Good morning and welcome to a new week. In a recent note to clients, investment firm Loop Capital Markets wrote that a Bengals-Rams Super Bowl would be the ideal matchup for Best Buy, since it would drive the most sales of new TVs and home theaters at the retailer.

On the flip side, a matchup between the Chiefs and 49ers “would be the least desirable outcome” for Best Buy, given the teams have both played in Super Bowls recently and have smaller local fan populations.

So… Best Buy to the moon?

On today’s docket:

• The Northeast got pummeled with snow
• Baja Blast is going boozy
• And has Tesla turned the corner?

⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 3.68 minutes to read. Then it’s the fun stuff.

"Correct what you can. Learn from what you can't."

–Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

🌨❄️ 💨 A storm stretching from Maine to the Carolinas dumped up to 30 inches of snow on some areas of the Northeast over the weekend. According to AccuWeather, the storm became a bomb cyclone after undergoing bombogenesis between Friday and Saturday afternoon as it rolled up the East Coast.

• Bombogenesis causes a storm to rapidly strengthen, and happens when warm and cold air masses clash. It usually occurs over the milder ocean waters which supply the fuel for the storm to “take off.”
• The National Weather Service considers a storm a blizzard if it has snowfall or blowing snow, as well as winds of at least 35 mph that reduce visibility to a quarter-mile or less for at least three hours. In many places, the storm checked all those boxes.
• Boston tied its record for biggest single-day snowfall on Saturday, with 23.6 inches (!). As of Sunday morning, Stoughton, Massachusetts – twenty miles south of Boston – had recorded the most snow of the storm: 30.9 inches. Some sections of New York City were also blanketed by nearly two feet of snow.
• At the height of the snowstorm more than 100,000 customers were without power, mostly in coastal Massachusetts. As of Sunday morning, there were ~47,000 customers without power.

+It’s everywhere: According to NOAA, 100% of New England was covered in snow in the wake of the storm.

+Take a look: Here are some photos.

📝 The streaming platform is publishing its content policy and creating a dedicated hub for Covid information in response to several artists who’ve spoken out against what they characterize as misinformation discussed on The Joe Rogan Experience.

• In a blog post, CEO Daniel Ek said the company would publish its previously internal-eyes-only platform rules and add content advisories on any podcast episode that discusses the pandemic, which will direct listeners to its new COVID-19 Hub featuring “easy access to data-driven facts [and] up-to-date information.”
• Over the weekend, folk singer Joni Mitchell and rocker Nils Lofgren joined Neil Young in removing their music from the platform “because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines.”
• Podcaster Brené Brown also said she wouldn’t produce more content for the service “until further notice,” though she didn’t specify why.
• The musicians cited an open letter signed by 270 scientists and healthcare professionals accusing the JRE of “promoting baseless conspiracy theories” in a recent episode with Dr. Robert Malone – a “virologist who worked on research into several mRNA Covid-19 vaccines but who is now critical of the treatments,” per the WSJ.
• Spotify, which signed a $100+ million exclusive deal with Rogan in 2020, reportedly said in an internal memo that it reviewed multiple controversial JRE episodes and determined they “didn’t meet the threshold for removal.”

🎾 History in the making… Rafael Nadal came back from an 0-2 deficit to win his record 21st Grand Slam title late Sunday, beating Daniil Medvedev in the 2022 Australian Open men’s singles final. Ashleigh Barty won the women's singles title, becoming the first Australian player to win the Open since 1978.

🐐👍👎 Retirement roulette… Tom Brady is finally calling it quits… or is he? After a tweet from Adam Schefter led the rest of the NFL to breathe a sigh of relief (probably), Brady’s head coach said the star QB told him “he’s not even close” to making a decision.

• The 44-year-old still has one year left on his contract with the Bucs and stands to receive $15 million of his signing bonus if he’s still on the roster by February 4.

🍿🕷️ A familiar face... Spiderman: No Way Home topped domestic box offices again in its seventh weekend of release, earning $11 million. The film is just $25 million away from eclipsing Avatar as the third-biggest North American movie ever – though not adjusted for inflation – and has now surpassed $1 billion at the international box office.

🏈 The road to the Super Bowl… Joe Burrow and the Bengals prevailed over Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in overtime to win the AFC Championship Game by a field goal, 27-24. In the NFC, the Rams beat the 49ers 20-17 after erasing a 10-point deficit in the 4th quarter.

Thanks to the Pro Bowl this weekend, the Bengals and Rams will have an extra week off before meeting for Super Bowl Sunday in Los Angeles on February 13.

+Live from New York: SNL’s Weekend Update saw Peyton Manning stop by to discuss the NFL playoffs, his former rival Tom Brady’s possible retirement, and… Emily in Paris?

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💬 Quoted… The US Senate is preparing "the mother of all sanctions" for Russia should the country invade Ukraine.

• Context: NJ Senator Bob Menendez said negotiations on a final package were “on the one-yard line” and will target Russian sovereign debt, Russian banks, and other entities in order to cripple Russia’s economy. (From the Left | From the Right) 

🤭 ‘Oops’ of the day… Central Michigan University mistakenly told 58 students they’d won full-ride scholarships. After realizing its error, the school agreed to pay their tuition anyway.

🤯 Did you know?… Jonah Hill was paid the lowest possible salary for his Oscar-nominated performance in Wolf of Wall Street (SAG minimum of $60,000) because he wanted to work with director Martin Scorcese so badly.

📖 Worth a read… ​​The American circus is in decline, but performers thrive on TikTok → (Input Mag)

• 👆 Thousands of police gathered in Manhattan on Friday for the funeral of fallen NYPD Officer Jason Rivera, 22, who died along with his partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, after responding to a domestic violence call; it marked the first time two NYPD officers were killed on duty since 2014.
• 🐯👑 Joe Exotic, aka the "Tiger King," was resentenced to 21 years in prison by a federal judge on Friday over his murder-for-hire plot against Carole Baskin.
• 🍹 Mountain Dew’s Baja Blast is getting a spiked spinoff – Pepsi is partnering with Boston Brewing Company to make a hard seltzer version.
• 💉🗽 Two Long Island nurses are being charged with forging fake vaccination cards and entering them into New York’s state database, earning over $1.5 million in the process.
• 📺 The upcoming Halo TV series on Paramount+ has an official trailer and a premiere date: March 24.

+Just say no: This website generates templates for saying no to meetings, investors, dates, pushy people, and more.

Monday: National Hot Chocolate Day

Tuesday: First day of February

Wednesday: Groundhog Day; Meta, Spotify, Ferrari, and T-Mobile report earnings

Thursday: Weekly jobless claims

Friday: Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony; January’s jobs report; Jackass Forever comes out

When Tesla’s fourth-quarter earnings were published last week, they revealed its largest profit by a wide margin. Will the current undisputed king of US EV sales continue its upwards trajectory?

🪙 Credit where credit’s due: For years, Tesla has relied on other automakers purchasing emissions credits required by nearly a dozen states in order to boost revenue, to the tune of $4.45 billion since 2015.

• The EV-maker first became profitable without counting the sale of emissions credits starting in Q2 of last year. In the most recent quarter, such credit sales represented less than 14% of its net income ($314 million).

✋ Yes, but… Despite the recent good news, Tesla’s stock has dropped nearly 13% since reporting earnings, which many attribute to reports of new vehicle delays due to semiconductor chip shortages.

• The company won’t produce any new vehicles in 2022, meaning the Cybertruck is delayed again until at least 2023 – two years after it was first promised. Tesla also said it hasn’t started working on a long-awaited $25,000 electric car.

🔢 By the numbers: Even with last week’s dip in share price, Tesla currently has a valuation equal to the next 8 automakers combined (~$850 billion).

• Its EV market share in the US dipped from nearly 80% through the first six months of 2020 to 66.3% over the same period last year.
• Overall, EVs represented ~4% of automobile sales in the country last year.

👁️ Looking ahead… The company has reportedly commissioned next-gen EV batteries from Panasonic that’ll be cheaper than existing versions and give vehicles a 15+% longer range. Production is slated to start as early as 2023.

☝️ You're looking at the winner of this year's Annual Youth Mullet Championship. Yes, it's a thing – and yes, it's as cool as it sounds. 😎

Allan, who's a sixth-grader from Arkansas, originally had no intention of joining the competition. It wasn't until he heard of the $2500 cash prize that he joined the race. 

🦱 Fabulous hair and a giving heart... Allan didn't want the prize for himself. The youngster grew up in the foster care system and promised to donate 100% of his winnings to foster organizations if he were to win – which he did, in a landslide. 

• Allan kept his promise and split the winnings between two organizations dedicated to helping children in the system. 
• "The boy we adopted through foster care instantly wanting to give back..." his mom shared on Facebook. "I'm just gonna sit in awe of the power of an 11-year-old with a hilarious mullet and phenomenal heart." 

According to Guinness World Records, who’s the best-selling novelist of all time?

A) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

B) Stephen King

C) James Patterson

D) Agatha Christie

(keep scrolling for the answer)

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D) Agatha Christie

Christie’s 78 crime novels, including Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, have sold an estimated 2 billion copies across 44 languages – roughly the same total as William Shakespeare.