Donald Trump scored big in Iowa yesterday as the state’s Republicans braved the cold to vote overwhelmingly to nominate him as their party’s presidential candidate. The Iowa caucuses kicked off the US primary season, and Trump’s victory came as polls show the ex-president will probably prevail over his GOP rivals, setting the stage for a likely Biden vs. Trump rematch.

• News organizations declared Trump the winner just 30 minutes after the caucuses began.
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took the second place spot, pulling ahead of Nikki Haley and gaining some momentum as the alternative candidate heading into the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23. Vivek Ramaswamy ended his campaign after a poor showing.

Meanwhile…

Half a world away from Iowa’s iced-over cornfields, a potential second Trump presidency is sending chills down the spines of the jet set gathered in the Swiss Alps for the annual World Economic Forum this week. Davos is abuzz with anxiety as world leaders, CEOs, and luminaries mull the implications of another Trump presidency for cross-border trade, security, and climate efforts.

• European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde recently warned that a Trump return is “clearly a threat” to Europe. She cited the tariffs he imposed as president, plus his record of NATO skepticism and climate change denial.
• BlackRock Vice Chairman Philipp Hildebrand told Bloomberg that Trump represents a concern “from a kind of globalist, Atlanticist perspective.”

Their fears aren’t totally unfounded: While campaigning, Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all imported goods. And European Commissioner Thierry Breton recalled last week that during a conversation at Davos in 2020, Trump said that “NATO is dead” and warned that the US wouldn’t defend Europe if it were attacked.

Others worry that Trump would scale back US support for Ukraine. Czech President Petr Pavel told a national publication that Vladimir Putin is waiting for the 2024 US presidential election results before starting peace talks.

The prospect of a Trump win looms over the world’s climate policymakers, too, as he could be expected to roll back environmental regulations and cut funding for green initiatives.

Looking ahead…though Trump is the front-runner in the polls and in funds raised, the Iowa caucuses don’t always predict the nominee. —SK

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Apple’s redesigned watches overcome US import ban. It looks like the saga of Apple’s Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches may be over, and they will be allowed to be sold. ICYMI: A US trade court found the watches violated Masimo’s blood oxygen monitoring tech patent, leading Apple to stop selling the models briefly before stepping up its legal battle. But Masimo said in a court filing yesterday that Apple made changes to the watches, including removing a blood-oxygen sensor, leading US customs officials to determine that they should no longer be subject to the import ban the trade court imposed. The change protects Apple’s $18 billion smartwatch business, but it might hurt the company’s ability to market them as health-enhancing devices.

Houthis target US ships in the Red Sea. Houthi militants struck a US-owned cargo ship with an antiballistic missile off the coast of Yemen yesterday. The US said that it caused neither major damage nor injuries, and the ship, the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, kept on going. The attack came after the US and UK targeted the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in response to their attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. The continued escalation has raised fears of a broader regional war, as the Houthis claim their actions are in support of Hamas in its war with Israel, and their attacks on ships have already begun to impact global supply chains.

The Emmys finally got to celebrate for the 75th time. The Emmys took place last night after a four-month delay caused by the Hollywood strikes. The night’s big winners included The Bear, Beef, and Succession, which all took home multiple statuettes. Elton John snagged his first Emmy, officially becoming an EGOT winner. John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight continued its string of wins even after being moved to a new category, and host Anthony Anderson’s mom stepped in to stop speeches that went on too long. Here’s a complete list of the winners, and here’s what everyone wore.

As an arctic blast grips parts of the US, Texans are hoping their improved power grid can stand up to today’s extreme weather better than Dak Prescott stood up to the Green Bay Packers.

There’s reason to believe that it will. The state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, better known as ERCOT, has beefed up operations since winter storms caused devastating power blackouts in 2021. The state has nearly tripled its battery storage, increased solar and wind power production, and winterized electric power plants, and experts told the Washington Post these efforts should keep the grid online even during periods of heightened demand.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott said that the state’s power generators have “never been as prepared for a winter event as they are today.” Still, ERCOT urged Texans to conserve energy on Monday and Tuesday morning to help prevent potential blackouts since the grid is most vulnerable between 7am–8am, when people wake up and start turning on the lights.

Zoom out: Nearly 80% of the US is seeing bitter cold this week, with typically mild cities like Memphis, Dallas, and Nashville likely facing 72 hours of below-freezing temperatures. Other things to watch out for: canceled flights (there have been more than 2,100 nixed so far), dangerous road travel, and windchill as low as –30 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northern Rockies, Kansas, and Iowa.—CC

Workplace wellness services may be about as effective as therapy dogs during a high school’s finals week, according to research from Oxford that casts doubt on the multibillion-dollar corporate wellness industry.

The study, which was published this month, assessed employee well-being at more than 200 UK organizations in 2017 and 2018. It found that…

• Workers who used their companies’ mental health benefits (like mindfulness apps and time management courses) didn’t feel any better than coworkers who didn’t take advantage of the resources—except for volunteering, which appeared to boost well-being.
• Participating in resilience and stress-reduction training may even have a negative impact, possibly by compounding people’s anxiety if a service they assume will work doesn’t help them.

Not everyone agrees. Though some other research also says that wellness apps aren’t beneficial, the effectiveness of mindfulness training is fairly well-supported. Recent research has shown that the mental healthcare platform Spring Health helped workers manage their depression and miss fewer days of work, leading to more productivity (aka why organizations spend money on these programs in the first place).

Zoom out: The pandemic forced employers to start prioritizing employee welfare, boosting the corporate wellness industry from $8 billion in 2016 to more than $50 billion now, according to Grand View Research.—ML

Stat: It’s never a bad time to be rich, but now seems like an extra-good time to be part of the monocle-wearing class: The world’s five richest people have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, according to Oxfam. Tesla’s Elon Musk, LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett together had $405 billion available to Scrooge McDuck-dive into in March 2020 compared to $869 billion as of November 2023, the charity group found. Oxfam predicts that if things continue as they are, the world will see its first trillionaire within the next 10 years—though the anti-poverty group also noted that almost 5 billion people have become poorer over roughly the same period.

Quote: “In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear.”

Just in time for tech leaders to bust out their favorite quarter-zips in Davos, the International Monetary Fund published an analysis saying that AI really is coming for our jobs. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a blog post that nearly 40% of all global employment will be impacted by AI. She noted this could fuel inequality since, in some cases, AI will boost productivity while in others, it will dry up demand for labor that was once done by humans.

Read: He spent his life building a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable. (Washington Post)

Watch: The right way to chop every vegetable.

Get swole: Don’t sabotage your workout in these common ways.

View the highlights: How the guy who matches moments in sports to art manages to do it without AI.

One giant leap for TV: See the moments Emmy voters deemed TV’s 75 biggest, starting with the moon landing.

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