Good morning. Online spending during this past holiday season (November and December) increased ~5% to reach $222.1 billion, an all-time record, according to new data from Adobe Analytics. Some quick insights:

• The use of buy now, pay later options increased 14% year over year to hit an all-time high, accounting for $16.6 billion of online spending.
• Prices were lower in 2023 across many product categories sold online. More purchases – rather than higher prices – drove the record spending, per Adobe.

On that note – to those still left unsatiated and looking to spend some of that holiday dough, we have some pretty cool merch. Just saying🤷‍♀️.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.86-minute read.

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

“The world only exists in your eyes – your conception of it. You can make it as big or as small as you want to."

–Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Former President Donald Trump is facing a series of lawsuits seeking to disqualify him from the 2024 presidential ballot in states across the country due to the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office.

Background: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prevents anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” in violation of their oath to the Constitution from holding any official state or federal government position moving forward.

• The law was first ratified by Congress in 1868 to prevent defeated Confederate leaders from rising to power again through the ballot box, and was last used to disqualify a federal politician in 1919.

But a pair of recent state rulings have brought the law back into the public eye. Last month, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that Section 3 applies to Trump for his actions surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot, disqualifying him from the state GOP primary ballot pending an ongoing appeal. Then, last week, Maine’s Secretary of State ruled Trump is ineligible to appear on the state primary ballot for the same reason.

On the flip side, Trump’s lawyers argue the former president shouldn’t be disqualified for several reasons:

• Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6 riot don’t meet the definition of “engaging in insurrection or rebellion.”
• Disqualifying Trump without a structured legal process to determine whether he engaged in an insurrection would violate his right to due process, and would disenfranchise millions of Americans who plan to vote for him.
• Section 3 was written in a way that excludes the President.

👀 Looking ahead… Trump’s lawyers have appealed the Colorado decision to the US Supreme Court, and are also challenging the Maine ruling.

Overall, at least 18 states have ongoing legal challenges to Trump's candidacy over insurrection concerns, which could result in him being disqualified from the 2024 presidential election in those states. An additional ~20 challenges have already been rejected or voluntarily withdrawn.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should former President Trump be disqualified from the 2024 presidential election due to the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

When the painting by master Claude Monet (you may have heard of him) was bought for $6.8 million and sold for a cool $8 million just 631 days later, investors in shares of the offering received their share of the net proceeds.

🖼️ All thanks to Masterworks, the award-winning platform for investing in blue-chip art. Masterworks does all of the heavy lifting like finding the painting, buying it, storing it, and eventually selling it. When Masterworks sells a painting, investors could get a return.*

With over 840,000 users, shares of offerings can sell out in just minutes…

But Daily Donut readers can skip the waitlist to join with this exclusive link. 

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Ukraine and Russia carried out their largest prisoner exchange of the ongoing war. The swap, brokered by the UAE, returned 248 Russian soldiers for 230 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. The two countries periodically exchanged prisoners-of-war through third parties since Russia invaded in February 2022, but rates dropped in mid-2023 after Moscow alleged that Ukraine violated a previous exchange deal. The last swap between the two countries occurred in August.

🇳🇿 A New Zealand fisherman survived nearly 24 hours floating in the ocean after falling off his boat. Local authorities said the unidentified man initially fell overboard after hooking a large marlin 30 miles off the New Zealand coast. He then floated for the next 23 hours, which included a close shark encounter, before being rescued when a nearby fisherman noticed the sun reflecting on the man's watch and took him to an ambulance crew waiting on shore.

🇸🇻 El Salvador said its murder rate fell by 70% last year following a crackdown on gang violence. President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency in early 2022 that allowed police to arrest suspected gang members without court approval, and to withhold suspected gang members’ right to a lawyer. Since the new regulations went into effect, El Salvador law enforcement has arrested ~75,000 suspected gang members, though human rights groups have reported nearly 5,000 abuses related to the crackdown.

+Update: The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for a pair of bombings that killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds more at a memorial service in Iran on Wednesday.

Google started phasing out the use of cookies on its Chrome browser yesterday, a move that both impacts the ~$600 billion/year online advertising industry and starts beef with Cookie Monster.

For those unfamiliar, browser cookies are a piece of tech that logs the activity of internet users across websites so that advertisers can serve them more targeted and relevant ads. Consumer advocates argue cookies invade user privacy because they can be used to compile detailed profiles, including sensitive information such as a person’s medical history.

Other browsers have already said goodbye to cookies. Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers both eliminated cookies around 2020. But Chrome accounts for ~65% of internet traffic worldwide – making it ~3x as popular as Safari, the next most widely used browser – meaning its changes will have a much greater and far-reaching impact on the online advertising industry.

• Google’s broad idea to replace cookies is to relay anonymized browsing data to advertisers so they can then target specific user cohorts (sorry, Mark Cuban).
• But less personalized targeting data could lead to lower-performing ads, which in turn lowers ad prices. Both Firefox and Safari saw lower ad prices after restricting cookies.

👀 Looking ahead… Google is currently running a limited test to restrict cookies for 1% of its users, and plans to roll these changes out to everyone by the end of the year.

Not motivated by fitness classes or instructors? Try Ergatta and get personalized rowing feedback and drills. Their Coach AI platform helps you improve your rowing form and grow stronger with workouts tailored to your fitness level.

🎮 Ergatta features thousands of live and on-demand game-based workouts so you can compete and stay motivated. Best of all, the rowers are elegant and compact. They store easily and are designed to fit in your home – both aesthetically and physically.

Save $450 on The Ergatta Rower with code DONUT450.

The NCAA and ESPN have agreed to a new eight-year, $920 million media rights agreement that essentially covers all college sports outside of men’s basketball and D1 football.

The new agreement carries an annual value ~3x higher than the NCAA’s current 14-year deal, which expires on September 1. And, much like in a school group project, nearly all of the forward progress can be attributed to a single participant – women’s March Madness.

• The NCAA’s media consultant, Endeavor’s IMG and WME Sports, estimates ~57% of the new deal’s overall value ($65 million/year) is tied to the women’s college basketball tournament – or about 10x the sport’s value in the old, expiring deal.

Outside of women’s hoops, the agreement also covers broadcast rights to 39 other NCAA championships – 19 men’s and 20 women’s events – as well as exclusive championship coverage for women’s volleyball, women’s gymnastics, softball, baseball, and FCS football.

🏈 One interesting thing: The NCAA used to control the broadcast rights to D1 college football – by far the most valuable college sports media property – until a 1984 Supreme Court ruling ceded control to individual schools and athletic conferences.

💬 Quoted… “We are no longer selling this brand due to unacceptable price increases.”

• A sign with this sentence👆 will start appearing in the aisles of many grocery stores across France, after French retail giant Carrefour, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the world, said it plans to ditch PepsiCo products – which encompasses brands like Pepsi (obvi), Lays, Lipton teas, Quaker, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and more – amid a price dispute and high food prices. In France, food-price inflation reached ~16% in March 2023; in December, food prices rose 7.1% over the past 12 months. This isn’t the first time Carrefour has clashed with suppliers either – shrinkflation labels were previously placed on 26 products in its French stores, which said: “This product has seen its volume or weight fall and the effective price from the supplier rise.”

🚘🔌 Stat of the Day: An EV owner using a paid fast-charging station stays there for 42 minutes on average, consuming 22 kWh of energy (enough to travel ~88 miles), according to an analysis of 2.4 million fast charging sessions from 2020–2023. But not all EVs and charging stations are created equal – the analysis doesn’t include Tesla owners, and when they’re included in the dataset the average time spent charging drops down to 31 minutes. Surveys indicate public charging speed is one of the biggest… roadblocks (😉) stopping consumers from wanting to purchase an electric vehicle.

🤔 Did You Know?... As of 2015, an estimated 87% of the world’s population – or 6.4 billion out of 7.3 billion people – lived in the Northern Hemisphere.

📰 Worth a Read: What’s the Best Time to Eat Dinner? Here’s the Math → (WSJ)

• ☝️ The US Mint yesterday unveiled its first-ever set of commemorative coins honoring abolitionist Harriet Tubman, which includes $5 gold coins, $1 silver coins, and half-dollar coins.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The Average Joe

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: -0.3%; Dow: +0.03%; Nasdaq: -0.6%).
• 🤝 Peloton and TikTok launched a partnership that’ll bring short-form fitness videos and other content to the social media platform.
• 🚗 Ford’s US vehicle sales increased 7.1% in 2023; it was the automaker’s best year since 2020. | 📝 SpaceX sued the National Labor Relations Board, which issued a complaint against the company earlier this week, claiming the agency's structure violates the Constitution.

*From our partners: 📈🥳 Become a better investor in just 5 minutes… Get market trends and insights anyone can understand with The Average Joe investing newsletter – and stick around for the humor and memes. Join 250,000+ readers and subscribe free.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆 The 81st Golden Globes take place this Sunday at 8 pm ET.
• 💎 The Safdie brothers, who together created and directed Uncut Gems, are parting ways creatively; their follow-up project starring Adam Sandler and Megan Thee Stallion is now “on pause.”
• 🏈 The NFL unveiled the full list of Pro Bowl players yesterday; the 49ers lead the pack with nine nods. | 🏀 The NBA published the first round of fan voting for this year’s All-Star Game; Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks) and LeBron James (Lakers) lead the way with 2+ million votes apiece.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Scott Kemper Imagery

• 🛰️📲 SpaceX launched the first batch of Starlink satellites designed to act as “cell phone towers in space” and connect directly to mobile devices.
• 🏥 Hospital patients are more likely to fall or acquire infections in private equity-owned hospitals than in other facilities, per a new study published in JAMA.
• 💊 Pharma giant Eli Lilly is launching a telehealth platform that will prescribe and sell medicine – including drugs for obesity, migraines, and diabetes – directly to consumers.

*From our partners: 🎁📢 LAST CHANCE TO ENTER FREE… Scott Kemper is giving away 10 free 2024 calendars featuring his “Beautiful Southwest” Collection. Enter to win by subscribing free to his newsletter, The Wanderlust Chronicles, by January 8th. Enter for free here.

MISCELLANEOUS

• 🙏 A 17-year-old male shooter opened fire at a small-town Iowa middle/high school near Des Moines yesterday, killing a sixth grade student and injuring five others before dying of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.
• ⚖️ The Justice Department sued Texas over a new state law allowing local officials to arrest migrants who enter the US illegally. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• 🏛️ Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who was charged last year with bribery and acting as a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt, is facing new allegations of accepting gifts in exchange for favorable comments about Qatar. | 🌏 Donald Trump’s businesses accepted at least $7.8 million from government or state-linked entities from China, Saudi Arabia, and 18 other countries while he was serving as President, per a new report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤯 Eighty-one science facts you probably didn't know.

Isaac Murdock loves sports. 

The teen is a major Kansas City Chiefs fan, so he was understandably excited when the team invited him to watch one of their practices and come for an interview. 

💫 Dream big... Isaac was born with a rare spinal injury that made him wheelchair-bound. Regardless of his disability, however, he hopes to have a career in as a professional sports broadcaster.

• Isaac got the surprise of his life during his interview, presented by none other than star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who took a break from starring in State Farm commercials to gift the grateful teen tickets to the upcoming Super Bowl LVIII. 
• "I know how blessed I've been to be able to be in this position and I want to make an impact in other people's lives," Mahomes said of the gesture. "If I never win another Super Bowl, I can always say I was the best person I could be every single day."

Where the questions are sometimes hard, and things can get gritty.

Take our weekly news quiz and see how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

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

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Mayo
• Scallions
• Parsley
• Lemon
• Tarragon
• Dijon mustard
• Black pepper
• White tuna
• Plum tomatoes
• Cheddar cheese
• Rye bread slices

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Whole milk
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Sourdough discard
• Yeast
• Flour
• Cinnamon
• Cornstarch
• Salt
• Butter
• Brown sugar

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Chorizo
• Olive oil
• Onion
• Carrot
• Garlic
• Potato
• Smoked paprika
• Salt & pepper
• Diced tomatoes
• Chicken stock
• Half & half
• Frozen corn
• Shrimp
• Parsley

(keep scrolling for the answers)

☝️ Recipe #1: Tuna melt dip

✌️ Recipe #2: Sourdough cinnamon rolls

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Shrimp & chorizo chowder

*Investing involves risk and past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures and aggregate advisory performance masterworks.com/cd