The winter storm of the decade is making its way across the Northeast after freezing the Midwest and the South. And despite Chicagoans roasting the inch of snow that dusted the city, the storm is wreaking a lot of havoc across the US, especially leading up to Christmas. Here’s what it means for you.

If you’re staying home: Even for those hoping to stay put and bundle up on the couch, things look dicey.

• Over two-thirds of the country was under an extreme weather alert yesterday. The lowest recorded temp for the day was –38°F in Havre, Montana.
• More than 1.5 million customers in the US lost power. Maine, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina each had at least 100,000 outages.

Even areas like El Paso, Texas, are expected to hit single digits this weekend. Tampa and Orlando, FL, are also under freeze warnings until this morning.

If you’re traveling: It’s going to take more than a Christmas miracle to get you home. Over 6,000 flights have been canceled since Wednesday and 20,000+ have been delayed, according to FlightAware. Road conditions aren’t much better, as a number of interstates shut down yesterday across Iowa, South Dakota, and even Oregon.

If you’re waiting on the Lego set you ordered for your niece: Apparently rain, sleet, or gloom of night doesn’t include white-out conditions. Meaning: Your last-minute gifts might be delayed a few days. USPS temporarily closed 89 post offices across the Midwest. UPS said if you were expecting packages via air or ground soon, no you’re not.

And FedEx said its two largest distribution centers, in Memphis and Indianapolis, faced “substantial disruptions” Thursday night—so packages expected yesterday and today might be delayed. For reference, FedEx says it processes about 2.4 million packages per day at its Memphis hub and was expecting hundreds of millions of packages to go through this holiday season.—MM

Congress funds the government, then peaces from DC. The House passed, and President Biden later signed, a $1.7 trillion spending bill that will fund the federal government through FY 2023 and do a lot more—like send $45 billion to Ukraine and NATO allies and offer $40 billion in US disaster relief. It was the final vote of this Democratic-controlled House—on January 3, the new Congress will convene and the GOP will be in the majority.

Meta will pay real money to settle data privacy claims. The company has agreed to pay Facebook users in the US $725 million to resolve a lawsuit stemming from that time it gave political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica access to data from ~87 million users during the 2016 election. The settlement, which the plaintiffs say may be the largest deal in a US privacy class action ever, still needs a judge’s approval before anyone gets cash, though.

China may be seeing the biggest Covid spike yet. Chinese officials estimate that nearly 18% of China’s population (around 250 million people) likely caught the virus in the first 20 days of December—with almost 37 million people infected in one day—leaks from a private government briefing show. The infections come after China stopped mass testing and released much smaller case counts publicly, having abruptly abandoned its strict zero Covid policy. If the estimates are accurate, they would set a new global record for daily Covid cases, per Bloomberg.

A California jury found rapper Tory Lanez guilty yesterday of all charges in the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion. Lanez now faces up to 22 years in prison and possible deportation to his native Canada after serving his sentence.

What happened? The Grammy-winning star, whose legal name is Megan Pete, was shot multiple times in the feet in July 2020 after leaving a party at Kylie Jenner’s house with Lanez and her former friend Kelsey Harris. Megan did not initially name Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, to the police, but she publicly identified him as the shooter months later. Lanez’s legal team claimed that Harris was the real shooter and the two women were fighting over him.

Despite being the victim, Megan faced major backlash for speaking out, both in the rap community and online. Drake and 21 Savage released lyrics calling her claims into question, and 50 Cent posted memes mocking her. Meanwhile, bloggers and social media users attacked her credibility, with some questioning whether she had even been shot.

Big picture: Many observers have pointed to misogynoir, racism mixed with misogyny directed at Black women, as the root of much of the vilification Megan has suffered. The rapper herself has reminded her detractors that this was not just a messy internet moment, tweeting “This is my real life and I’m real life hurt and traumatized.”—AR

You may need to reconsider your plans to buy a baby puma to get you through the winter blues. President Biden signed into law the Big Cat Public Safety Act this week, banning unlicensed people from owning, transporting, and breeding big cats (tigers, lions, pumas, etc).

Caring for these animals will be left mostly to zoos, sanctuaries, and universities, while the rest of us will have to make do with cuddling smaller felines. Also, the law forbids even licensed institutions from running cub-petting zoos.

How bingeworthy Netflix helped

The law was inspired by the obligatory pandemic Netflix binge Tiger King, which centered around the long-running conflict between the eccentric (and now incarcerated) zookeeper known as Joe Exotic and exotic cat sanctuary owner Carole Baskin. Its popularity brought attention to abusive practices in a lightly regulated industry that treats animals as a show business commodity.

Joy to big cats and the people…the law that renders the entire premise of Joe Exotic’s career illegal received bipartisan support in Congress and was touted by lawmakers as a win for both animal rights and human safety. It was welcomed by animal welfare advocates, among them Baskin, who called it “the greatest achievement” in her 30 years of big cat activism.—SK

Stat: Like Rome around 400 CE, Facebook and Google appear to be an empire in decline. Considered for years to be a “duopoly” over the advertising industry, they are on track to account for only 48.4% of US ad revenues this year. It’s the first time their market share has fallen below 50% since 2014, per Insider Intelligence. If we want to keep the metaphor going (we do), then the Visigoths in this scenario are TikTok, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, which are successfully clawing away business from the duopoly.

Quote: “At its core, a trailer is an advertisement designed to sell a movie by providing consumers with a preview of the movie.”

A federal judge ruled this week that fans can sue movie studios under false advertising laws for deceptive trailers, in a lawsuit brought by a pair of Ana de Armas fans. They shelled out $3.99 each to rent the rom-com Yesterday only to find that the actress’s scenes, which had appeared in the trailer, ended up on the cutting room floor. The judge rejected Universal’s argument that the trailer was an artistic expression protected by the First Amendment—but stressed that suits should only be brought over trailer elements that don’t actually appear in the film.

Read: Has the EV market outgrown Tesla? (Vox)

Chances are you’ve already watched some bad Christmas movies this holiday season.

But why are there so many? And why do more and more companies keep making them? Max has you covered with an extended comic breaking down the business of cheesy Christmas movies.

Check it out.

Weekend conversation starters:

• Does WFH have you longing for office lunches?
• Is there anything you can’t make a menorah out of?
• Where is Santa?
• Are the “meat sweats” a real thing?

Ho-ho-ho: A playlist to get you in the holiday spirit, or some options for bah humbug types.

Stuck in the storm? At least your job isn’t to go stand outside in it.

Brew crossword: ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring—because they were all playing the Brew’s crossword. Solve it here.

Open House

Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that still believes in Santa. We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price.

Today’s home is in North Pole, Alaska, a small town about 14 miles southeast of Fairbanks. As the name suggests, the town has a pretty heavy Christmas vibe and decorations up year-round. No worries if you want to avoid the holiday hullabaloo, because this 2,400 square-foot fairly updated log cabin has everything you need inside. Amenities include:

• 4 beds, 3 baths
• Sauna
• Cozy fireplace for the big guy…or whoever, to enter through

How much to be near the action tonight?