Two new papers from the National Bureau of Economic Research find that US fertility rates have fallen 22% since 2007 — the year the iPhone launched — and access to smartphones correlated with birth rate declines of up to 8% among teenagers. Also: the average all-in cost of a date in the US has hit $189, up 12.5% in a year, and a growing number of Gen Z and millennials are responding by opting out of dating entirely — a trend they're calling solo-maxxing. And Geoffrey Wall, a 59-year-old former Air Canada captain from Barrie, Ontario, flew more than 900 commercial flights on Boeing 767s, 777s, and 787s between 2009 and 2025 — allegedly without ever obtaining the license required to do so. Plus a fake boarding pass, woolly mammoth DNA in squirrel poo, a Florida man arrested on the way to court, and a hot sauce shortage.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}