Good morning. Someone sends you a joke – it’s funny, sure, but you’re not losing your mind about it. You type ‘lol’ and continue on with your day. Sure you lied, but who cares, it’s not like there’s an LOL police to make sure you actually laughed, right?

Wrong, bucko. Introducing the LOL Verifier, an actual piece of technology from artist Brian Moore that only allows you to type ‘lol’ if it hears you laughing. Otherwise, it’ll delete the ‘lol’ and type ‘that’s funny’ for you.

It might be early, but we’re calling it: Brian Moore is the frontrunner for all the Nobel Prizes of 2023. A genius among us, the one person who dared to challenge the ‘laugh in quiet but claim to laugh out loud’ industrial complex.

Did you laugh at any of that? Respond with ‘lol’ ONLY if it was out loud. Otherwise we’ll know and we’ll be sad.

But enough about our fragile self esteem – the news!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.72 minutes to read.

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”

–Paulo Coelho (b.1947)

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. It’s also two weeks after the former House committee investigating the incident published its final report on the situation, following a year-and-a-half of investigation, 10 public hearings, and interviews with 1,000+ witnesses.

📑 What did the report say?... The committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, began by stating then-President Trump was informed “time and time again” by his advisors and other US officials that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen from him, but he chose to keep claiming otherwise.

Other chapters included material on:

• Trump’s efforts to pressure state election officials to overturn local results.
• His attempt to persuade senior DOJ officials to aid his campaign to reverse the election.
• Trump’s failure to take action for 3+ hours following his speech on Jan. 6 while rioters rushed the Capitol.

The 845-page report concluded by asserting that Trump was personally responsible for the attack on the Capitol. Which didn’t exactly come as a surprise, given the committee had unanimously voted three days earlier to refer Trump to the DOJ for four potential criminal charges – including insurrection – in its final public hearing before disbanding.

✋ Yes, but: Congress doesn’t have the power to bring charges or initiate a criminal investigation, but it can call for the Justice Department to launch a probe. These requests, or criminal referrals, don’t hold any legal weight or influence over the DOJ’s decisions.

• At the moment, the Justice Department is running a separate investigation into the events of Jan. 6. This probe is led by an independent special counsel, and will make its own determination of what – if any – charges to bring against former President Trump.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should former President Trump be criminally charged for Jan. 6?

Yes

No

Unsure/other

🇲🇽 A drug cartel in northern Mexico has launched a violent response after the son of El Chapo was reportedly arrested. Armed members of the Sinaloa cartel burned vehicles and stormed an airport in the city of Culiacan yesterday, forcing local officials to cancel flights, suspend schools, and order residents to shelter in place. The scene was similar to a cartel siege on Culiacan in 2019 – the last time Mexico tried to arrest El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán – when eight people were killed before authorities eventually released Guzmán to avoid further bloodshed.

🥵 An ongoing heat wave in Europe is setting temperature records for January. At least eight countries have logged their hottest January temperatures in recorded history so far this month, with the heat wave encompassing a total of 15 European nations. Separately, a new peer-reviewed study published in Science found the world’s glaciers are melting faster than expected, with two-thirds of them projected to melt completely by 2100.

🇦🇫 Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government signed a $540 million oil-and-gas agreement with a Chinese firm yesterday. It marked the largest deal struck by Afghan officials since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, though its government still isn’t formally recognized by any nation. Afghanistan is estimated to contain untapped natural resources worth more than $1 trillion, Reuters reports, but decades of turmoil has prevented the country from reaping the benefits.

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The founders of SoulCycle, the fitness company whose customer base is often described as “part-cult,” are back with a new venture aimed at tackling the problem of loneliness in America, per a new report from Inc.

The new company, called Peoplehood, is centered around a newly coined concept known as “relational fitness.” Which can maybe be best explained as working out relationship skills instead of your body – and its execution looks a little bit more like AA, and a little bit less like sweating through a set of deadlifts while your gym crush looks on.

Starting this month, Peoplehood will begin to offer subscriptions to weekly 60-minute group sessions, led by instructors, where attendees will learn to practice active listening and sharpen their other social skills.

Each participant will be given a period of several minutes to tell the group how they’re feeling. And like chess, there are rules of engagement: when one person is speaking, nobody else is allowed to talk – instead, members are encouraged to respond with physical gestures like a hand over the heart or finger snaps.

• Peoplehood’s meetings will initially be held online, but the startup plans to open in-person classes in NYC by next month, and expand to other US cities by 2025.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: Nearly 6 in 10 American adults (58%) consider themselves to be lonely, per a 2022 study from Morning Consult commissioned by Cigna. And like reverse-Covid, young people appear to be the most affected. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are twice as likely to be lonely as seniors (79% vs. 41%, respectively), while men and women share roughly the same likelihood of loneliness.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Maybe we cried too much last year.”

During Walgreens’ earnings call yesterday, CFO James Kehoe said the company may have overblown its concerns about theft, after the company’s shrinkage – which accounts for items that were shoplifted or damaged, lost, or stolen by employees – stabilized last year.

• But other retailers like Walmart and Target appear to be in a different boat. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon recently said the company may have to close stores and raise prices if its problem doesn’t get under control, while Target reported a $400 million loss due to shrinkage on its last earnings report.

💰🐈 Stat of the Day: Taylor Swift’s cat, Olivia Benson, is the third richest pet in the world with a net worth of $97 million, per a report from All About Cats. But that’s a paltry sum compared to #1 on the list: a German shepherd named Gunther VI, who has a reported net worth of $500 million😳.

🤯 Did You Know?... Potato-shaped stones are better for skipping, per a mathematical model developed by University of Bristol and University College London professors.

📖 Worth a Read: The typo that scandalized a continent → (Ripley’s)

• ☝️ The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured this image showing a globular cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars located within the constellation Sagittarius; some of the stars pictured here are as close together as the size of our solar system.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🤼‍♂️ Vince McMahon announced his return to WWE yesterday; the company’s owner and former CEO stepped down last July following allegations of sexual misconduct; WWE shares rose over 10% in after-hours trading following the news.
• 🛏🛀 Bed Bath and Beyond shares dropped 30% yesterday to reach their lowest level in decades after the company announced it was exploring bankruptcy.
• 🤖 OpenAI, the lab behind ChatGPT, is considering selling some of its shares at a valuation of ~$29 billion, per the WSJ. (Background)

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈✍️ Damar Hamlin is awake and showing remarkable improvement, his doctors said yesterday; the Bills safety remains in critical condition but has been communicating via writing and moving his hands, feet, and head. | The game in which he collapsed won't be completed, the NFL announced yesterday.
• ❄️ Jeremy Renner posted a video from the hospital yesterday, his first since the Jan. 1 snowplow incident, commenting that “A not [so] great ICU DAY, turned to (sic) amazing spa day with my sister and mama.”
• 🏸 More than 36.5 million people played pickleball from August 2021 to August 2022, according to a new report by the Association of Pickleball Professionals shared exclusively with CNBC; previous data from 2021 pinned the sport's participation rate at 5 million players.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💉 Researchers at Harvard Medical School have developed a new vaccine that simultaneously eliminated and prevented a deadly form of brain cancer called glioblastoma when tested in mice. | The USDA approved the world’s first vaccine for honeybees yesterday.
• 📚🗣️ Apple launched a new catalog of audiobooks that are narrated by an AI.
• 🧠 Human ‘mini-brains’ implanted in mice formed observable and functional connections to their hosts’ brains for the first time in history, per a new peer-reviewed study published in Nature Communications.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🚫🤖 NYC public schools have blocked students from accessing ChatGPT, local officials confirmed yesterday.
• 🌎 President Biden announced a new immigration strategy yesterday that extends a pandemic-era expulsion program called Title 42 to migrants from four new countries, while also creating a pathway to admit up to 30,000 people per month from those areas for two years. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• 🏛️ The House adjourned yesterday after holding its seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh unsuccessful vote to determine who will serve as speaker; it marks the longest deliberation over House leader since 1856; the chamber will meet again at noon today to keep voting on a speaker. (Background | From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 💪 Why working out during the workday is the ultimate power move.

It’s time to find out – our weekly news quiz is live.

• Test your mettle against the team.

A set of twin polar bears was born last month at The Toledo Zoo, and they are unbearably cute. 

🐻‍❄️ A very special birthday... The cubs, born to 24-year-old mother Crystal and 18-year-old father Nuka, were the first polar bears to be bred at the Zoo in ten years. 

• And while they may not be out in the exhibit for public viewing until springtime, anyone can peek in on the family through the zoo's polar bear livestream.

Below are three lists of ingredients. All you have to do is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Cauliflower
• Olive oil
• Garlic powder
• Smoked paprika
• Salt & pepper
• Buffalo wing sauce
• Crumbled blue cheese
• Cilantro
• Chopped chives
• Green onions

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Pancetta
• Parmesan
• Eggs
• Spaghetti pasta
• Salt & pepper

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Unsalted butter
• Water
• Sugar
• Salt
• Flour
• Egg
• Vanilla extract
• Vegetable oil
• Cinnamon

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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Start referring.👇

☝️ Recipe #1: Whole roasted buffalo cauliflower

✌️ Recipe #2: Carbonara

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Churros