growth, the strategy is paying off.

An expanding footprint

Neighborhoods across the U.S. already have an Aldi, but that’s not slowing down the company’s acquisition of new properties far and wide.

Over the past 10 years, the company has added on average about 100 stores annually. That expansion has hit overdrive recently, though, and there are plans to sink about $9 billion into a plan that would open roughly 800 new locations in the U.S. by the end of 2028.

As Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen recently acknowledged: “They’re a tough competitor.”

Some kids look forward to physical education as a respite from the “three R’s” while others dread the pressure to take part in sometimes demanding forms of exercise. But no matter what a child might think about getting fit, researchers say the benefits go far beyond improving stamina and strength.

The results are in

A report published in the latest issue of the JAMA Pediatrics medical journal found that as a child’s physical fitness increases, his or her propensity for certain forms of mental health issues decreases.

This is a particularly important finding considering the growing number of other studies that chronicle a troubling rise in the rate of anxiety, depression, and other serious concerns plaguing younger generations.

As for how the researchers arrived at their conclusions, they looked at a large sample of evidence available through the Taiwan National Student Fitness Tests and the National Insurance Research Databases, both of which provided an anonymous look at the correlation between the physical and mental health of students in Taiwan.

Measuring the data

Researchers took note of three specific characteristics of physical fitness:

• Cardio fitness: How fast students ran 800 meters
• Muscle endurance: How many sit-ups students could do
• Muscle power: How far students could perform a standing broad jump

Saving 30 seconds off the 800-meter time correlated with reduced risk of ADHD and anxiety across the board, with girls in particular also showing lower rates of depression. Performing an additional five sit-ups resulted in a similar connection.

Cause and effect are difficult to prove, but the study’s authors nonetheless think their work deserves widespread attention.

“The finding underscores the need for further research into targeted physical fitness programs,” they wrote, arguing that such strategies “hold significant potential as primary preventative interventions against mental disorders in children and adolescents.”

If you’re like most Americans, it might be hard to remember the last time you visited the official United States Postal Service website. And for many consumers targeted by often sophisticated phishing schemes, it can be all but impossible to tell the difference between a scam site and the real thing.

As it turns out, that’s all part of the plan.

What you should know

Phishing by its very nature is a form of fraud that relies on convincing targets that they’re visiting a legitimate site, and the postal service provides a unique opportunity for unsavory actors to do just that.

A company called Akamai Technologies has been investigating this trend for months and found a surprisingly high number of phishing operations that send unsuspecting victims to a site meant to mimic the authentic USPS domain. Once there, the targets are urged to make payments to release an item that had supposedly been held up due to outstanding fees or some other unpaid cost.

As part of its probe, Akamai has put together a comprehensive list of web domains that use the same malicious JavaScript code as well as include “USPS” in their address. A common factor is that they’re all designed to look legitimate, whether they depict fraudulent tracking information, status updates, or postage shops.

How to protect yourself

Knowing that these phishing operations are underway is your first line of defense. So if you receive an update that appears to be from the USPS, be suspicious and do your research.

These scams are more common near the holidays, since more consumers are using the postal service to send gifts through the mail. And while “.com” is by far the most commonly used top-level domain, other scam sites use “.shop,” “.xyz,” “.org,” and “.info.”