A US–UK-led coalition recently struck over 70 military targets controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen. It was the most decisive action yet aimed at getting the Iran-backed group to stop disrupting global trade in the Red Sea.

As the Houthis promised to strike back, the escalation elicited fresh fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East beyond the Israel–Hamas war. The Houthis claim they’re supporting Hamas by attacking passing ships. In the past three months, they’ve fired at dozens of commercial vessels on the route that connects Asia to markets in Europe and the US East Coast, which accounts for $1 trillion in global trade annually.

The strikes in Yemen conducted in so-called nonoperational collaboration with Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands followed an unheeded ultimatum for the attacks to stop made by the US. It also came after the Houthis launched a barrage of drones at American ships earlier in the week. The Pentagon said it has left the Houthis with “degraded capability.” But Yemen scholar Farea Al-Muslimi told the Wall Street Journal that the response might’ve been mostly symbolic given the Houthis’ sizable resources.

Trade in choppy waters

The strikes on the Houthis are already having an economic impact:

• Oil prices rose 1% yesterday on news of the attack.
• The US told ships to stay clear of risky Red Sea waters for 72 hours, though most companies, including Danish shipping giant Maersk, have already been sending their ships on the much longer alternative route around Africa.

Ongoing Houthi-caused disruptions have driven up shipping costs and times, and companies are feeling it.

• Tesla cited shipping delays for car parts as the reason for its decision to pause production at its biggest European plant in Germany until the middle of next month.
• Ikea and British chain Marks & Spencer said that some of their spring collection items might arrive in stores late this year.

But retail industry analysts predict the current disruptions won’t cause supply chain chaos à la 2021, per Bloomberg.

Looking ahead…the longer-term future of shipping in the Red Sea ultimately depends on decisions the Houthis make and whether Iran keeps sending them weapons, intelligence expert Christopher Long told the WSJ.—SK

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JPMorgan had its most profitable year ever. Earnings season began with a bang yesterday, as the four biggest banks in the US reported how they wrapped up 2023. JPMorgan Chase raked in $49.6 billion for the year—a 32% jump from 2022 that topped its previous record profit from 2021. But things weren’t so rosy everywhere: Citigroup posted a $1.8 billion loss for the final quarter and announced plans to lay off 20,000 employees. And Bank of America’s Q4 profit was $3.1 billion, which is 56% less than it made during the same quarter the year before. Wells Fargo boosted its profits for the quarter by 9%, but its costs also came in higher than expected.

Taiwan heads to the polls for a high-stakes election. People in Taiwan are voting for their next president today, and if you think the US election will be a nail-biter, the race in Taiwan will probably be a squeaker between a candidate who supports independence and one who wants to get closer to China. China has described the race as a choice between war and peace for the island. And that’s not the only relationship on the line: The outcome will also greatly impact the already tense state of affairs between the US and China.

The FAA plans to pay more attention to Boeing’s production. Because none of us will ever be able to fly again without thinking about the moment a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines plane midflight, the Federal Aviation Administration vowed to step up its oversight of Boeing. The agency plans to audit production of 737 Max 9 planes to ensure Boeing and its suppliers are following safety rules. It will also review its longstanding policy of letting companies’ manufacturing workers conduct some of their own safety checks of planes. And, in further fallout from the incident, passengers who were on the scary flight have filed a lawsuit against Boeing, according to Bloomberg.

Thousands of tech heads and marketers converged on Las Vegas last week for the largest tech expo in the world, CES (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show), where some of the hottest trends were AI and not being able to see a screen.

Highlights from CES 2024 include…

Ballie. Samsung’s little rolling robot acts like a home assistant. The yellow ball-shaped bot uses AI to handle smart home requests, project videos, feed the dog, and remind you of the droid BB8 from Star Wars.

Transparent TVs. LG’s 77-inch OLED T is like a TV on light mode—rather than a black background, the screen has a see-through panel, so you could watch a show in front of a window and still see outside (or you can watch normally). Samsung presented a see-through micro LED screen, too.

The rabbit R1. This red handheld device has a touch screen, camera, mic, and—most importantly—AI software that learns how to use your mobile apps for you over wi-fi. Its creators say that all you have to do to get a car home and have groceries delivered, for example, is ask the device to order both for you.

Honorable mentions: A haptic tablet that lets visually impaired people feel football games; a Blackberry-like iPhone keyboard case; smart cookware; a far-too-realistic CPR dummy; and “Uber for toilets.”—ML

Companies have tried donating to charity, hiring Lizzo, and even just flat-out making demands to get employees back into the office. But it seems management has an even better tool to make WFH less appealing: withholding promotions. Fully remote workers were promoted 31% less frequently than their in-person peers last year, according to Live Data Technologies.

In the data company’s analysis of 2 million white-collar workers, 5.6% of employees who were going into the office on at least a hybrid basis received a promotion last year, compared to 3.9% of fully remote individuals, the Wall Street Journal reports. And it’s not just a coincidence:

• About 90% of 400 CEOs surveyed last year by KPMG said they’d be more likely to give in-person employees raises, promotions, or better assignments.
• Amazon, for one, is enforcing its strict three-days-in-the-office policy for corporate workers by blocking promotions for anyone who doesn’t comply, according to internal materials reviewed by Insider.

Yes, but...studies have gone both ways about whether employees are more or less productive at home, but surveys have found fully remote workers are a lot happier and more likely to stick with their jobs. Half of fully in-person employees said they’d be job hunting in the next year, compared to a third of employees who work from home, according to a 2023 Resume Builder survey.—MM

Stat: Have some ibuprofen handy this weekend, because you may have to show your older relatives how to sign up for Peacock. Tonight’s Wild Card football matchup between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs marks the first time an NFL playoff game will be available exclusively on a streaming service (unless you live in one of those two local markets, where it’ll still air on NBC). NBCUniversal, which owns Peacock, reportedly paid a whopping $110 million for the rights to stream the game, and for good reason: A regular-season game on Peacock last month peaked at 7.3 million viewers, but NBCU execs think tonight’s playoff matchup could fetch up to six times that. They hope that once NFL fans hand over the $6 monthly fee, they’ll stick around after the game to see what else Peacock has to offer.

Quote: “I’m sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy.”

Get ready to see that run-on sentence a lot…on Amazon. Turns out there are several listings on the e-commerce site for products with that “name,” including what appear to be a set of chairs, a hose, and a tent. The listings headed with ChatGPT’s unwillingness to name products are likely the result of companies using the chatbot to write whole product descriptions and posting them straight to Amazon without a human proofreader—and they’re probably not a good deal, even with free Prime shipping.

Read: Britain’s post-office scandal: How a TV drama shook up a nation—in just one week. (BBC)

Zoom in: Look closely at the winners of a close-up photography contest.

Get schooled: Watch our friends at Good Work investigate business school.

Dress like a star: You can nab the suit Nicole Kidman wore to hawk AMC or Elton John’s old costumes at upcoming auctions.

It’s cold out: Make soup.

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