• ☝️ The Close Up Photographer of the Year contest announced the winners of its 2024 awards, which drew 11,000 entries from 61 countries.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.5%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: -0.5%). | 🏦 The Fed left interest rates unchanged following its latest meeting.
• ✈️ Frontier Airlines proposed merging with Spirit…again; Spirit rejected the proposal but said they would consider a revised offer.
• 🚗 ​​Tesla reported weak Q4 results; automotive revenue was down 8% from a year earlier. | 📱 Meta reported strong Q4 results after the bell; sales increased 21% year over year, while net income grew 49%. | 💻 Microsoft reported quarterly results that beat on top and bottom lines; gave weak revenue guidance for the current quarter.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with TheFutureParty

• 🏒 Utah Hockey Club will not be moving forward with the nickname “Yeti”; instead, it’ll hold an in-arena fan vote to pick one of three names: Utah Hockey Club, Utah Mammoth, or Utah Wasatch. | 📱 Kevin Durant isn’t the only one with a burner account: Billionaire Rocco Commisso, former chairman of the North American Soccer League, also has a secret social media account he’s used to compare MLS commissioner Don Garber and USSF president Sunil Gulati to Harvey Weinstein and Bernie Madoff. | 🏓 Major League Table Tennis signed a media rights deal with CBS Sports.
• 📖❓ A best-selling book purporting to be a collection of letters from John D. Rockefeller to his son has been called into question by CNBC, who found numerous factual errors and a listed publisher who denies any involvement in the book.
• 🍿 A Little House on the Prairie reboot has received the green light from Netflix.

*From our partners: 🔭 Get insights on entertainment, media, and culture… TheFutureParty serves you up the latest news and trends daily that shape the future of business. Always free. Subscribe to TheFutureParty here.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 Microsoft is investigating whether upstart Chinese AI firm DeepSeek improperly used OpenAI’s models to train its own groundbreaking models. | 🤖🖼️ DeepSeek released Janus-Pro, a new open-source AI image generator the company says is better than competitors like OpenAI's DALL-E 3 and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion.
• 🌿🧠 The largest-ever study on cannabis and its impact on brain function suggests usage has a statistically significant negative effect on working memory.
• 🐟🤢 A piece of fossilized fish vomit dating back ~66 million years to the age of dinosaurs was recently discovered in Denmark.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with Tuft & Needle

• 🏛️💰 The White House formally rescinded a controversial memo that ordered a freeze on all federal grants and loans – but also said a “federal funding freeze” remains in “full force and effect.”
• ⚖️ Former Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was sentenced to 11 years in prison for taking bribes and acting as an agent of Egypt while in office.
• 🗣️ Karoline Leavitt, 27, made her briefing room debut as the youngest White House press secretary in history. | 🏛️🏥 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Capitol Hill for the first of two Senate confirmation hearings for his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services; RFK’s testimony will continue today. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

*From our partners: 🦅🥳 Tuft & Needle’s Presidents’ Day Sale is live!... Save a special 20% off the best-selling Mint Hybrid, Mint, Original, and Original Hybrid mattresses for a limited time. Bundles also available for 15% off. Visit T&N Presidents’ Day Sale here.

CLICKBAIT

• 💰 Warren Buffett’s 6 Best Pieces of Money Advice for the Middle Class.