Good Morning. After nearly a decade trying to crack physical retail, Amazon abandons its branded stores to focus on Whole Foods expansion.

Plus, Bill Belichick denied Hall of Fame, how heart attacks are connected to brain, and Werner Herzog’s nihilistic penguin (forwarded this email? Join 523k readers).

Amazon announced Tuesday it will shut down all 57 Amazon Fresh and 15 Amazon Go stores, citing failure to achieve a scalable economic model. The company acquired Whole Foods for $13.5 billion in 2017. Some closed locations will convert to Whole Foods stores.

Fresh stores featured high-tech shopping carts (video) and mass-market pricing but failed to attract sufficient customers. Amazon Go's checkout-free convenience stores never achieved large-scale adoption. The company has reduced its Go fleet by over half since 2023.

Amazon will focus on expanding Whole Foods, opening over 100 new stores in coming years. The company's same-day delivery service currently operates in 2,300 U.S. cities. Amazon plans to open its largest store yet in Orland Park, Illinois (a 230,000-square-foot location combining groceries, general merchandise, and prepared foods).

Netflix paid $1.12 billion in U.S. federal income taxes in 2025, becoming one of the first companies to comply with new Financial Accounting Standards Board rules requiring detailed tax disclosures (WSJ). The 2023 requirements took effect recently for public companies filing annual reports.

Companies must now break out income taxes paid at federal, state, and foreign levels. If any jurisdiction represents over 5% of total taxes paid, companies must identify it and specify the amount. Netflix also paid significant taxes to Brazil and South Korea (the latter totaling $195 million for prior years).

Investors and nonprofits sought increased transparency, while many companies argued additional disclosures could expose tax strategies and create competitive disadvantages. Intel and oil-services company SLB also released new disclosures. Private companies have another year before compliance is required, though early adoption is permitted. What is FASB?

Bill Belichick will not be a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee after failing to receive 40 votes from the 50-person selection committee. The six-time Super Bowl champion head coach has 333 career wins (second all-time) and 31 playoff victories (most ever).

Sources suggested some voters cited cheating scandals, particularly 2007's Spygate, when the Patriots filmed Jets defensive signals. Former GM Bill Polian reportedly lobbied voters to make Belichick "wait a year," though Polian later told reporters he couldn't remember his own vote from two weeks prior.

The Hall changed its voting process last year, limiting voters to three selections from five coach/contributor/senior finalists. This created a game-theory scenario where voters might have assumed Belichick would get enough support and used their votes elsewhere. Belichick can be reconsidered next year.

False memories are recollections of events that didn't occur or facts that aren't real. Everyone experiences them occasionally, though complete fabrications remain rare. Examples include the Mandela effect (shared false memories like Fruit of the Loom's imaginary cornucopia logo).

Two Memory Types:

Our brains compress memories and fill gaps based on expectations. False memories tap into "gist" versions when exact details fade. Researchers believe repetition, age, and sleep deprivation influence their formation.

One study used manipulated photos showing fake childhood hot air balloon rides. Some participants vividly "remembered" trips that never happened. While fuzzy memories are common, completely fabricated ones are actually quite rare.

Read article.

UC San Diego researchers discovered heart attacks trigger a "triple node" connecting the heart, brain, nervous and immune systems. Sensory neurons relay cardiovascular signals to the brain, which overactivates the immune system and worsens damage.

Blocking these heart-brain-immune signals in mice significantly reduced post-heart attack injury. This discovery could enable new non-invasive treatments manipulating the immune response, rather than current invasive approaches like bypass surgery or angioplasty.

Read article.

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