Mamdani's Chilling Inauguration Speech

Iranian economy protests

David Sacks opens Texas office

Mamdani’s democratic socialist pledge

Protests began Sunday with shopkeepers angered by the sharp depreciation of the rial and quickly spread to Tehran and other cities, drawing in students and broader civil society.

Human rights groups report at least 5–8 deaths, including a 15-year-old, while Iranian authorities officially acknowledge only one, claiming he was a Basij militia member.

Videos verified by the BBC show protesters setting fire to police stations, and footage shows security forces firing on demonstrators, echoing patterns from past rounds of unrest.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged protesters’ grievances, stating, “if people are unhappy with us, we are the ones at fault.”

Videos show protesters chanting “death to the dictator” and praising Iran’s deposed monarchy.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: The U.S. economy continued to outperform downbeat forecasts at year-end 2025, with initial jobless claims dropping to 199,000 and job openings rising to nearly 7.7 million amid strong business confidence. (WSJ)

The USDA unveiled details of a $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance program, directing $11 billion in per-acre payments to row-crop producers—with rice farmers receiving the highest at $132.89 per acre and cotton at $117.35. (INV)

Trump delayed planned tariff increases on imported upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities by one year, maintaining the current 25% rate. (TH)

Euro zone manufacturing activity deepened its contraction at the end of 2025, with the final HCOB PMI falling to 48.8 in December from 49.6 in November—its lowest in nine months. (INV)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Wedbush's Dan Ives named Nebius his top under-the-radar AI infrastructure pick for 2026, highlighting its GPU-accelerated cloud platform and appeal as an acquisition target for hyperscalers like Microsoft. (YF)

Campbell’s, trading at 53% below fair value, topped Morningstar's latest list of the 10 deeply undervalued wide-moat stocks to invest in now. (MS)

Motley Fool recommended three high-yield dividend stocks for 2026: Sirius XM at 5.4%, Enterprise Products Partners at 6.7%, and PennantPark Floating Rate Capital at 13.3%. (MF)

Zacks Investment Research named staffing firm Kforce its Bull of the Day, citing positive earnings surprises, upward analyst revisions. (ZCK)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: China's BYD is poised to surpass Tesla as the world's largest electric vehicle seller, with 2025 sales rising to 2.26 million units against Tesla's estimated 1.6-1.65 million. (CNBC)

SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic's potential 2026 IPOs could collectively surpass the total proceeds from about 200 U.S. listings in 2025, heralding a resurgence of mega-deals in public markets. (FT)

An unidentified buyer acquired a 1.84-acre vacant lot adjacent to Jeff Bezos's properties on Miami's exclusive Indian Creek Island—known as the "Billionaire Bunker"—for $105 million. (BI)

Arizona is accelerating semiconductor talent development via university partnerships with TSMC and Intel, and apprenticeships to support over $200 billion in chip investments. (NIK)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Aluminum prices surpassed $3,000 per metric ton for the first time since 2022 amid tightening global supply from Chinese production caps and European constraints. (BBG)

The U.S. sharply reduced duties on 13 Italian pasta producers from up to 92% to rates between 2.26% and 13.98% following a review. (CNBC)

China commissioned the second unit at its Zhangzhou nuclear power plant, completing Phase I of the world's largest reactor base in Fujian Province. (IE)

Gold prices extended higher to around $4,383 per ounce at the start of the year after ending 2025 with a roughly 64% rise, the strongest annual performance since 1979. (YF)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: More than 40 countries, including the UK, began enforcing the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, mandating exchanges to report user transactions and tax residency data to authorities. (CC)

Tether became the world's fifth-largest Bitcoin holder after adding nearly 9,850 Bitcoin worth about $876 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. (CN)

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong unveiled a 2026 roadmap to make the platform the world's leading financial app, focusing on global asset exchange expansion, stablecoin payments, and scaling Layer-2 network Base. (X)

Trump Media plans to distribute digital tokens to DJT shareholders via a partnership with Crypto.com. (TB)

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz highlighted stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization, and privacy infrastructure as pivotal themes for the crypto sector in 2026. (A16Z)

Sacks has publicly criticized California's proposed wealth-tax initiative as punitive and likely to deter innovation and capital formation.

Other prominent Silicon Valley figures—including Larry Page, Peter Thiel, Chamath Palihapitiya, and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan—are reportedly reviewing their California residency amid the potential levy.

Palihapitiya has warned that ultra-wealthy individuals with tens of billions in net worth are already leaving, raising concerns about lasting damage to the state's venture capital ecosystem.

Proponents argue the tax would generate substantial revenue for public services, while opponents contend it threatens California's position as the nation's primary engine of technological advancement.

The measure could qualify for the 2026 ballot if it gathers sufficient signatures.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: DeepSeek scientists created a new AI architecture called Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections that lets them train bigger models (up to 27 billion parameters) more easily and without needing much extra computing power. (SCMP)

OpenAI is accelerating improvements to its audio AI capabilities in preparation for launching an AI-powered personal device. (TI)

Nokia is reinventing itself for the AI era through expansion into data center switching and optical networking—bolstered by a landmark Nvidia partnership including a $1 billion investment. (FT)

A Chinese hospital's AI tool detected early-stage pancreatic cancer in routine CT scans that radiologists overlooked, identifying over two dozen cases—including 14 early ones—among 180,000 scans reviewed. (NYT)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Neuralink will commence high-volume production of its brain-computer interface devices and shift to fully automated surgical implantation procedures in 2026. (BI)

Chinese startup EngineAI deployed its Terminator-inspired T800 humanoid robot alongside police officers in Shenzhen during what appeared to be a public patrol. (IE)

Robotics firm UBTech's Walker S2 humanoid robot hit perfect strokes in tennis practice with a human opponent, showcasing advanced athletic capabilities through its AI-driven real-time adaptation. (DPC)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: The U.S. Marine Corps for the first time certified forward-deployed Marines on first-person-view FPV drones during a Caribbean exercise, a key step toward fielding the systems fleetwide. (DS)

Ukraine’s battlefield has become a live-fire proving ground for AI-driven drones like the Bumblebee from an Eric Schmidt-backed venture, alarming Kremlin strategists. (NYT)

SpaceX plans to lower roughly 4,400 Starlink satellites from about 342 miles to 299 miles in 2026 to cut collision risk in the increasingly crowded low Earth orbit. (VER)

Taiwan was seen moving its secretive Hsiung Feng IIE land-attack cruise missile amid heightened Chinese drills. (TWZ)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Brookfield Asset Management launched cloud provider Radiant and a $10 billion AI infrastructure fund, advancing its strategy to acquire up to $100 billion in land and data centers. (SA)

Moonshot AI raised $500 million in a Series C round at a $4.3 billion valuation, led by IDG Capital. (SCMP)

Banking infrastructure startup Knight Fintech raised $23.6 million in a Series A round led by Accel. (EN)

Mamdani vowed to replace “the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism” and govern unapologetically as a democratic socialist.

Mamdani called for wealth redistribution, asserting that “this will not be a tale of one city governed only by the 1%, nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor.”

Promises include universal childcare, rent freezes, and free public transit, funded by taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents.

The mayor criticized both corporate and government inefficiencies, vowing to bring back “era of big government.”

Mamdani’s inauguration featured Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) delivering the oath of office, reinforcing the far-left tenor of the new administration.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: CBS’s incoming Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil conceded that legacy media has “missed too many stories” and vowed to put ordinary viewers first as he takes the helm next week. (VAR)

4chan and Kiwi Farms sued Ofcom, claiming the UK Online Safety Act violates their First Amendment rights and exceeds its jurisdiction over U.S. sites. (RTN)

Minnesota continues paying millions in state funds to assisted‑living facilities linked to an indicted fraud defendant at the center of the sprawling “Feeding Our Future” and Medicaid misuse scandal. (NN)

Texas will require public‑school students to learn about the dangers of communism under a new social studies curriculum overhaul set to roll out by the 2026‑27 school year. (FOX)

Virginia governor‑elect Abigail Spanberger’s incoming diversity chief, Sesha Joi Moon, publicly lauded a mob that tore down and tossed a Christopher Columbus statue. (PM)