Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🖐️ Meta is trying to distance itself from politics
• 🍫 Chocolate is about to get more expensive
• 🤔 How much will Jeff Bezos save in taxes by moving from Washington to Florida?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.59-minute read.

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

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

–William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

It’ll soon be easier to avoid seeing political content on Instagram or Threads – unless that’s your thing. Meta on Friday announced plans to stop proactively recommending political content from accounts that users don’t follow on Instagram or Threads.

• The policy, which mirrors what Meta currently uses on Facebook, marks the first details of how Instagram and Threads will handle political content ahead of the November election.

Background: Since its mass adoption in the mid-2000s, social media has played an important role in every single US presidential election. Barack Obama is widely credited as the first major candidate to utilize social media during his successful 2008 campaign, while Obama and Mitt Romney each actively campaigned online in 2012.

Social media’s impact on the ballot box continued to grow in 2016 and 2020, and has included a pair of Facebook-related controversies:

• In 2016, consulting firm Cambridge Analytica collected the personal data of ~87 million US Facebook users without their consent and used it to help the campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, eventually resulting in a record-high $5 billion fine for FB.
• The 2020 election saw Facebook and Twitter (now X) take steps to prevent the sharing of a New York Post article allegedly containing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, even though the article and its contents were later proven authentic by the DOJ.

Looking ahead: Experts say Meta’s new approach to political content is expected to decrease the amount of political posts shown to users in general. After Facebook initiated the same policy in 2021, the share of political content users saw in their feed fell from 6% of all posts to less than 3% over the next year.

🕺📱As if on cue... President Biden officially joined TikTok over the weekend in a bid to connect with younger voters.

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🇧🇷 Participants at Brazil’s Carnival parade protested illegal mining on Indigenous land in the Amazon. Performers painted “Miners out” across their drums and performed dances depicting the struggles of natives at Brazil’s ongoing Carnival parade (known as the world’s largest party). President Lula declared a public health emergency over the effects of illegal mining a year ago, causing an ~85% drop in such illegal activity – but local residents say miners are beginning to return.

🇫🇷📉 France is experiencing an “unprecedented decline” in sexual activity, per scientists. A new study from the French Institute of Public Opinion found 24% of French adults aged 18-59 hadn’t had sex in the previous year, up from 9% in 2006. The trend was especially noticeable among 18-to-24-year-olds, with the proportion of celibates increasing from 5% in 2006 to 28% today. Other research has shown similar recent declines in sexual activity in Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands.

🇬🇧 UK researchers launched the first digital library of Charles Darwin’s collections. Darwin’s two main collections are kept at the University of Cambridge and his family home in England. But, after receiving letters from the public requesting titles from his library, researchers began recreating it virtually in 2007 – and yesterday, on the 215th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday, it was finally released. The Darwin Online project features free online copies of the 13,000 volumes originally owned by the famed scientist.

Cocoa prices rn are higher than a recreational smoker hanging out with Snoop Dogg. Last week, cocoa prices rose again to break the all-time record from 1977, the year before Reese’s Pieces were introduced to the masses (😋).

And this record-breaking push has been a long time coming. The price of cocoa, a key ingredient in chocolate, has been marching upward for over two years, and more than doubled over the past year.

What’s behind the increase?... About 70% of the world's cocoa beans come from four West African countries: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. These countries all lie within a tropical zone around the Equator, providing ideal climate conditions for growing cocoa trees.

And therein lies the rub – the weather. Massive rains, followed by a dry spell coupled with winds have created harsh growing conditions for the beans. Pests and disease haven’t helped either.

• This weather-induced growing problem hasn’t just been isolated to the past two years – cocoa harvests are now coming up short for the third year in a row, with the future still in flux, per NPR.
• At one point, regulators in the Ivory Coast even stopped selling contracts for cocoa exports altogether because of uncertainty over new crops.

👀 Looking ahead… Last-minute Valentine’s Day chocolate buyers can rest easy – no sudden price increases are expected this week. But, with a new cocoa crop not coming for months, experts say Easter and Halloween candy could get pricey.

Thanks to last year’s interest rate hikes, investors can finally earn more on their cash than the .01% rate their checking account was giving them. But while having a “risk free” return seems comforting, there’s a hidden cost banks don’t want you to consider: opportunity.

Like the opportunity to invest with Masterworks, an award-winning platform for investing in blue-chip art, for example. 

• So far, each of its 20 exits have delivered positive total returns, with recent exits delivering 13.9%, 14.6%, and 17.8% annualized net returns.*
• With a track record of success like that, Masterworks’ offerings can sell out in minutes.

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💬 Quoted… “There wasn’t anything you could do to stand up to dozens of people.”

• On Saturday, in a scene reminiscent of the human/driverless car interaction in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (too niche?), a Waymo driverless vehicle in San Francisco’s Chinatown went up in flames after a crowd of people surrounded the passenger-less car, smashed its windows, and set off a firework inside. Local authorities say they’re still investigating the motive behind the attack, which took place during celebrations for Chinese New Year (and didn’t result in any reported injuries).

💰 Stat of the Day: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who recently unveiled plans to sell 50 million shares in the online retailer over the next year, will save an estimated $600 million in capital-gains taxes thanks to his recent move from Seattle to Miami. Or in other words – the money machine goes brrr, even though the weather is hot.

🤔 Did You Know?... In 2021, the global video game industry earned ~1.5x more revenue than the music and movie industries combined ($193 billion vs. $126 billion).

📰 Worth a Read: 40% of Lawyers Are Women. 7% Are Black. America’s Workforce in Charts → (WSJ)

• ☝️ 🌨️ More than 49 million Americans across the Northeast are currently under winter weather advisories; the storm is expected to drop 3-6 inches of snow across the area starting this morning.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with BestBodiesforLife

• 💰 US markets closed mixed (S&P: -0.1%; Dow: +0.4%; Nasdaq: -0.3%).
• 📈 ​​Nvidia briefly passed Amazon in market cap yesterday to become the world's fourth-most valuable company, but ended the day slightly behind the e-commerce giant ($1.78T vs. $1.79T).
• ​​✈️ JetBlue has a new leader: Incoming CEO Joanna Geraghty, the first woman to run a major US passenger airline, officially took the helm yesterday. | 📝 JetBlue shares jumped 15% on Monday after activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a nearly 10% stake in the airline. (Read more)

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🙏🏃 Kelvin Kiptum, the 24-year-old men’s marathon world record holder, died in a car accident in his native Kenya on Sunday.
• 📺📉 The number of new scripted TV series declined 14% last year, marking the first decrease in over a decade (excluding 2020).
• 💻📱 Google One – the subscription service that opens up additional storage for Gmail, Drive, Photos, and more – has crossed the 100 million subscriber mark.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Niphtio

• 🏟️⚡ This year’s Super Bowl was the first to be powered entirely by renewable energy; the ~28 megawatt hours of power came from the nearby Arrow Canyon Solar Project.
• 🤖🛰️ University of Nebraska researchers worked with NASA to launch the first surgical robot onboard the International Space Station earlier this month.
• 🌍🐢 Nearly half of all migratory species have declining populations, with about one-fifth facing potential extinction, per a new UN report.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ A California father whose gender reveal photoshoot sparked a 2020 wildfire that killed a firefighter has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
• 🙏 A 36-year-old woman was killed after entering pastor Joel Osteen’s megachurch near Houston, Texas, and opening fire with an AR-style gun; two others were injured, including the woman’s 7-year-old son.
• 🏛️🏥 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, America’s #2-ranked military official after the President, was hospitalized yesterday with a “bladder issue”; Austin has temporarily transferred his duties to his deputy; it marks Austin’s second hospitalization since early January.

CLICKBAIT

• 🧠❗ The world’s smartest young minds just cracked a 2,000-year-old mystery.

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

• 💰📈 Americans aged 18-39 have seen their real wealth (aka inflation-adjusted) increase by 80% since the start of 2019, compared with a 10% bump for 40- to 54-year-olds and 30% for people 55+. (Read more)
• 🏈 Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, 28, is the fifth quarterback to ever win three Super Bowls. (Read more)
• 🪙 The price of bitcoin rose above $50,000 today for the first time since December 2021. (Read more)
• 🇨🇳📉 China’s population is projected to fall from 1.4 billion to 525 million by the end of this century. (Read more)
• 🤑🤖 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is looking to raise as much as $7 trillion for a project that would boost the world’s chip-building capacity and expand its ability to power AI, per the WSJ. (Read more)

Yesterday, we covered a nonpartisan report that found the US is on pace to add ~$19 trillion to its national debt by 2034, with higher interest payments set to account for a historic share of government spending.

❓ Our question to you (long-form): In your opinion, how should the US government deal with its rising national debt?

• “We are in a world of trouble with our debt. There is so much government waste. We should handle it by tightening our belts, like any person would do – cut spending, reduce or eliminate funding to foreign countries, and pay down the debt.”
• “While the debt sounds irresponsible on its face, it’s different from a home budget. It’s not zero concern, but we must keep in mind it’s largely the result of the pandemic and the deferred maintenance infrastructure bill – two rare and catastrophic needs. To deal with the imbalance we must raise taxes on the wealthiest, which are at historic lows, and initiate a long-term tightening plan.”
• “Raise taxes on corporations and individuals making more than X per year (data-driven). Review entitlement programs and make hard decisions about where cuts should be made. Provide access to quality job training so workers can enhance their skills to qualify for better-paying jobs. Get real with cutting waste.”

Click here to read more of the best responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 268 longform responses.

Matt and Carrie Tessmer were renovating their bathroom, when they discovered a pair of love letters hidden in the walls. The two letters were both signed by the same name but addressed to two different women.

• It appears the letters were written by a teenager who seemed pretty desperate to find a date for his school's dance. Upon searching the home's owner history, the couple discovered the letters were from as far back as the 1920s. 
• The couple made sure to put a picture of themselves (with a note about who they are) for future homeowners to find before sealing up the bathroom wall. 

💬 What they're saying: "To us, it's kind of cool to see a little bit of the past," said homeowner Matt Tessmer. "It's truly a mystery how any of this stuff made it into our wall," followed his wife. 

❓ Trivia: In which decade was the US voting age lowered to 18?

👂 True or False?... Most people hear better with their left ear.

🤔 Riddle Me This: I have keys, but no locks and no rooms. You can enter, but you can’t go outside. What am I?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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❓ Trivia: The 1970s

👂 T/F: False, most people hear better with their right ear

🤔 Riddle: A keyboard

*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. See Important disclosures at www.masterworks.com/cd