Morning Brew Daily - Airports Ask for Donations for TSA Agents & Google Maps Gets AI Makeover

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Episode 799: Neal and Toby talk about the funding gap happening in Congress that’s hurting many federal employees’ paychecks. Some airports are asking for donations to help their TSA agents. Then, Google Maps finally is getting an AI makeover thanks to Gemini. Plus, Nintendo shares pop thanks to its dark horse hit Pokemon Pokopia. Meanwhile, safe haven stocks used to be where investors flock during geopolitical uncertainty, but not anymore.  Learn more at taxact.com/business-returns Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, AFLAQ plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbredaily. That's aflack.com slash morning brewdaily. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Fryman.

And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why airports are asking passengers to tip TSA agents. Then Google Maps got an AI makeover that lets you get chatty with it. It's Friday, March 13th. Let's ride. Good morning and happy Friday the 13th. New rankings were just released of the happiest cities in the United States. So if you're waking up in one of the following places, send some positive energy our way.

Without further ado, the 10 happiest cities in the country are Fremont, California, which is a city in the Bay Area, Bismarck, North Dakota, Scottsdale, Arizona, South Burlington, Vermont, Fargo, North Dakota. That's two North Dakota's if you're keeping track. Overland Park, Kansas, Charleston, South Carolina, Irvine, California, Gilbert, Arizona, and San Jose, California. You're probably curious about the methodology. Wallet Hub evaluated cities across 29 indicators of happiness, including depression rates, income growth, and average daily leisure time. I was so shocked by those lists, as were a lot of people. This went very viral online. The methodology was a little bit more robust than I was prepared for from a Wallet Hub survey. Fremont did very well because they dominated in terms of physical well-being and community involvement. Bismarck did well in those categories as well. One thing I noticed, not a single city in either Massachusetts or Florida where we both grew up or New York where we currently live. What are we doing wrong, Neil?

And now a word from our sponsor, Tax Act. Finally did my taxes, Neil. For you or your business. What? You got to do both, Toby. But fortunately for you, there's Tax Act. They help small business owners get their taxes done. Tax Act makes filing easy for small businesses by providing the only online DIY filing software for small businesses.

Plus, you can bundle your business and personal tax returns. With Tax Act, you can file your business taxes any way you'd like. You can do them by yourself with step-by-step guidance. you can file with a help from a credential tax expert when you have questions, or you can upload your documents, and an expert will prepare and file for you. Just head to taxact.com slash business dash returns to get started. That's taxact.com slash business dash returns. I got to do my taxes this weekend. Good reminder.

Okay. Studies and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need. need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at a.k.a.m.m.m. Security lines are getting even more grim than usual. Major U.S. airports

have been asking passengers to drop off food or donate gift cards to security employees who are set to miss their first full paycheck today due to the parcel. government shutdown. On Wednesday, Denver International Airport posted on X, in all caps, donations needed, encouraging travelers to, quote, support the dedicated TSA employees working without pay by donating $10 and $20 store and gas gift cards. Also on Wednesday, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport notified travelers that it had opened a food pantry to support TSA workers. While most of the government is currently open, the Department of Homeland Security has not been funded for weeks over an impasse on Capitol Hill over ice tactics.

With no agreement in sight, TSA workers have increasingly been not showing up to work without pay, leading to chaotic security lines of up to five hours long at airports in Houston, Atlanta, and New Orleans last weekend. One viral photo showed the queue in New Orleans stretching into the parking lot. Most U.S. airports have not been affected like this yet, but experts warn that staffing shortages could ramp up in a big way after the first missed paycheck today. TSA agents start with a salary in the low 40,000s, and they simply simply, can't afford to be working without getting paid. Not to mention, this is the second time they've

been asked to forego paychecks in the last few months, including last year's 43-day shutdown. Toby, this could be the calm before the storm. And the issue with, you know, trying to support these TSA agents, which a lot of people do want to do. I mean, they are an essential worker. They are not getting paid right now. They've gone through a lot lately. But you can't donate to TSA workers. that comes from federal ethics rules as well as the TSA's employees and responsibilities, Code of Conduct, Handbook. You are not allowed to solicit or accept gifts from travelers full stop. It doesn't necessarily matter where the donations are accepting because Denver tried to insulate

their workers by moving the donation bin a little bit away from where the actual security checkpoint was. So that's problem number one. Problem number two is not just the legal side of things. it just creates some sociological issues when you look at it because it could create perverse incentives. Officers might be rewarding people for tips by, you know, giving them expedited security clearances. There's a pay-to-play perception that is happening. And then, yeah, there is just a security risk, too, if you involve money at any point in this screening process. So even though people's

hearts are probably in the right place saying, hey, we're trying to help you out in a tough time. legally speaking, it's not kosher. So these airports are just trying to get around these legal rules, and we'll see what happens to these particular donation bins. What's interesting also is that some airports may be spared some chaos from TSA agents calling out sick because they actually employ private contractors under a federal program that allows airports to outsource security screenings under TSA oversight. So if you fly out of SFO, San Francisco International,

Kansas City International, Atlantic City International, I don't know, it's flying out of there, or Orlando International Airport. Those are some of a couple dozen U.S. airports that have this model going on where they actually are staffed security lines by private contractors. It's been a long-running debate about whether more airports should adopt this, and it's probably growing in interest, or at least airports are looking at this after all of the chaos of the past few months. One good thing about this partial government shutdown is that it's not affecting air traffic controllers this time around. Remember, during the last sort of shutdowns over the years, that has affected air traffic and that has been a huge strain on airports. This time, because Congress has

already funded their employer, the department of transportation, they are still working. So that is just a one hint of relief when it comes to airports. But you're right. You mentioned it could be the calm before the storm because staffing shortages are only going to accelerate as you start missing paychecks. A lot of these people are not calling. in sick per se, they're just going to work second jobs because they need to make a living here. So you got to pay your bills and that could lead to longer lines at the airport. Right. I mean, there's one quote from a TSA agent who said last time I checked, Kroger doesn't take an IOU. Just go to find another comparable job that pays you about the same or even more

that doesn't have these shutdowns rolling every few months where you just miss a paycheck. And it truly gets dire during the last shutdown. A TSA's acting administrator told the House committee that certain TSA employees were sleeping in their cars at airports because they didn't want to pay for gas on going traveling to their workplace or they sold blood plasma just to feed their families. The timing of this couldn't be worse as well. We're coming up on the busiest spring break travel season on record. You hear grumblings on Capitol Hill, not just to get this compromise worked out, but also to create funding mechanisms for TSA agents. So they and the traveling public doesn't have to go through this every time the government shuts down, which seems to be

happening a lot lately. All right, moving on, Google Maps got an AI facelift and map heads everywhere are pumped. Gemini is powering a new feature called Ask Maps, where you can ask contextual real-world questions and get answers back without ever leaving the app. For instance, my phone is dying. Where are some nearby coffee shops that have outlets? Or is there a public pickleball court with lights on that I can play at tonight? Roadtrippers are going to have a field day with this too. If you were driving from California to the Grand Canyon, you could ask for recommended stops along the way, according to an example given by Google. Whereas before, you might have opened TikTok to find those wrecks.

Maps will now give you tips from real people on how to find a real hidden trail entrance, for instance, in addition to your standard directions and ETAs. The other exciting update is personalization. Over time, Maps gets to know you based on locations you've searched for or preferences you've saved. So if you're vegan and are looking for a date night in the West Village, it might, highlight plant-based spots instead of something like for Charles. Neil, there are some other navigation updates built in as well, but being able to chat with

Maps feels like one of the better attempts by Google to AIify all its software, as Wired put it. As a noted Google Maps lover, I am curious to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah, this is super exciting. I know there is a lot more. I would ask Google Maps if I had the option with just a lot more granularity and now we're being given it. And others seem to agree. The response has been very enthusiastic.

which is kind of a typical of certain AI rollouts by Google, Microsoft, and others are trying to infuse co-pilot or Gemini into their various products. A lot of times that's been met with pushback. You go into your Gmail and you see Gemini or you go into Google Docs. You see Gemini and you're like, get this, get me out of here. Like, this is not actually helping me. When it comes to Google Maps, it seems like this is a really good use case for AI. We haven't seen it in action.

I haven't used it because it's rolling out slowly. but I guess there is a wave of optimism that this would be really helpful for people use Google Maps. Yeah, just logically it makes sense to have a better ability to figure out the world around you. The CoffeeShack example is a great example because before it was just kind of like this awkward hybrid of search or maybe you actually have to go to another app entirely to figure out, does this place have an outlet that I can plug my phone into? Maybe now you can just do it using natural language. This is a big deal too. Google Maps has over two. billion users worldwide. Google doesn't actually break out its revenue that it gets from Maps, but it's obviously like a big business line for them that they want to increasingly monetize.

One loser I was thinking about when it comes to these is it's not Apple Maps, actually. It's actually going to be things like Yelp and TripAdvisor that already have been under siege from Google Maps. But now, why would you ever need to go, you know, get reviews from a different part of the internet when Google bakes all those into you with these very natural language responses. So tough look for them as they're trying to go up against a behemoth. I mean, Google's been squeezing help for years. That wasn't the only update coming to Google Maps, the AI Infusion. They also released something called immersive navigation, which will just make your navigation map look a lot more real life. It's a 3D view. It'll have overpasses,

crosswalks, landmark, signage. And what I think is really important for a lot of people is it will tell you what to do after the turn. So oftentimes when you're navigating using Google Maps, they'll say turn right and then 200 feet later, you actually have to turn left. So this immersive navigation will kind of zoom out a little bit and show you that once you turn right, you might want to get in the left lane because you have to make a quick left turn. Which, by the way, is something Apple Maps has had for a little bit. They've had a much more robust immersive navigation environment. I'm an Apple Maps head over here, Neil's Google Maps head. So we'll see how these go toe to toe now. All right, it's Stock of the Week, Dog the Week time, where we pick one stock that shows up to the podcast every day,

and one stock that has mysterious weddings every single week. I won the pre-show game of Who Can Take More PTO, so I'm up first. And my stock of the week is Nintendo because it struck gold with its new Pokemon game. Pocopia is not your typical Pokemon game. There's no sending your pocket monsters into battle, but it's selling like hotcakes precisely because it's so different. Described as an Animal Crossing, Minecraft hybrid, it sits squarely in the category known as cozy gaming. Your main task in the game is to construct habitats that increase the comfort level of your Pokemon. Onyx is stuck in a cave?

It's your job to make it rain to soften the rock so it can break out. Oh, but now Charmander doesn't like the rain. Build him a little hut to cover his flaming tail. One tech crunch reviewer recounts her experience playing. In the midst of explaining to her boyfriend how it works, she realized that, A, it had been well over two hours, hours, and B, he had fallen asleep without her noticing. That's how engrossed she was. The hype has pushed up Nintendo sock 17% this week as a surprise hit sparked hope that it will drive sales of its new Switch 2 console.

You know, this game wasn't supposed to be the juggernaut that it turned out to be. It may not be a coincidence that this game is popping off now, too. It's been compared to Animal Crossing, and it's been almost exactly six years that Animal Crossing was released on the OG Nintendo Switch. March 2020. Do you remember what happened during those times? Yes, we're in the middle of a pandemic. Geopolitical things are getting hairy again. Now, people perhaps are looking for an escape. And once again, Nintendo releases a soothing game that people can kind of escape the world a little bit. So the ties between Pocopia and Animal Crossing are quite strong.

One reviewer, again, this is actually the same TechCrunch reviewer said that Animal Crossing represents pure escapism. Like, you weren't really doing much. You were selling your turnips. and your beats and whatnot, but it was really just a way to get away from the world. But Pocopio gives you the sensation of rehabilitating the world. So she really liked that aspect as well. You are building, you are contributing to your Pokemon community. Again, it's a video game. So like this isn't, you know, world peace that we're talking about here.

But it absolutely does represent another moment in time right now, which is why it's resonating so heavily. For Nintendo, it couldn't have come at a better time because this stock has not done well. throughout the year. It's down 28% over the last six months, despite its recent rally. A lot of it is tied to just normal business things like the surge of memory prices because AI is gobbling up all the memory. That hurts Nintendo's business. So their Switch 2 is off to a good start, but this is really the first game that is exclusively on the Switch 2 that is getting investors pumped because it should juice sales for that console. So good win for Nintendo, not one that they necessarily saw coming.

And I think a non-insignificant contributor to the stock rise as well was they released the final trailer for the Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is coming out in just a few weeks on April 1st. The first one, remember, made so much money, $1.4 billion globally at the box office. So they're expecting another huge hit here. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's dog of the week. Waking up at 4 a.m. is a unique daily experience. Hair and makeup cannot say the same. It's really all about understanding how something impacts your body and pivoting accordingly.

And that's something Woop's wearable tech can help with. Woop gives you insight into your sleep, your recovery, the strain you're taking on, and how your daily behavior may influence your overall health. It helps you see patterns that can support better decisions. And by understanding your body, you can adopt behaviors that help you feel and perform at your best every day. Try Woop on for size at join.wop.com slash brew daily. that's join.wop.com slash brew daily. Neil, have you ever had a deal with 10 of something all at once?

Yeah, live vs. And let me tell you, big outchies. Well, managing that many campaigns all at once can mean big outchies for those in the agency world. That's why there's Disney campaign manager. With one unified dashboard, it lets you launch and manage every client campaign in one place with reporting that highlights insights fast. Built-in optimization feeds those insights back into future planning, helping agencies deliver strong results.

Get started today at DisneyCampain Manager.com. That's DisneyCampain Manager.com. We're officially in the AI era. Sort of has a ring to it. Or a cha-ching when it's bringing in that Covenant ROI. Like with Twilio, the platform enables businesses to personalize customer experiences across any channel with always-on virtual agents. According to Twilio, companies that invests invest in class

customer experiences have seen revenue increased by 5.7X, yet many are held back by structural issues like limited bandwidth and siloed systems. With Twilio's modular solutions, businesses can build, deploy, and scale voice AI agents within their existing tech stack avoiding costly replatforming. Learn more at Twilio.com slash morning brew. That's T-W-I-L-O-O-com slash morning brew. My dog of the week is Safe Haven Stocks, because during the war, in Iran, they've been neither safe nor a haven. A longstanding rule of Wall Street is when geopolitics becomes unstable, investors seek shelter in the comfort foods of literal comfort food, consumer

stables, and health care. That has not been the case since the war began in late February. Since then, according to the Wall Street Journal, the health care sector is down about 4%, and the consumer staple sector down 5%. Companies that line grocery store shelves like Coca-Cola, Campbell's Hershey and Mondolas are all down bad. Meanwhile, tech stocks, which investors have been freaking out about for months over AI disruption, are doing fine. Technology has been the best performing S&P 500 sector since the war started, rising 1.5% from February 27th, while every other sector is in the red. So what is going on? The journal posits two theories. One, the safe haven trade was really popular before the war. So by the time it came around, these expensive stocks no longer,

no longer looked as shiny. Number two is that these sectors are having all kinds of problems of their own that are overshadowing their traditional safe haven status. Campbell's, for instance, is getting crushed after lowering its profit outlook to its lowest level in 17 years. No amount of geopolitical uncertainty is going to make that business look attractive. There are safe havens, though, within the safe haven stocks that are not doing so well right now. And that are companies that have a lot more concentration inside the U.S. itself. In the top 20 performance, in the healthcare and consumer staples industries. Average North American revenue exposure was about 72%.

If you go down to the bottom performers, that drops to 59%. And basically what it is saying is that when geopolitical shocks happen, geography matters. You don't necessarily want a global footprint that is exposed to ripples from the Middle East conflict. You want supply chain and you want things like your customers located in a more stable place like the United States. So if you were to go down the list of these safe haven stocks and say, what do I want to invest in? Look at companies that sell a lot of their products in the U.S.

I mean, it was just a few weeks ago where our stock of the week was the halo trade, which meant heavy assets, low obsolescence because of the AI freak out of software being disrupted by artificial intelligence. And now we're seeing some of the risks of these kind of companies. It's because there's been a huge energy shock in the market. And a lot of these companies, whether you have heavy assets, well, what is needed to power heavy assets is a lot of energy. So when prices go haywire, then these stocks look a lot less attractive. So we're seeing some of the pitfalls of the Halo trade. Meanwhile, some of the AI stocks or the tech stocks that have been beaten down look a lot shinier now because a lot of software development and tech company like meta or Amazon.

I guess Amazon's not a good example, but more software businesses don't rely on a lot of energy. so they're looking a little bit better. Yeah, and it really was just a crowded trade because a lot of people were getting nervy about the AI trade, and so rotated into these stocks before the conflict broke out at all. So there was a rotation within the rotation,

which is why maybe they're not looking as attractive now as they were even two weeks ago when we had Halo as our stock of the week. What's another interesting safe haven that hasn't been benefiting from the war is gold. Gold has seen record high after record high over the past few. but especially during the 12-day war with Iran last year, it went, it skyrocketed.

But now if you look at the gold price chart, it's completely flat for over the latest conflict. So it has not been benefiting from the war at all. It's the OG save haven for thousands of years. And that's because analysts suggest that rising oil prices could lead to higher inflation, higher interest rates, essential banks don't cut. Maybe they hike rates. And that makes gold less attractive to yielding assets like government bonds.

Let's bring to the finish with some final heads. some final headlines. Here's some updates on the war in Iran now entering its 14th day. Oil prices rose 9% to close above $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, after Iran's new Supreme leader and President Trump indicated the conflict would not end soon. In his first public statement, Moshtaba Khamenei said he intends to keep the straight of Hormuz closed as, quote, a tool to pressure the enemy. Meanwhile, President Trump downplayed rising oil prices and said defeating Iran was of far greater interest and importance. At the same time, his administration does seem to be making efforts to stave off an energy crisis. The White House is reportedly considering waiving the Jones Act,

a much-criticized century-old maritime rule that requires American ships exclusively to transport goods between U.S. ports. An exemption would allow cheaper foreign tankers to move goods like oil, gas, and fertilizer around the country. Yeah, the goal is to get rid of this bottlenecks because the Gulf Coast has a lot more of the refineries. The Northeast has a lot more of the people, and there's only one pipeline that connects them. So anything you can do to make it cheaper to bring oil from where it's refined to where the people are is something that you're going to want to do right now, even though people are saying it's not going to have a huge impact, but we're talking like cents, not even dimes or nickels when it comes to reducing gas prices. And I also want to talk

about how the Iran War has spilled in the housing market a little bit. It started obviously as a geopolitical crisis, but now war pushes oil prices up. Oil prices stoke inflation fierce. inflation fears, prox treasury yields up. It's very similar to what you were talking about at the end of our last story. And treasury yields guide mortgage rates. The mortgage rate right now is an average of 6.11%. That is the biggest jump in 11 months. So it's becoming very real to a lot of homeowners as well right now, or potential homeowners. Moving on, if you've ever lost 20 bucks on a parley, multiply that feeling by about 500. and you'll understand the emotional roller coaster Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins went on for his new piece on the sports betting industry. Coppins voluntarily became a lab rat to see how he'd fare in the digital trenches armed with $10,000 by the magazine to gamble his way through an entire NFL season.

What started as a fun journalistic exercise involving a Mormon dad downloading draft kings for the first time turned into a cautionary tale about how quickly the apps can rewire your brain. At one point, Coppins was hiding in his kitchen pantry, placing bets while his kids looked for snacks. Despite his naivete, or maybe because of it, by week 13, he was actually up money. He'd wagered about $10,000 and had made a grand total of $156 in 16. But then things went downhill. A bad beat around Thanksgiving sent him spiraling, and the discipline he had built up went out the window. His experiment ended with him putting $4,735 on the Patriots. to win the Super Bowl outright, and we all know how that went.

Neil, if Morning Brew gave you $10,000, I think you'd do better, right? No, I'm on a cold streak. I also bet on the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and then I've been dabbling in some college basketball this week with all the games, and that's been going poorly. But, hey, I'd sure love the opportunity to try. So, Devin, if you're listening, maybe throw Toby and I a couple bones so we could go on this gambling journey for reporting purposes.

Okay, the weekend is just. hours away, and there's a lot to look forward to besides just, you know, it being a weekend. Tomorrow is Pie Day 314, which means you're legally obligated to eat pie or recite as many digits of the number as you can buster. Also tomorrow, expect bars to be thronged with people celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Yes, it's not until Monday, but the Saturday two days before is effectively the holiday. I'm putting forth a new holiday idea for you. St. Patrick's Day, P.I. You get what I'm picking up. You get pinched if you don't. Don't wear green, but you can get out of it if you can recite 15 digits to pie.

Why 50, that's all I can remember. Well, the Irish are known for their pies as well, so I think there'd be some good crossover. Moving on to Sunday, make sure you go for a run in the morning because your couch is the place to be come the evening. It's selection Sunday, so the brackets for the men's and women's college basketball tournaments will be revealed. Then the Oscars get going at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Conan O'Brien will host the award show for the second consecutive year. Let's do some predictions. First of all, in the men's tournament, Duke is not winning.

They got a little too injured. Give me Arizona. And I already went on record. Give me Texas in the women's. As for the Oscars, best picture, one battle after another. Best actor, give me Timmy. Screw all the noise from the opera. Best actress, Jesse Buckley.

Best director, Ryan Coogler, because I saw this take. I'm not going to take credit for it. If Sinners was nominated in every major category, the most nominated Oscars film ever, a director is responsible for making sure every part of a movie comes together. Then by definition, Coogler is the best director. Every single category centers appears in. How could he not win? What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I disagree. I mean, I haven't seen the movie, so I can't say whether he should win or not. But I think it's a best director, Oscar, is not for compiling talent or, you know, seeing talent. By definition. By definition. By definition. It's how you direct and execute the movie. So that's my pushback to that particular take, which wasn't even yours in the first place, but you seem to want to defend it.

I got some food ideas for your Oscar party as well. This comes from a post on X, which are some themed dishes to make to align with the movies that are being nominated. You got cake pop demon hunters, a grain dreams bread basket, the weapons hot dog tray, honey baked hamlet sandwiches. And then for drinks, you can make a martini supreme or a few small beers for one battle after another. Oh, martini supreme. That's pretty good. I wish I came up with that. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MB Daily Show.

Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Lou is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia League. Hair and makeup got lost using Apple Maps. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. I wish you all well.