Good morning.

It’s Tuesday, February 17. Valentine’s Day just happened. Love was declared. Flowers were overpriced. Restaurants were fully booked by people who suddenly remembered they have relationships.

And February… our tiny little overachiever. The shortest month of the year. Blink and it’s gone. If months were startups, February would raise funding and exit before Q1 ends.

But you’re here. You opened this newsletter. You decided to read actual words instead of scrolling through strangers arguing online. That’s elite taste. Thank you for giving us your attention. It’s rare. It’s valuable. We don’t take it lightly.

I hope your week is productive, your mood stable, and your coffee stronger than Valentine’s Day promises.

Today’s stories:

The stock market was closed Monday, February 16, for Presidents’ Day. On Friday, stocks did almost nothing. A slightly cooler-than-expected inflation report landed… and markets politely nodded. The S&P 500 inched up 0.05% to 6,836.17. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.22%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added a modest 49 points. Technically green. Emotionally beige.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that January’s Consumer Price Index rose 0.2% month over month and 2.4% annually—slightly softer than the 0.3% and 2.5% economists expected. Inflation didn’t reaccelerate. It didn’t collapse either. Just enough progress to avoid panic, not enough to spark celebration.

In other words: prices cooled a touch, stocks shrugged, and the Federal Reserve still has no reason to rush anything.

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Logan Paul just sold his Pikachu Illustrator card for $16.5 million. The sale happened at Goldin Auctions after 41 days of bidding. Guinness confirmed it’s now the most expensive trading card ever sold. Not just Pokémon. Any card. Paul bought it in 2021 for $5.275 million, which was already a record. He then put it in a custom case, added a diamond necklace, and wore it to WrestleMania 38. Because subtlety is overrated. The card was designed by Atsuko Nishida in 1998 for a contest. Only a few dozen exist. His copy is graded a perfect 10. Basically mint condition. Basically elite cardboard.

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Britney sells her hits for $200 million. Britney Spears just sold the rights to her music catalog for about $200 million. Yes. The same songs you screamed in your bedroom in 2003 now officially belong to someone else’s spreadsheet. From “Oops!... I Did It Again” to “Toxic,” the hits are moving to Primary Wave, a company that basically collects legendary music like it’s Pokémon cards. They already own pieces of catalogs from Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley, Stevie Nicks, and Whitney Houston. Casual. Music catalogs have become Wall Street’s favorite new toy. Streaming on Spotify and Apple Music keeps old hits alive forever. Add Y2K nostalgia, movie licensing, and TikTok edits, and suddenly 2001 is a financial asset. In 2021 alone, over $5 billion was spent buying music rights. Songs are the new real estate. And Britney just closed a very loud deal.

Prayers and portfolios. The Vatican Bank just launched two stock indexes based on Catholic values. Yes. Even your portfolio can now confess. The new indexes — built with Morningstar — track 50 mid and large companies that fit “Catholic ethical criteria.” Think human dignity, social justice, less chaos. The Eurozone list includes names like ASML Holding and Deutsche Telekom. The U.S. version holds giants like Meta Platforms and Amazon. Yes, even Big Tech can apparently pass a values screen. Miracles happen. This is the bank’s first move into thematic investing. ETFs could be next. Because nothing says modern finance like holy benchmarks. The timing makes sense. The global ETF market hit $14 trillion in 2024 and could reach $30 trillion by 2029. Everyone wants niche investing. Climate. AI. Now… Catholicism. Worth noting: the Vatican Bank has spent decades cleaning up its image after money laundering scandals and the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. In 2021, former president Angelo Caloia was convicted of financial crimes. So yes, reputation management is part of the strategy.

Chase wants you fit and financially responsible. Chase just added a new “wellness” perk for Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders. Because airport lounges are old news. Now we track sleep. The new deal is with WHOOP — the wearable that tells you how badly you slept and then sends you a polite notification about it. Sapphire Reserve cardholders can get $359 back on a WHOOP Life annual membership. That’s basically the full cost of the top tier. Sapphire Preferred cardholders get $100 back on any annual plan. Not life-changing. But respectable. WHOOP memberships start at $149 and go up to $359 for the Life level. So if you carry the Reserve, you can essentially biohack for free for a year. Financial responsibility meets recovery score. You do have to activate the offer in Chase Offers before buying, and it’s valid through May 12, 2026. Miss that step and suddenly your “wellness journey” gets expensive. Luxury credit cards used to mean champagne in airport lounges. Now they mean knowing your strain score at 7:12 a.m.

Ferrari just showed the interior of its first fully electric car. It’s called the Ferrari Luce. “Luce” means light. Very poetic. Very rebrand. The inside was designed by Jony Ive and his firm LoveFrom. Yes, the same design brain behind the iPhone. And apparently now… your future Ferrari dashboard. The reveal happened at Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. Dramatic location. Dramatic lighting. Dramatic quotes about “a new era.” Ferrari actually scaled back EV plans in 2025. But now they’re back. Carefully. Slowly. Tastefully. The car used to be called “Elettrica.” Too obvious. Too electric. So they renamed it Luce. Because nothing says horsepower like subtle branding. The exterior is still secret. We saw a seat (no sitting allowed), some sleek aluminum and glass details, and yes — confirmation that there will be cup holders. Civilization remains intact. It reportedly feels like an Apple product on wheels. Clean. Minimal. Probably expensive in a quiet way.

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Waymo pays humans to close robotaxi doors. Waymo has robotaxis driving around with no human at the wheel. But there’s one small issue. The doors. Apparently, when riders leave a door open, the car just… waits. So now gig workers from DoorDash can get paid $11.25 to drive over and close it. Yes. The job is literally: shut the door. Alphabet confirmed it’s testing this in Atlanta. Drivers get a notification, show up, close the door, and the robotaxi can go back to being independent. Independence with supervision. Waymo says automatic closing doors are coming “in the future.” Meanwhile in Los Angeles, workers using the roadside app Honk can reportedly make up to $24 to close a Waymo door. 

Your jawline is evolution’s side effect. Only humans have chins. Not chimpanzees. Not Neanderthals. Just us. Congratulations. A new study published in PLOS One says the chin wasn’t some heroic evolutionary upgrade. It wasn’t designed to make you look strong in photos. It wasn’t built to handle chewing like a jawline superhero. According to researcher Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, the chin likely evolved by accident. It’s what scientists call a “spandrel.” A side effect. A byproduct. Think of it like extra space under a staircase. You didn’t build the house for that space. It just… happened. Humans are the only primates with this little bony projection at the bottom of the jaw. But the study suggests natural selection wasn’t targeting the chin itself. It was shaping other parts of the skull, and the chin came along for the ride. So that dramatic jawline is basically just evolution’s leftover construction material.

Pentagon and Anthropic are arguing. The Pentagon is reportedly annoyed with Anthropic over how its AI model, Claude, can be used by the U.S. military. The defense department wants all its AI tools available for “all lawful purposes,” including battlefield support and weapons development, but Anthropic is sticking to strict limits — no fully autonomous weapons and no mass domestic surveillance. That stance has frustrated the Pentagon so much that officials are threatening to ditch a roughly $200 million contract with the company. Basically: use it how we want, or bye-bye funding. Anthropic says it hasn’t discussed specific military missions with the Pentagon and that its policies are just about keeping some ethical lines in place. But reports say the U.S. military already used Claude in a classified operation to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, raising questions about who actually gets to control the AI’s use. Basically, the Pentagon wants open-season AI. Anthropic says no creepy robots and no spying on Americans.

Switzerland is voting on whether to cap its population at 10 million. Yes. A national “sorry, we’re full.” The proposal comes from the Swiss People’s Party, the country’s biggest political party. Switzerland currently has about 9.1 million people. If it hits 9.5 million, the government would have to start limiting newcomers. Asylum seekers. Family members. The door gets… selective. If the number reaches 10 million, Switzerland would even have to scrap its free-movement deal with the European Union. Bold move considering the EU is its biggest trading partner. Switzerland isn’t officially in the EU, but it’s tied to it through over 120 agreements. So ending that deal would not be a soft breakup. The SVP says the country is facing a “population explosion” that’s pushing up rents and stressing public services. The rest of the government? Not impressed. The executive council voted against it. Still, polls show a lot of people like the idea of a population limit. Alpine views. Direct democracy. And now, a headcount.

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Italy’s Lovers’ Arch collapses on Valentine’s Day. Italy’s famous “Lovers’ Arch” fell into the sea. On Valentine’s Day. The timing is brutal. The arch, known locally as Torre Sant’Andrea, was part of the iconic sea stacks along the coast of Melendugno in Puglia. It was the spot for proposals, selfies, dramatic kisses, and captions about “forever.” Then weeks of storms hit. Mediterranean cyclones — the kind fueled by warmer sea temperatures — kept pounding the coast. Wind. Rain. Surges. And the arch finally gave up. Local legend says a couple once drowned there while kissing, and that couples who kissed under the arch would be bonded forever. Romantic. Slightly dark. Very Italian. Valentine’s Day 2026: love is fragile. So are limestone arches.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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