Good morning. *Cue “The Sound of Silence”*....

… wasn’t that quick break nice? Don’t get used to it, though – now it’s news-time (basically the opposite of silence).

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.57-minute read.

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

“A tiny change today brings a dramatically different tomorrow.”

–Richard Bach (b.1936)

Yesterday, New Hampshire held the first Democratic and Republican primaries for the upcoming presidential election, which came eight days after Iowa officially kicked off the nominating process.

On the Republican side: Former President Trump defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by an estimated margin of 55%-43% in New Hampshire, with 91% of votes counted as of early this morning.

This result means Trump earned at least 11 of the state’s 22 delegates – essentially electoral votes for the GOP nomination – bringing his running total to 31, while Haley won at least eight New Hampshire delegates and increased her total to 16. To secure the Republican presidential nomination, candidates need to win a majority of the 2,429 total delegates.

• According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregator, Trump currently leads Haley by a 68%-12% margin among GOP voters across America, with all other major candidates having dropped out of the race.

On the Democratic side: Last year, the Democratic National Committee changed its primary calendar to prioritize South Carolina, as well as battleground states like Michigan and Georgia. But New Hampshire's GOP-controlled government refused to comply, scheduling the state’s Democratic primary to be held first on January 23.

• As a result, the DNC ruled that New Hampshire’s primary is non-binding and won’t award any delegates.
• Biden opted not to appear on the New Hampshire ballot to comply with the DNC’s schedule – though he ended up winning the primary anyways, after running a write-in campaign that beat out Rep. Dean Phillips (MN) and author Marianne Williamson.

🥊 Head-to-head(-to head): Both Trump and Haley lead President Biden by a margin of 3%-5% in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, according to the latest national polls. Trump’s polling lead over Biden remains consistent even after adding third-party independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his ~18% national support to the mix.

📊 Flash poll: If November’s presidential election were held today, who would you vote for?

• The Republican candidate
• The Democratic candidate
• A third-party candidate
• I’m too young/I don’t vote
• Unsure/other

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💥 Israel proposed a two-month ceasefire with Hamas in exchange for the release of all remaining hostages. The proposal, made through Qatari and Egyptian mediators on Monday, includes the longest period of ceasefire that Israel has offered Hamas since the start of the war. Israeli officials say more than 130 hostages captured in Hamas’ October 7 surprise attack are still being held in Gaza – and yesterday, Egypt said Hamas officials have indicated they’re open to discussing a deal to release some Israeli hostages in exchange for a significant pause in fighting. Both Israel and Hamas have rejected multiple proposals since the last cease-fire ended on November 30.

🇨🇦 Canada is limiting the number of international student visas. There are currently over 800,000 international students in Canada, up from 214,000 a decade ago. The government’s new two-year cap will decrease visas by 35% to address Canada’s ongoing housing crisis, which has been driven by the country’s rising population (currently ~40 million). In 2022, Canada’s population grew by 1+ million people annually for the first time ever, with the majority of growth driven by newcomers.

🌍 Energy prices fell across Europe due to Storm Isha boosting wind power. The storm’s 100+ mph hurricane-force winds brought increased wind power generation across several European nations on Monday, causing electricity prices to turn negative in Germany and France for several hours as wind energy supply outstripped demand. In the UK, a record-high 71% of national electricity demand was met by wind power generated during Storm Isha.

The answer to that question would be yes – a partnership.

The streamer and wrestling company announced a deal yesterday, reportedly worth $5 billion over 10 years, that will bring WWE’s Raw – currently the most-watched show on USA Network with 17.8 million viewers – to Netflix in the US starting in 2025. Outside the US, Netflix will also be the home of SmackDown, NXT, and WWE’s premium live events (including WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam).

This is Netflix’s first major foray into live sports/entertainment. The streamer has taken a sports-adjacent content route – producing shows like Drive to Survive (F1), for example – and has long said it has no desire to acquire live sports rights.

But, according to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the WWE isn’t necessarily sports – it’s “sports entertainment.” And the prospect of boosting the streaming platform’s ads business has Netflix execs acting like Ric Flair just showed up at the office (woo!).

• Wells Fargo analysts estimate that Raw alone will generate $200+ million annually in advertising revenue for Netflix.
• The streamer recently revealed that its ads tier surpassed 23 million monthly active users (but MAUs aren’t the same as paying subscribers; the streamer hasn’t revealed actual subscriber figures or how much revenue its ads-tier has generated).

📸 Big picture: Netflix posted Q4 earnings yesterday, beating analysts’ expectations on new subscribers and revenue while slightly missing on earnings.

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💬 Quoted… “​​Leaders and citizens around the world should take this statement as a stark warning and respond urgently, as if today were the most dangerous moment in modern history."

• The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – a nonprofit founded by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project – has decided to keep its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight for the second straight year. The bulletin says it opted to stick with the same reading, its closest-ever to midnight, due to a combination of factors including climate change, the rise of AI, and heightened global tensions involving nuclear-capable nations. The good news in all of this? It takes Thirty Seconds to Mars, so humanity can at least make a couple trips to the red planet before it all ends.

🪧💼 Stat of the Day: About 10% of all US workers were members of a labor union in 2023, the lowest figure in at least two decades, per a new Labor Department report. Since 2019, union wages have climbed an average of 15%, while non-union weekly pay is up by 22%.

🤔 Did You Know?... Humans are the only animal on Earth with a chin... so we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.

📰 Worth a Read: The Woman Who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave → (The New Yorker)

• ☝️ The most expensive home in Minnesota – an 18,000+-square-foot mansion with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and countless luxury amenities – was recently sold for a reported $14 million.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with bistroMD

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: +0.3%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: +0.4%); the S&P 500 ended trading at a record high for the third straight day.
• 🌐 EBay is eliminating 1,000 jobs, or 9% of its full-time workforce. | 💻 SAP will offer voluntary buyouts or job changes for 8,000 employees this year as part of a restructuring plan; SAP’s overall headcount will remain the same.
• 👶⚖️ Johnson & Johnson tentatively agreed to pay ~$700 million to settle an investigation brought by 40+ states regarding the safety and marketing of its talcum-based baby powder. | 🧾 TurboTax was ordered by federal regulators to stop advertising its products as free, unless they are free to everyone or exceptions are clearly disclosed.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎭🏆 The 2024 Oscar nominations were announced yesterday; Oppenheimer led the pack with 13 nods, followed by Poor Things (11), Killers of the Flower Moon (10), and Barbie (8).
• ⚾ Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer, and Todd Helton were elected to the 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame class; the three players will join manager Jim Leyland for enshrinement on July 21.
• 📰📱 Facebook accounted for ~30% of all news publishers’ social traffic in December, down from 50% one year earlier.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with BestBodiesforLife

• ☀️➡️🌎 The Earth is currently experiencing a series of solar storms expected to last through tomorrow; US officials say the storms could disrupt power grids, radios, aviation communication, and satellite operations across the country.
• 🪢⚛️ Chinese scientists accidentally tied the smallest and tightest knot ever, containing a total of 54 atoms.
• 🐛 Tardigrades, or microscopic caterpillar-shaped creatures, have chemical “switches” that cause them to enter a period of death-like dormancy during which they can endure extreme weather conditions that would kill nearly all other species.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ☕ CosMc’s, the drinks-focused McDonald’s spinoff with an initial franchise in Illinois, drew ~2.5x the foot traffic of a typical US Mickey D’s location last month. (Background)
• 🎓 The California Faculty Association, which represents 29,000 faculty members in the California State University system, ended its strike yesterday – on the same day it started – after reaching a tentative contract agreement.
• ⚖️🇲🇽 A US appeals court revived a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Mexico’s government seeking to hold American gun manufacturers responsible for facilitating the trafficking of weapons to drug cartels across the border.

CLICKBAIT

• 🔐📱 Turn on this new iPhone setting to protect your money and photos.

Mary-Ann Byrnes was shopping at Dollar Tree, when her two-year-old daughter started having a meltdown in the checkout line. 

• "[It] was hard to manage with all my stuff that I was trying to pay for and not keep people waiting behind me," Mary-Ann shared about the incident.

Then, cashier Fatimah Leftwich asked Mary-Ann if she could hold the toddler. Before both of them knew it, the two-year-old was behind the counter scanning items.

• Fatimah held the toddler, also named Mary-Ann, until her mom could check out. The two-year-old was mesmerized by the scanner. 
• "[She] had the ability to calm my daughter down with such a wonderful, trusting energy. It was amazing," shared the grateful mom. 

The two have stayed in touch since that day.

How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the stated value.

1. 💧 30: Number of years each season lasts on Neptune.
2. 🏰 800: Number of rooms in Buckingham Palace.
3. 😤 20,000: Number of breaths we take each day.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Over, each season lasts more than 40 years.
2. Under, it has 775 rooms.
3. Over, we take around 22,000 breaths each day.