Investigation update

• Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said that the five officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith, were “directly responsible” for the horrific abuse suffered by 29-year-old Trye Nichols.
• Nichols was beaten for three minutes at a traffic stop by the officers and later died at a hospital from his injuries.
• The officers were released from duty, and there is an ongoing investigation into the abuse.
• Davis made the announcement today, saying that the department wants to be honest and transparent about the ongoing investigation.
• The DOJ and the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into Nichol’s death.

Massive ratings for Stranger Things

• According to Nielsen's year-end streaming data, the consumption of streaming content rose by about 27 percent compared to 2021.
• Viewers in the US spent the equivalent of 19.4 million years on streaming platforms.
• The most streamed show by miles was Stranger Things from Netflix.
• Stranger Things was viewed for more than 52 billion minutes in 2022.

Peacock's shaky lift off

• NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock grew revenue and subscribers to 20 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, but its loss widened further compared with the year-ago period.
• Management predicted that the service would lose $3 billion in the coming year.
• The ad market bottomed out in late November and early December, which cut into the service's revenue.
• The total media unit revenue for the last quarter of 2022 increased by 2.6 percent, while its adjusted EBITDA fell to $132 million.

Officers responsible

• Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said that the five officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith, were "directly responsible" for the horrific abuse suffered by 29-year-old Trye Nichols.
• Nichols was beaten for three minutes at a traffic stop by the officers and later died at a Detroit hospital from his injuries.
• The officers were released from duty, and there is an ongoing investigation into the abuse.
• Davis made the announcement today, saying that the department wants to be honest and transparent about the ongoing investigation.
• The DOJ and the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into Nichol's death.

Meta allows Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram

• Former President Trump has been allowed back on Facebook and Instagram by Meta, two years after he was banned for inciting violence after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
• Facebook is a powerful fundraising tool that is likely to be heavily utilized by Trump's campaign for the 2024 presidential election. In the 2020 election, Trump generated millions of dollars in campaign contributions on the platform.
• Democrats argued that Trump still poses a threat to public safety and, as such, should not be reinstated on Meta's platforms.

100 million users

• GitHub reached 100 million active users.
• Github had 90 million plus users three months ago, and 28 million five years ago when Microsoft acquired the company.
• The platform now serves as the default hosting service for millions of proprietary and open source software projects.

ChatGPT passes MBA exam given by a Wharton professor

• ChatGPT-3 passed the final exam for the school's Master of Business Administration.
• The test was administered and graded by Professor Christian Terwiesch, who authored a paper about the test called "Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA? A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course."
• The bot scored between a B- and B on the exam and did an "amazing" job at basic operations management and process analysis questions.

What's in the suit?

• The Justice Department and eight states filed a suit against Google for abusing its position at the center of the online advertising industry to create a monopoly and claim profits that should have gone to advertisers and publishers.
• The allegations in the suit also include charges that Google bought up competition and strong-armed advertisers into using Google over other competitors.
• Google runs an automated auction when you load a site to find advertisers who are willing to pay to show their ads.
• The suit won't have any immediate impact on users.

AI toolkit

• Shutterstock and OpenAI partnered to offer users of its online design platform Creative Flow to generate images based on text prompt with DALL-E 2.
• The images are ready for licensing right after they are generated on the platform.
• Shutterstock's partnership with OpenAI is exciting for both as image generators become more and more mainstream.
• The partnership could set Shutterstock apart by integrating it into the Creative Flow platform.

New guidelines

• The FDA issued new guidelines to reduce young children's exposure to lead in baby food.
• Lead concentrations in packaged baby food are now limited to 10 parts per billion and 20 parts per billion in dry cereals.
• While the amount of lead exposure from foods has dramatically declined since the mid-1980s, lead is still present in small amounts in food and in water from old water pipes.

Blocked from committee

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote to McCarthy, asking that Schiff and Swalwell be placed on the House Intel Committee.
• McCarthy refused to place them on the committee, saying that the representatives' past actions made them ineligible. Schiff served on the committee investigating Republican leaders and Trump's administration for its role in organizing the Capitol riot on January 6th.
• Schiff also served as the lead impeachment manager of Trump's first impeachment trial.

What is going on?

• Senators were caught off guard when it was announced that classified documents were found at the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
• Senators and representatives are only allowed to view classified documents in a secure information facility and must stay in that facility, but the White House rules are apparently different.
• Pence told reporters he did not have any classified documents in his possession when he left the White House.

Ticketmaster fiasco

• When the ticket sales went live for Taylor Swift's upcoming tour, Ticketmaster was forced to shut down the sale when prices surged, and extraordinarily high demands crashed the site.
• Ticketmaster faced lawmakers on Capitol hill in an antitrust hearing, where senators questioned whether Ticketmaster, which is owned by the company producing Swift's tour, had created a monopoly in the live music industry.
• Executives apologized to Swift and her fans as lawmakers criticized Ticketmaster for driving the prices of tickets so high that the live music experience has become inaccessible for so many.

Cutting ties with Roiland

• Adult Swim cut ties with Justin Roiland after he was arrested on domestic abuse charges.
• Roiland is the co-creator and producer of the popular show Rick and Morty.
• The show will continue with Roiland, and Dan Harmon will take over as showrunner.
• Roiland was charged with domestic battery with corporal injury and false imprisonment by menace, violence, or deceit.

Biden calls for ban

• President Biden called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban in the wake of shootings in Half Moon Bay and the Los Angeles Area.
• The shooting in Half Moon Bay killed seven people, and a shooting in the Los Angeles area killed ten.
• The ban was introduced by the Senators from California and asked Congress to ban the sale of assault weapons like the ones used in the shootings.

Trader traitors

• US authorities have accused a pair of North Korean hacker groups of stealing more than $100 million in crypto from Harmony's Horizon Bridge.
• The hackers used a malware campaign called "TraderTraitor" to gain access to the assets.

$100 million

• North Korean hackers exploited a vulnerability in Harmony's Horizon Bridge to steal $100 million in crypto assets.
• The state-sponsored hackers hacked into the company's cross-chain bridge, which users use to transfer digital assets from one blockchain to another.
• The FBI said that stolen crypto assets are used to fund North Korea's nuclear weapons program and evade international sanctions.

New pass

• Amazon launched RxPass, a service where Prime users can pay a fee of $5 out of pocket to get as many generic medications as they need.
• The pass covers 80 common ailments, and the conditions were specially selected to reach the largest number of customers.
• The pass is not open to people on Medicare or Medicaid.

World Cup winner

• Mikaela Shiffrin claimed her 83rd World Cup race victory on the Kronplatz Mountain in Italy today.
• Shiffrin now holds the record for the most World Cup race wins for women in history, breaking the record previously held by skier Lindsay Vonn.
• Ingemar Stenmark holds the record for the most overall World Cup races won by a man or woman with 86 wins.

Michelle Yeoh makes history

• 60-year-old actress Michelle Yeoh received her first Academy Award nomination for her role in "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
• The nomination is the first time an Asian woman has been nominated for Best Actress.
• Yeoh has had a long career as a supporting actress in films like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Crazy Rich Asians."

2023 nominations

• Blockbuster films like "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" were nominated in the Best Picture category, as well as films that made very little in theaters like "Tár."
• "Everything Everywhere All at Once" received the most nominations with 11 nods, including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and nominations for score and the costume department.
• Disney led the field with 22 nominations, and Netflix surprisingly trailed behind despite success in past years.

Police responded

• Police responded to a shooting in Half Moon Bay, California, last night.
• Seven people were killed, and others were transported to nearby hospitals with life-threatening injuries.

Suspect arrested

• At least seven people and one person were seriously injured after a gunman opened fire at two businesses in Half Moon Bay, California, last night.
• The 67-year-old suspect, Chunli Zhao, turned himself over to the police this morning.
• The shooter's motive remains unclear.

Four members

• Four members of the far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers, were convicted of seditious conspiracy on Monday.
• The four were convicted for their role during the January 6th Capitol riot in 2021.
• Seditious conspiracy is rarely prosecuted, but several members of the group that attacked the Capitol building have been charged with the crime.
• All four were also found guilty on other charges, including felonies and obstruction.

More games for fans

• Meta is expanding its partnership with the NBA this season to offer more than 50 live games in VR on the Meta Quest headset.
• The package includes 54 live games and five immersive 180-degree monoscopic VR games in the Xtadium and Meta Horizon Worlds.
• Meta is also added NBA-branded apparel to its virtual store for avatars.

Big changes

• Spotify announced today that they are undertaking a broad restructuring, including cutting 6% of its headcount and shaking up senior management.
• The company will centralize engineers and product work under the product officer Gustav Söderström and business under chief business officer Alex Norstromm.
• Söderström and Norstromm will be named co-presidents and step into company management roles alongside CEO Daniel Ek.

In the memo

• Spotify is cutting 6% of its workforce, which amounts to around 600 employees.
• Spotify's head of content, Dawn Ostroff, is leaving the company after driving the push that made Spotify the leading podcast and music service in any market.
• Spotify announced the changes as part of an effort to become more efficient in a market with less consumer spending and less ad spending.

More documents found

• Investigators with the Justice Department seized more than half a dozen documents from President Biden's term as Vice President from 2008-2016 found at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware.
• Some of the documents were marked as classified.
• The search of a sitting president's home by federal agents is historic and escalates the possible legal and political situation the president is facing.
• The investigators were invited to search the residence by Biden's lawyers.

13 hours

• The FBI found additional classified documents at the Delaware home of President Biden during a 13-hour search initiated by Biden's lawyers.
• Amongst the items seized were Senate and Presidential records from his time in government.
• President Biden's lawyers found the first batch of classified records in November at a private office in Washington, D.C.
• The White House has been criticized for not revealing the discovery of the documents in November, instead waiting until January to announce the documents had been discovered.

New deal

• Microsoft announced it was extending its partnership with OpenAI into a third phase after it invested in the Chat-GPT maker in 2019 and 2021.
• The renewed partnership includes a new multi-year, multibillion-dollar investment into OpenAI to accelerate breakthroughs and commercialize advanced technologies.

Partnership extends

• Microsoft announced it was extending its partnership with OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT and DALL-E 2.
• The multi-year, multibillion-dollar contract will be used to further advance AI research and develop products that are "safe, useful, and powerful."
• The infusion of capital will be used in the deployment of supercomputing systems that are the backbone of OpenAI.

Democrats decide

• Though Krysten Sinema ran as a Democrat in the Senate, she has functioned as an Independent, often blocking Democratic priorities.
• One of Sinema's most rigid priorities is defending the filibuster, which requires legislation to get at least 60 votes to pass in the Senate.
• Representative Ruben Gallego released an ad today announcing his candidacy for Sinema's Senate seat in 2024, saying he was better qualified for the job because he hasn't forgotten where he came from and regularly met with his constituents.
• Democrats will have to decide whether to back Sinema or support Gallego.

Gallego challenges

• Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego is challenging Krysten Sinema for her Senate seat in 2024.
• Gallego's campaign promises to fight for normal people who have lost faith in politicians and are struggling to make ends meet.
• His campaign also highlighted his difficult road to Congress and attacked Sinema for failing to converse with or represent the residents of Arizona.
• Sinema left the Democratic party in December 2022 and is now registered as an Independent.

Suspect identified

• On Saturday, a shooter injured ten and killed ten others following a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.
• The suspect was identified by police today as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran.

Motive unclear

• On Saturday, Huu Can Tran killed ten people at a Los Angeles-area dance club during Lunar New Year celebrations.
• The 72-year-old was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he attempted to attack another dance hall but was stopped by a bystander.

Rejecting history

• Florida rejected an Advanced Placement African American Studies course from being taught in schools.
• The decision to ban the course caused fierce backlash and is the latest move by DeSantis's administration to censor and regulate what is being taught in Florida schools.
• DeSantis signed the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees act, which banned courses that could make someone feel "personally reponsible" for historical wrongdoings.

100 million plus

• Spotify announced that Miley Cyrus's new single, "Flowers," broke the record for the most streams in a single week.
• The singer released the on January 12th, and the song has topped more than 101,838,799 streams.

Silbert's empire

• The cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global Holdco filed for bankruptcy on Thursday night.
• Genesis is a subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group, which is owned by Barry Silbert.
• Genesis is the latest crypto company to fold since the collapse of FTX.

FTX-triggered collapse

• Crypto broker Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing 100,000 creditors with liabilities ranging from $1.2 billion $11 billion.
• Three bankruptcy petitions were filed for Genesis' holding companies.
• Genesis was a crypto lender, providing loans to crypto hedge funds and over-the-counter firms.
• The collapse of FTX locked a large portion of Genesis' assets on the platform and led to the lender filing for bankruptcy.

Genesis collapsed

• The cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global Holdco filed for bankruptcy on Thursday night.
• Genesis is a subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group, which is owned by Barry Silbert.
• Genesis is the latest crypto company to fold since the collapse of FTX.

Silbert's collapsing empire

• Crypto broker Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing 100,000 creditors with liabilities ranging from $1.2 billion $11 billion.
• Three bankruptcy petitions were filed for Genesis' holding companies.
• Genesis was a crypto lender, providing loans to crypto hedge funds and over-the-counter firms.
• The collapse of FTX locked a large portion of Genesis' assets on the platform and led to the lender filing for bankruptcy.

One million in fines

• A Florida judge fined former President Donald Trump and his attorney Alina Habba nearly $1 million for filing a frivolous lawsuit against Hilary Clinton and others who investigated whether Russia had influenced the 2016 election.
• The judge warned Trump against continuing his pattern of frivolous suits and against using the courts to seek revenge on political foes.

Trump withdraws suit

• Former President Trump withdrew a lawsuit he filed against New York Attorney General Letitia James after a Florida judge ordered him to pay more than $900,000 for filing frivolous suits.
• James is suing the Trump family for charges of business fraud.
• The Florida judge reprimanded Trump for a long-running pattern of using the courts to take revenge on political adversaries.

Illegal training

• Getty Images is suing the company behind Stable Diffusion.
• Getty says that the makers of Stable Diffusion illegally copied and processed Getty's database of copyrighted images to train its AI image-generating tool.
• The suit was filed in the High Court of Justice in London.
• Getty has gone as far as to ban AI-generated images from its database and has decried the use of artist-owned, copyrighted images to train AI image generators.

Personal data leaked

• T-Mobile revealed that a hacker accessed the personal data of 37 million customers.
• The hacker accessed names, billing addresses, emails, phone numbers, dates of birth, and other information.
• T-Mobile has been hacked eight times in the last eight years, with the most recent hack happening last year.

Data stolen

• The hacker who accessed the personal information of 37 million T-Mobile users breached a single application programming interface that held the user's information.
• Payment information, social security or tax ID numbers, driver's licenses or government IDs, or passwords were not stolen.

12,000 people

• Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced its cutting around 6% of its workforce as the pandemic-driven digital boom dwindles.
• Google is the latest tech giant to announce layoffs after Microsoft and Amazon announced layoffs this week.
• The cuts will impact about 12,000 people.

Increased focus on AI

• Alphabet is cutting about 6% of its workforce, about 12,000 jobs.
• Google's parent company is facing increasing competition in the AI space from companies like Microsoft.
• Alphabet made the decision to cut staff after a review of company priorities, which includes intensifying efforts to improve the company's AI-based products and decreasing spend on recruiting.