Oh look, Monday. Back again like it never left. The Babylonians decided we needed a seven-day week, and the Romans dedicated this one to Luna, the moon goddess. Now let’s dive into today’s stories. They’re better than your inbox.

• The hybrid work era at JPMorgan is over

• ‘Wicked’ digital release makes $70M

• Toyota goes galactic: take that, Elon

• U.S. job market ends 2024 strong

• AI discovers new antibiotics

  and more…

Wall Street’s final jobs report of 2024 turned into a showstopper—just not in a good way. Hiring blew past forecasts, and suddenly everyone was sweating over interest rates again. The Dow sank 1.6% (nearly 700 points), the S&P 500 stumbled 1.5%, and the Nasdaq took a matching 1.6% tumble. All three indexes promptly waved goodbye to their precious year-to-date gains with that dramatic Friday drop.

_____

Robert De Niro Creates The World’s First-Ever Vertical Film Studio In NYC

Robert De Niro’s new $1 billion Wildflower Studios in Astoria isn’t just any studio — it’s a vertical one. Eleven sound stages stacked like a Jenga tower, with elephant-sized elevators and drive-in access for trucks. Because in NYC, if you can’t spread out, you build up. The Hollywood Reporter says New York’s studio game has been a joke compared to LA. Not anymore.

_____

JPMorgan brings back full-time office life. The hybrid work era at JPMorgan is over. The bank is reportedly telling its 300,000 employees to show up five days a week, starting soon. No more three-days-in-the-office compromise. It’s time to embrace full-time fluorescent lights and mandatory awkward elevator rides.

U.S. job market ends 2024 strong. December job growth crushed expectations with 256,000 new gigs, dropping the unemployment rate to 4.1%. Fewer people are stuck without work, and the time spent jobless is shrinking. Wages ticked up 0.3% last month — a 3.9% jump over the year. With the labor market holding steady, the Fed’s probably hitting pause on interest rate hikes. For now, anyway.

Cocoa beats Bitcoin — the real gold of 2024. Forget crypto. The real winner this year is cocoa. Prices for cocoa beans skyrocketed by 167% in 2024, crushing Bitcoin’s 117% rise. Cocoa closed the year at $11,425 a ton, just shy of its all-time high. Blame it on dry weather in West Africa and crop diseases hitting major producers like Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

Toyota Shoots for the Stars — Literally

Toyota isn’t just about Camrys anymore. At CES 2025, chairman Akio Toyoda casually dropped the bombshell that they’re “exploring rockets” and making moves in space tech with their first investment in Interstellar Technologies. He framed it as part of Toyota’s “invention by multiplication” approach — but let’s be real, it sounded like a jab at Elon Musk. “The future of mobility shouldn’t be limited to just Earth, or just one car company,” Toyoda said with a dramatic pause.

_____

Scientists drill 1.2 million years of secrets. In Antarctica, researchers drilled a 9,186-foot ice core — a frozen timeline going back 1.2 million years. It’s packed with ancient air bubbles revealing greenhouse gas levels and past climate disasters. The core could finally explain why Earth’s ice ages suddenly shifted and almost wiped out ancient humans.

How scientists use AI to discover new antibiotics. Scientists are using AI to hunt down new antibiotics hidden in Earth’s microbial “dark matter.” Instead of sifting through dirt and water samples the old-fashioned way, they trained an algorithm to mine the entire global microbiome and identify nearly a million new molecules. The result is nine potential new antibiotics — including one to tackle deadly superbugs. This matters. Antibiotic resistance killed over 1.2 million people in 2019. By 2050, that number could hit 10 million annually. AI is speeding up life-saving discoveries, and honestly, humanity needs it.

Money Mess? Fix it with FINMATEX app

Sick of being financially clueless? FINMATEX app cracks the code to crushing your financial goals. Track, save, invest—no lectures, no fluff, just results. Fix your wallet. Download now for iOS and Google Play

Tip Rage: America’s New Meltdown

Turns out, people aren’t just tired of tipping — they’re angry. Suggested gratuities, tablet prompts, and takeout tips have pushed customers over the edge. It’s no longer just “ugh, another tip screen” — it’s “how dare you ask for 30% on my coffee?” People aren’t losing it over tipping because they hate servers. They’re pissed because somehow they became responsible for paying someone else’s wages. But here’s the good news: there’s a way out. Saru Jayaraman from One Fair Wage is using all this tip fatigue to push for an end to subminimum pay. Because servers shouldn’t have to rely on tips just to survive — and customers shouldn’t have to play accountant at every coffee run. So yeah, tip your barista. Smile at the server. But save your rage for the system that’s been running this scam for way too long.

_____

‘Wicked’ digital release rakes in $70M. Universal’s Wicked made $70 million in its first week on digital, with $26 million on day one alone. At $30 to buy or $20 to rent, fans couldn’t get enough of the Broadway hit from their couches.

_____

TikTok of the day: watch here