The lowdown

Here’s what you missed while you were living you were making waves:

• ✈️ JetBlue Becomes First Airline to Accept Venmo
  JetBlue just changed the game, letting passengers pay for flights with Venmo—because splitting the bill for group trips should be as easy as booking the flight. Will other airlines catch on, or is JetBlue flying solo on this one?

• 🎓 U.S. College Enrollment Surges Past Pre-Pandemic Levels
  Higher ed is back on track—college enrollment jumped 4.5% last fall, the first major rebound since the pandemic. With community colleges seeing a 7.1% freshman boost, could this mark a turning point for the future workforce?

• 📉 CNN and NBC to Cut Jobs Amid Digital Shift
  Legacy media is taking another hit—CNN and NBC are cutting jobs as they chase digital audiences and cheaper production costs. Can traditional news survive in a world where streaming platforms are stealing the spotlight?

Featured story

AI Moonshot? Trump Unveils Massive $500B Stargate Project

Just a day into his second term, President Trump announced Stargate AI, a $500 billion venture aimed at cementing the U.S. as the global leader in artificial intelligence. Backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, the project plans to build 20 massive data centers nationwide, with the first already under construction in Texas. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son praised Stargate’s potential to transform industries like healthcare, with Son calling it “the most important project of this era.”

But not everyone’s on board. Elon Musk, a longtime critic of OpenAI, questioned whether the funding is real, accusing SoftBank of falling short on its promised investment. Skepticism is also growing over whether the project can live up to its astronomical price tag, and critics point to a lack of clear details on how the funds will be spent. Still, Trump is positioning Stargate as the centerpiece of his plan to outpace China in the global AI race, doubling down on his promise to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

With such sky-high ambitions, Stargate could revolutionize sectors like cancer detection and robotics—or it could become another overhyped moonshot that falls short. As construction begins and funding debates rage on, one thing is clear: the stakes for America’s AI future have never been higher.

Off-balance sheet items

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  Credit: ScriptLurker @ Reddit

The bottom line

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