Greetings! Happy National Polka Dot Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

Imagine this. You open your phone to an alert. It says, “you spent $236,000,000 more this month than you did last month.”

If you were the top bidder at Sotheby’s fall auctions, it could be reality.

Sounds crazy, right? But when the ultra-wealthy spend staggering amounts on blue-chip art, it’s not just for decoration.

The scarcity of these treasured artworks has helped drive their prices, in exceptional cases, to thin-air heights, without moving in lockstep with other asset classes.

The contemporary and post war segments have even outpaced the S&P 500 overall since 1995.*

Now, over 70,000 people have invested $1.2 billion+ across 500 iconic artworks featuring Banksy, Basquiat, Picasso, and more.

How? You don’t need Medici money to invest in multimillion dollar artworks with Masterworks.

Thousands of members have gotten annualized net returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8% from 26 sales to date.

Explore offerings

_{*Based on Masterworks data. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd}

🇺🇳 American WHO exit leaves a $130M tab and a global hole. The American World Health Organization (WHO) departure is now official. The break ends 78 years of membership. Officials say America still owes $130M+. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lists dues near $111M yearly. Voluntary funding averaged about $570M annually. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus loses a top backer. Georgetown law professor Lawrence Gostin calls it ruinous. Epidemiologists fear slower alerts on outbreaks. The bill remains, even after the exit.

🇵🇸 Trump’s Gaza peace board starts with invites, not signatures. Trump’s Gaza “Board of Peace” launches with question marks. President Donald Trump signed a charter in Davos. He made himself chairman, naturally. Envoy Steve Witkoff pitched membership as “voluntary.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked to join. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has not committed. Poland’s President-elect Karol Nawrocki was listed as a supporter. Palestinian business leader Ali Shaath was named co-chair. Trump said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were invited. Britain’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas were also named. Editor’s Note: The polycrisis afflicting Gaza was officially considered a genocide by the United Nations (UN) and International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), with famine declared formally by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), confirmed by UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNICEF, World Food Program (WFP), and World Health Organization (WHO), along with Global Sumud Flotilla eyewitnesses.

📉 Report finds homicide down sharply in many American cities. Homicides are dropping fast in many cities. A new report by the independent Council on Criminal Justice tracked 35 American cities in 2025. It found killings fell 21% year over year. That is 922 fewer homicides in the sample. Vehicle thefts dropped 27% in 31 cities. Denver, Omaha, and Washington each saw about 40% declines. Little Rock bucked the trend with a 16% increase. Researchers credit fewer shootings and faster arrests. Skeptics say one year is not destiny. Still, the math is moving in the right direction.

🧸 Minnesota school says agents used a 5-year-old as bait. A 5-year-old became collateral in an arrest. Federal officers detained Liam Conejo Ramos at a Columbia Heights public school in Minneapolis. Superintendent Zena Stenvik says staff were “used as bait.” Agents later arrested the boy’s father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, after a school pickup. The family fled Ecuador and has an active asylum case according to local officials. Liam was held about 4 hours, then released. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called it a lawful operation. Advocates say it chills schools and parents. One-third of district students stayed home that day.

⚖️ Jack Smith tells lawmakers the law outranks politics. Special counsel Jack Smith faced Congress and fought back. He testified before the House Judiciary Committee on January 22nd. Chairman Jim Jordan accused him of political targeting. Smith said “no one should be above the law”. He defended the January 6th case and the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin called the hearing retaliation. Republicans pressed him on timing and communications. Smith refused to discuss sealed details. He framed his work as evidence-driven, not electoral. The clash turned prosecution into prime-time politics.

📱 TikTok deal forms a new American entity and new cap table. TikTok’s survival plan now has a corporate wrapper. A new entity, TikTok America LLC, was registered. Parent company ByteDance would keep 19.9% under the deal. Oracle Corporation ($ORCL), Silver Lake, and MGX would each hold 15%. Michael Dell’s firm, tied to Dell Technologies Inc. ($DELL), would own 14.1%. Other investors include General Atlantic, Susquehanna, and KKR. CEO Adam Presser would run the American company. TikTok chief Shou Zi Chew would join its board. The structure aims to satisfy a forced-sale law. Critics warn the algorithm could still answer to Beijing.

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That’s all for today!

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See you tomorrow!