Iowa Caucus Results

The Democratic Iowa caucus took place last night, with immediate results delayed after "inconsistencies" were found by the state's Democratic Party. For a complete recap of the final results, check out the links below.

VA Deputy Secretary Fired

On Monday, Veteran Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie fired his second-in-command, Deputy Secretary James Byrne, less than five months after his appointment. In September, the chairman of the House Veteran Affairs Committee demanded a nationwide review of the VA’s sexual harassment policies after an incident involving one of his staffers.

Turkey & Syria Trade Strikes

In a news conference Monday, Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan said eight Turkish personnel were killed as a result of Syrian artillery shelling. Erdogan also announced retaliatory missile attacks against Syria, which reportedly killed 13 Syrian soldiers (according to an independent monitoring agency).

E is for Earnings

Google’s parent company Alphabet released its Q4 earnings report, beating analysts’ expectations in earnings but falling short on revenue, causing shares to fall 4% in after-hours trading. For the first time ever, Alphabet disclosed revenue numbers from YouTube ads ($15 billion in 2019) and Google’s cloud business ($8.92 billion in fiscal 2019).

Family Feud

Michael Sanchez, the brother of Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, sued the Amazon CEO for defamation, alleging his representatives spread false rumors that Mr. Sanchez provided graphic photos of Bezos to the press. A lawyer for Ms. Sanchez provided a statement accusing her brother of secretly providing her “most personal information” to the National Enquirer.

Context: Bezos’ extramarital affair with Ms. Sanchez came to light in Jan. 2019, when the National Enquirer published a story with photos of the two together in public.

More lawsuit news: the FTC is suing to block Edgewell’s $1.37 billion acquisition of shaving start-up Harry’s, citing competition concerns

Electric Avenue

Tesla shares rose nearly 20% on Monday, adding $23 billion to the company’s market cap. The share price increase comes after Panasonic announced that its battery-making partnership with Tesla was profitable over the last quarter.

Looking to cash in on Tesla’s recent success? CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter on Sunday to recruit for Tesla’s AI department.

Waste Embraced

Alex Cooper and Alex Schulze are promising young entrepreneurs changing the world for the better. The two men founded 4Ocean, a company that pulls plastic waste from the ocean and converts it into wearable, fashionable jewelry. Since 2017, 4Ocean has extracted nearly 8 million pounds of trash from the ocean and converted it into uniquely designed bracelets, sold at $20 apiece.

4Ocean has helped clean up the bodies of water near Bali, Haiti, and Florida. Now it has its sights set on Central America, where water pollution is rampant due to poor infrastructure and toxic runoff from major cities. The team in Haiti took a whopping 65,000 pounds of trash from the ocean last week, and aims to remove a million pounds from Rio Motagua and the Central American Atlantic in the next year alone. Schulze and Cooper are showing the world that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and that repurposing waste is a beautiful way to save the world.

Dog Gone It

Monica Mathis was crushed when her beloved bull terrier Hazel went missing in 2017. After weeks of searching to no avail, Monica and her family gave up hope of ever finding Hazel. Months passed, and a new job took Monica and her kids from Iowa to Minnesota. However, just last week, Monica made a miraculous discovery on social media: Hazel’s face plastered on the side of a beer can.

As we covered previously, the custom beer labels featuring Hazel and several other adorable dogs up for adoption are designed by Motorworks Brewery, as part of a fundraising campaign for a local Florida animal shelter. And apparently, it worked - Monica promptly contacted the shelter where Hazel was being cared for to arrange to pick her up. The shelter ended up covering Hazel’s transportation up north, ensuring a happy reunion between two loved ones.