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Hey, Cheddfriends. Today's 'sletter is sponsored by our friends at The Rundown, who promise to teach you how to use AI in 5 minutes. If you click through, they'll give us $1, which surely is reason enough to check it out. Thank you! |
That's Not Very Mature |
Maturity, as we all know, is a quality you can attribute to a person but also to a cheese, and so today's cheese pun implores you to behave like an adult with responsibilities. Today's news you need2know, meanwhile, covers the gamut of behaviors by people of all levels of maturity, and also sharpness. |
Today's Cheddlines You Need2Know |
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Maturity is overrated. |
—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor |
P.S. Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to open Fort Knox to make sure the "gold is still there." Check out the story on our 'gram! |
And speaking of maturity…on Twitter, people pointed out the visual similarity between our president and actor Gert Frobe, who played Auric Goldfinger in the James Bond movie "Goldfinger": |
 | SynCronus @syncronus |  |
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GOLDFINGER AND ODDJOB RAIDING FORT KNOX "We're gonna go into FORT KNOX to make sure the gold is there" - Donald Trump with Oddjob lookalike on Air Force One | |  | | | 5:22 AM • Feb 20, 2025 | | | | | | 0 Likes 0 Retweets | 0 Replies |
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Gosh! I don't mind standing in for Sean Connery, if needed. |
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Quote of the Day |
| ❝ | | | The very premise of our technology has been off the back of mimicking photosynthesis, which is doing exactly what a tree does, only faster and more efficient. | | | | — GREGORY CONSTANTINE |
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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today? |
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(nope) |
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The Office of Personnel Management sent federal workers an email on Saturday, based on an Elon Musk tweet, asking them to respond with five bullet points listing their accomplishments from the previous week. (And don't forget to CC your manager!) Non-response by Monday would be taken as a resignation, Musk said. |
Many federal agencies then told their employees not to respond, including the Department of Defense, the FBI, the State Department, and other intelligence agencies. Can you imagine if all the CIA agents were like, "Tried to stop disinformation campaign by Russia"? |
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services told his employees to comply, but then the department's lawyers told people not to. The HHS general counsel, Sean Keveney, sent a hilarious email about it. |
"I'll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration's priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email," Keveney said in an email viewed by the Associated Press. |
Musk sent a similar email to staff shortly after buying Twitter. President Donald Trump voiced support for Musk on Monday. |
"What he's doing is saying, 'Are you actually working?'" Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. "And then, if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people aren't answering because they don't even exist." |
"This request, and the resulting confusion, is not just inappropriate — it is disruptive to essential government functions," wrote Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union, which is suing over the request. "As just two examples, a VA surgeon's attention belongs in the operating room and an air traffic controller's attention on keeping the skies safe, not on dealing with this unclear and unlawful distraction." |
I am not a federal employee. Surprise! But I did accomplish several things last week, above and beyond buying my almost-4-year-old son a train set (sh! don't tell him!) and visiting a cheese shop: |
Sent the Need2Know newsletter on Monday Tuesday. Sent the Need2Know newsletter on Wednesday.
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You see where this is going. |
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And they didn't even get the opportunity to email their boss saying what they accomplished last week! |
The decision comes as part of a broader strategy by new chairman and CEO Brian Niccol to streamline operations and make the coffee giant more agile. Niccol, who stepped in last fall, wants to address sluggish sales and enhance service times—particularly during the crucial morning rush hours. |
In a letter released to employees on Monday, Niccol highlighted the necessity of the layoffs. The goal, as Niccol articulated, is to "operate more efficiently, increase accountability, reduce complexity, and drive better integration." |
Other major corporations such as Southwest Airlines and Bridgestone Americas have also announced significant layoffs, signaling a possibly emerging trend among established firms to downsize their corporate workforces. Just last week, Southwest announced it would cut 1,750 jobs, a substantial 15%. |
Apart from the job cuts, Niccol's strategy includes optimizing the Starbucks menu and refining the ordering processes to better manage a mix of mobile, drive-thru, and in-store orders. These operational tweaks align with Niccol's vision of reestablishing Starbucks stores as community hubs, and not simply "transactional spaces." |
Sales saw a 2% drop in the 2024 fiscal year ending last September. In the U.S. particularly, customers have been less tolerant of price hikes and increased wait times. In China, Starbucks' second-largest market, competition from more cost-effective competitors has been fierce. |
The company's shares were up about 1% on the news. |
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From @cheddar |
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The firm's plans include construction of a new advanced factory in Texas to manufacture servers that are crucial to the operational backbone supporting Apple Intelligence. |
Notably, the announcement trails a rendezvous between Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, and President Donald Trump, who has been advocating for increased corporate investment in America. Trump has been using tariffs to encourage the relocation of manufacturing, including the recent imposition of a 10% border tax on Chinese imports and proposed tariffs affecting goods from a multitude of countries. |
Trump took to social media to trumpet the news as a testament to his trade policies, suggesting Apple's investment is hinged on "faith in what we are doing." |
Apple has conveyed that the bulk of its 20,000 new jobs anticipated will be focused on research and development, software, and AI—key areas driving the future of tech innovation. |
In 2021 Apple committed to a $430 billion U.S. investment coupled with 20,000 new jobs over five years, so the new plan is hardly a significant change of direction when you compare Apples to Apples. As the Wall Street Journal notes: |
"Unclear, though, is how much of the planned spending is actually new. Apple has spent about $1.1 trillion over the past four fiscal years on total operating expenses and capital expenditures…if spending is about in line with revenue, then a rough figure of 40% of projected global spending through the 2028 fiscal year equates to about $505 billion." |
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It's almost like they're just playing politics by announcing investments they were already planning to make! In related news I'll be investing at least $200 in my wife's birthday gift in May. Possibly even $300. |
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This Company Is Turning CO2 Into Vodka. And Jet Fuel. |
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In the heart of Brooklyn's industrial warehouse district, Air Company is tackling one of the world's most pressing challenges: climate change. Founded in 2017, the company has developed groundbreaking methods to convert carbon dioxide into valuable products, from aviation fuel to vodka.
At the core of Air Company's technology is a proprietary reactor system designed to mimic nature, which is turning CO2 into vodka all the time. "The very premise of our technology has been off the back of mimicking photosynthesis, which is doing exactly what a tree does, only faster and more efficient," said CEO Gregory Constantine. "We can take the source of carbon dioxide from anywhere." |
The process involves electrolyzers that create hydrogen from water and electricity. This hydrogen, along with CO2, is fed into large-scale reactors. "That hydrogen and CO2 combine with our catalysts inside these reactors as part of the entire process to produce some of the chemicals and fuels that create our eventual products," Gregory said.
Air Company initially gained public attention with vodka, as many of us tend to. In 2019, they launched the world's first vodka made from carbon dioxide, which earned the title of Invention of the Year from the drunk editors at Time Magazine. |
Today, the company's primary focus is on sustainable aviation fuel. Air Company has partnered with major airlines like Air Canada, Virgin Atlantic, and JetBlue, and even the Department of Defense. "We actually flew the first-ever plane on a CO2-derived fuel with the U.S. Department of Defense, the Air Force," Gregory said. "The fuel burns exactly the same as traditional jet fuel." |
Let's hope they'll continue to renew their contract, eh?
Air Company has raised over $110 million in investments, including from car manufacturers like Toyota. The company is now focused on scaling its technology to make it cost-competitive with traditional fossil fuels. "The goal over the next three to five years [is] to scale globally," Gregory said, envisioning a future where their technology is deployed worldwide.
By the end of the decade, Air Company aims to produce tens, if not hundreds of millions of gallons of sustainable fuel per year. Too bad it won't be hundreds of millions of gallons of vodka, although it's probably for the best. |
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An American Airlines flight traveling from New York City to New Delhi had to be diverted to Rome due to a security concern over the weekend, but the threat was later deemed "non-credible." |
The decision to divert came while the aircraft was over the Caspian Sea, leading to an unexpected landing at Leonardo da Vinci International (FCO) airport in Rome. |
The flight, carrying 199 passengers and 15 crew members, landed safely, and Italian military fighter jets escorted the plane as it arrived. There's video on the Internet showing that military escort and it looks like something out of a movie. |
 | Italian Air Force jets escort American Airlines plane to Rome after bomb threat | Raw jet video |
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Despite the scare, no injuries were reported and the FCO airport continued to operate as normal. American Airlines said safety and security are their top priorities and apologized for the inconvenience. The incident caused the flight to stay in Rome overnight, allowing the crew the required rest before proceeding to India yesterday. In other news, the Pope is still in critical condition with pneumonia. So it's all go in Italy, right now. |
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