Monday, January 22nd, 2024

MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2024

Good Morning! On this day in 1959, Buddy Holly sat in his apartment a few weeks before he died in an airplane crash and recorded his last songs, including “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Crying, Waiting, Hoping,” and “Learning the Game.” (Hear Apartment Recording)

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DeSantis Drops Out of 2024 Race

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his 2024 presidential run Sunday, announcing it in a video on X just days before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. He said he would support Donald Trump for president.

Polls in New Hampshire show DeSantis at 6%, trailing Nikki Haley’s 39% and Donald Trump’s 50% support. Voters go to the polls tomorrow, beginning at midnight in the tiny town of Dixville Notch.

In his statement, DeSantis said he and his wife saw no good way to move forward after finishing 2nd in Iowa. Once seen as a front-runner, his campaign struggled for traction with personnel turnover, financial issues, and simply an inability to catch fire.

NFL Down to Its Final Four

The NFL conference playoff games are now set: In the NFC, the San Francisco 49ers will play the Detroit Lions, and in the AFC, it will be the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Baltimore Ravens. Here’s next weekend’s schedule.

In Sunday’s marquee matchup, the Chiefs defeated the Bills 27-24 in a game decided by a missed Bills’ field goal in the final minutes. Here’s the video. Earlier on Sunday, the Lions won a seesaw battle with the Tampa Bay Bucs 31-23.

On Saturday, the Ravens easily defeated the Houston Texans 34-10, with the Texans’ only touchdown coming from this explosive 67-yard punt return, and the 49ers came from behind in a 24-21 victory over the Packers.

List: Best/Worst States to Drive In

Iowa is the best state for drivers, and Hawaii is the worst, according to a new ranking of all 50 states based on road quality, traffic congestion, gas prices, and other factors.

The ranking by WalletHub also ranks the five best and worst states in terms of how much time drivers spend stuck in rush hour traffic jams. West Virginia drivers face the least rush-hour congestion and Californians the worst.

The rankings can be sorted by categories, including cost of car maintenance, highway safety, and traffic/infrastructure. You can see how your state ranks here.

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➤ The prosecutor alleged to have romantic ties to District Attorney Fani Willis in Donald Trump’s Georgia case paid for airline tickets for him and Willis to take trips to Miami in 2022 and San Francisco in 2023, court documents show. (More)

➤ President Biden announced another $5 billion in student debt forgiveness for 74,000 borrowers, including teachers, nurses, firefighters, and people who have been making payments for the last 20 years. (More)

➤ Sen. Tim Scott asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to explain what role the financial crimes unit had in asking banks to seek “extremists” by searching transactions for terms like “MAGA” or “Trump,’ or the purchase of religious books. (More)

➤ The House Budget Committee approved a bill to appoint a bipartisan commission to recommend ways to slow government debt, currently at a record $34 trillion. Sens. Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney have backed a companion bill in the Senate. (More)

Editor’s note: The email version of this story mistakenly reported the national debt as $34 billion rather than $34 trillion. We apologize for the error.

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➤ Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson made NFL history Saturday by recording two passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, and 100 rushing yards. (See Highlights)

➤ Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer won her 1,203 victory Sunday to become the winningest college basketball coach ever, moving ahead of legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. (More)

➤ Novak Djokovic moved to the quarter-finals of tennis’ Australian Open with a dominant 6-0, 6-0, 6-3 victory over Adrian Mannarino that barely missed accomplishing the “triple bagel” of three sets without a loss. (More)

Market Report Previous Week

▲	NASDAQ Natl. Assoc. of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations	15,310.97	+1.70%
▲	SPX S&P 500	4,839.81	+1.23%
▲	DJI Dow Jones Industrial Average	37,863.60	+1.05%
▼	BTC Bitcoin	$41,055.0	–1.50%
▲	SMCI Super Micro Computer, Inc.	$423.36	+35.94%

➤ Big Stock Move: Both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes hit a record high Friday. The S&P closed at 4,839, topping its previous high from January 2022, and the Dow closed at 37,863. (More)

➤ 2023 marked the slowest year for home sales in nearly 30 years as high prices and mortgage rates discouraged buyers. Home sales totaled about 4 million last year, down 18.7% from 2022. (More)

➤ Waymo requested California approval to expand its driverless car service to Los Angeles. It currently operates in San Francisco and is testing highway operations in Phoenix. It’s looking at Austin next. (More)

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➤ Scientists using new technology have mapped the largest deep-ocean coral reef in the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from Florida to South Carolina, about three times the size of Yellowstone National Park. (See Images)

➤ NASA is exploring a new fixed-wing aircraft that would search for water on Mars from high in the planet’s atmosphere. The solar-powered aircraft would take off and land vertically. (See Illustration)

➤ Japanese start-up EX-Fusion is developing a ground-based laser system designed to destroy space debris from the ground, a new method for helping clear the clutter of space junk orbiting Earth. (More)

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➤ The world’s first wireless charging hearing aids cost less than $100. (Video)

➤ The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will unveil its setting for the 2024 Doomsday Clock tomorrow at 10 a.m. ET., symbolizing how close we are to world destruction. The clock currently sits at 90 seconds to midnight. (See Unveiling)

➤ Netflix and Procter & Gamble are set to report quarterly earnings on Tuesday, followed by Tesla on Wednesday and then Intel on Thursday. (More)

➤ Nine new TV series debut this week, including Nicole Kidman in Amazon Prime’s “Expats,” along with the premieres of eight returning series. (See TV Schedule)

➤ Nearly all the copies of a small-town Colorado newspaper were stolen the day it published a story about rape charges at an underage party at the local police chief’s house. (More)

➤ Chicago witnessed an unusual optical weather display called a sundog, a prism-like display of light caused by refraction through ice crystals when conditions are just right. (See Photos)

➤ A cowboy rescued a calf stranded on a frozen pond with a perfect lasso toss onto the ice that allowed him to pull the calf to the snowy shore. (See Video)