Good morning. In this edition:

• 🛒 Grocery surveillance
• 💉 CDC drops vax recs
• 💔 Relationship recession

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.90-minute read (1,038 words).

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“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

–Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

As the Supreme Court heads into the new year, Justices are preparing to hear cases and render decisions that will shape America’s legal and political landscape for years to come.

Here’s a breakdown of the biggest decisions on the docket:

Birthright citizenship: The Trump admin is challenging the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for anyone born on US soil, arguing it was intended only for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, not for children of undocumented immigrants. Oral arguments before SCOTUS are expected this spring.

Tariff legality: President Trump has invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—a 1970s law allowing the president to regulate imports during national emergencies—to justify his sweeping tariffs on a wide range of countries, arguing that America’s trade imbalances constitute a national emergency. A lower court previously ruled that the IEEPA’s text doesn’t explicitly give the president tariff powers. If SCOTUS agrees, US companies could be owed billions of dollars in tariff refunds.

Congressional maps: The Court is considering whether to narrow or eliminate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—which bans racial discrimination in voting—along with the possibility of going one step further and prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a factor in creating election districts. A ruling that bans lawmakers from considering race entirely is likely to result in widespread redistricting efforts, which NY Times analysts predict would shift around a dozen House seats from Democratic to Republican control.

Campaign finance: SCOTUS is reviewing a GOP-led push to erase limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for president and Congress. Opponents of the spending limits argue they’ve hurt political parties in an era of unlimited campaign spending by other orgs.

Firing independent agency leaders: Under a 90-year-old SCOTUS precedent, presidents haven’t been able to fire the heads of independent agencies, like the FTC, without cause. The Court is currently considering whether to overturn that restriction.

Looking ahead…Decisions in all of these cases will be handed down before the end of SCOTUS’ current term in late June or early July.

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That quick run to Wegmans? It might be remembering you longer than you remember it.

The grocery chain’s locations in New York City recently began collecting biometric data from customers, including scans of faces, eyes, and voice recordings, per a new report from The Gothamist.

Catch up quick: Previously, Wegmans said it only gathered this type of data from a small number of employees, and promised to delete any biometric data it collected from shoppers.

• But the company recently expanded its pilot program to include shoppers as well, saying the data will be used to “protect the safety and security of our patrons and employees.”
• Privacy advocates and some loyal customers have voiced opposition to the change, citing fears that customers’ biometric data could be sold to other companies or shared with authorities without their consent.

Zoom out: Other grocery and retail locations—like Fairway Market, Westside Market, and Walgreen’s—already implement similar biometric data collection systems in stores across NYC’s five boroughs, according to Crain’s. And billionaire James Dolan has made recent headlines for using biometric recognition to exclude his enemies from performances and sporting events at NYC’s Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🚗 Several automakers report increase in US sales for 2025, including GM, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, and Mazda; overall, sales of new cars in the US rose ~2% last year.
• 💊 Novo Nordisk officially launches first-ever GLP-1 pill for weight loss in the US, called the Wegovy pill.
• 🏢 Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that funded NPR and PBS, is dissolving after 58 years; move comes after federal funding for public media was eliminated last year.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 NFL Black Monday: The Browns, Raiders, Cardinals, and Falcons (Sunday) all fired their head coaches, while other struggling teams decided to retain theirs.
• 🍿 Mayor of Kingstown renewed for a fifth and final season at Paramount+, with the crime drama starring Jeremy Renner going from 10 episodes to eight.
• 🏀 CBB AP Top-25: #1 Arizona maintains the top spot in yesterday’s men’s AP poll by a single point over #2 Michigan, in one of the closest races in 78 years; on the women’s side, #1 UConn is off to their best start since 2017-18.

In San Rafael, Argentina, the Vendimia honors women chosen to represent their region at harvest. Nine Queens pays tribute to a rare distinction, nine national harvest queens earned over decades.

This first U.S. release has just arrived and is reserved for early supporters. Priced at $20 per bottle, these wines deliver balance and character typically found at far higher price points.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💉 CDC is dropping universal recommendations for six childhood vaccines: rotavirus, Covid-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B; the Trump admin says its move brings the US in line with Denmark, while some public health experts oppose the move and say America has different needs than Denmark.
• 🦧 New analysis of a fossil from a chimpanzee-like ape that lived 7 million years ago appears to show that it walked upright, and also represents the earliest known human ancestor.
• 📜 Voynich manuscript, a mysterious 15th-century text written in glyphs that have never been translated, may have been composed via a cipher that uses playing cards and dice to turn languages into glyphs, new research reveals.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🏛️ Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) drops out of the 2026 governor’s race in the wake of a large-scale welfare-fraud scandal; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is reportedly considering a run for Walz’s job.
• 🇻🇪 Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, made first US court appearance to face charges related to cocaine trafficking, following their capture by the US military early Saturday; Maduro declared his innocence and said he’s still the president of Venezuela, while his wife also pleaded not guilty; their next hearing is set for March 17.
• 🎓 Education Department expects the first wave of wage garnishment notices for student-loan borrowers seriously behind on payments to be sent this week; notices will increase in scale monthly.

☝️ A massive 535-pound bluefin tuna sold for a record $3.2 million at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market. The winning bid belonged to Kiyoshi Kimura, the previous record-holder, who runs the popular Sushi Zanmai chain.

🤔 Did you know? In 2020, scientists renamed 27 human genes because Microsoft Excel kept auto-converting their names into dates, causing widespread errors in published research about human genetics.

📰 Worth a read: How a $3 grocery bag became an international status symbol

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• Are we in a relationship recession?
• The most anticipated movies of 2026.
• How James Garfield’s assassination gave birth to the American news cycle

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Yesterday we covered the US government’s surprise military operation over the weekend that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, ending the ~13-year regime of a Venezuelan leader branded as a dictator by the US.

❓ Our question to you: In general, do you support or oppose the US military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro?

• Support: 36%
• Oppose: 53%
• Unsure/other: 11%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 712 votes and 97 longform responses.

🌬️ Trivia: Which planet has the strongest winds in the solar system?

🎓 True or false?…The word “alphabet” comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet.

🤔 Riddle me this: I have branches, but no fruit, trunk, or leaves. What am I?

🐾 Aloka is a stray-turned-rescue dog who's accompanying a group of monks in their mission of peace around the world. His next journey? From Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C.

🌬️ Trivia: Neptune

🎓 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: A bank

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