Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his presidential campaign last May with a glitch-riddled announcement on Twitter.

On Sunday, he ended his campaign with a video on the same platform, endorsing front-runner Donald Trump for the presidency. DeSantis, who rose to prominence attacking Disney and fighting other “woke” institutions in his state, had high hopes but couldn’t muster enough support nationally to challenge Trump, who crushed him by 30 percentage points in the Iowa caucuses last week.

A unique campaign strategy gone wrong

Among the strategic errors of DeSantis’s presidential bid was an experiment to outsource most of his campaign’s traditional functions to a super PAC called Never Back Down.

• Super PACs, short for political action committees, can raise unlimited money from individuals or corporations for campaigns, provided they don’t directly coordinate with the campaign.
• They emerged following the loosening of campaign finance laws in the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

Receiving the keys to a presidential campaign in a way no super PAC had before, Never Back Down amassed $269 million to throw behind their guy. However, it could not deploy that capital effectively due to mismanagement and ended up being sapped of cash.

• In the campaign’s early days, Never Back Down overhired staff and had to fire 40% of its initial employees within the first two months.
• Its chief strategist stepped down amid controversy in December, and the group’s next leader was spotted by staffers spending hours working on a jigsaw puzzle the week before the crucial Iowa caucuses.

The campaign also lost a major funding source when billionaire Ken Griffin, who had contributed millions to DeSantis’s past gubernatorial campaigns in Florida, stopped backing him over his focus on the culture war.

Big picture: While even a well-oiled DeSantis operation may not have toppled Trump, his reliance on a super PAC to run his campaign will likely dissuade future candidates from trying the same strategy, the Washington Post reports.—NF

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$217 million Hindu temple opens on contested holy site. India’s stock market will close today as Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the Ram Mandir temple, a colossal project decades in the making (and not yet completed) that critics say will inflame religious tensions in the Hindu-majority country. The building, located in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya, sits on the former site of Babri Masjid, a 16th-century mosque that was destroyed by Hindu nationalist mobs in 1992. Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, is running for a third consecutive term in the spring and is hoping the temple bolsters support with voters. But the opposition party called the event an “electoral stunt” that further damages India’s claim of religious tolerance.

US, EU frustration with Netanyahu grows. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, a close ally of President Biden, said on CNN that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was obstructing the peace process by rejecting a Palestinian-controlled state in postwar Gaza. And ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers today, the bloc is pushing member states to impose “consequences” on Israel if Netanyahu continues to oppose Palestinian statehood. Over the weekend, Netanyahu reiterated his position that a Palestinian state would represent an existential threat to Israel. Meanwhile, a senior Biden advisor is headed to the Middle East this week to try and make progress on a deal to free the hostages held in Gaza.

Newspaper theft in Colorado sparks outrage. Nearly every copy of the Ouray County Plaindealer was stolen on Thursday morning, the same day the paper published a story about alleged rapes that occurred at the home of the police chief as he slept one night in May 2023. One of the three men charged with felony sexual assault was a relative of the police chief. On Thursday evening, 200 of the stolen papers were returned by the person who the paper’s owner and publisher believes stole them in the first place. Police said Friday that the suspect they had in custody was not related to any local law enforcement officers and not associated with the three defendants in the sexual assault case.

Here’s a story about mean girls that not even Tina Fey could make up.

TikTok influencers are angrily calling out “Sephora Kids”: tweens who are spending big money at the beauty chain and also allegedly wreaking havoc at the stores. One Sephora employee described a 10-year-old fighting with her mom over a $900 purchase; a TikToker went viral telling a story of how a tween “ate her up” after nabbing the last Drunk Elephant bronzing drops in the store, while other TikTokers posted examples of destroyed sample stations.

Is social media to blame? With any modern problem, older generations tend to shake their fists at the cloud that is social media for creating viral firestorms—and there may be some truth to it.

A crush of influencer marketing and the “bandwagon effect,” a heightened desire to fit in with your peers, has Gen Alpha coveting the expensive items they see in the popular “get ready with me” videos, and they’ve developed into a cohort with immense purchasing power (despite not having any income). Historically inexpensive products are now increasing in price thanks to demand among the 10–13 set.

What about parents? A Gallup poll conducted last summer shows more than half of teens spend at least four hours per day on social media, leaving them susceptible to what some may consider predatory marketing. Outside of throwing your child’s devices into a lake, there really isn’t a playbook yet for handling this type of pervasive advertising.—DL

Donald Trump eyes another W in New Hampshire: Following a blowout win in the Iowa caucuses last week, the former president is the favorite for the primary in the Granite State. With Ron DeSantis telling voters you can’t fire him because he quits, Nikki Haley remains Trump’s lone GOP challenger, although she was trailing by 19 points in a recent poll before DeSantis dropped out Sunday. The attacks between Trump and Haley got personal this weekend.

Awards season continues with Oscar noms on Tuesday: Jack Quaid and Zazie Beetz will announce the finalists for cinema’s highest honors at 8:30am ET on Good Morning America, leaving you the rest of the day to express outrage over your faves being snubbed. Variety predicts that Netflix will be the studio to receive the most nominations on the strength of movies such as Maestro, May December, Rustin, and Nyad. This will be only the start of a busy day for Netflix, seeing as how…

Netflix will be among the companies reporting earnings: Just when your fury over the Academy’s (possible) lack of respect for Bradley Cooper as an artist begins to dissipate, the streamer will announce its earnings after the market closes on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Tesla will hope the response to its Q4 is better than its cars’ response to cold weather. Other big names reporting this week: major US airlines, Intel, Verizon, and AT&T.

Everything else…

• Q4 GDP data to be released on Thursday could show the US posting its best back-to-back quarters of economic growth since 2021.
• A trip to the Super Bowl is on the line Sunday, when the San Francisco 49ers play the Detroit Lions and the Baltimore Ravens take on the Kansas City Chiefs.
• The Australian Open wraps up on Sunday. Novak Djokovic reached his 58th quarterfinal at a Grand Slam, tying Roger Federer’s record. US Open champion Coco Gauff reached her first Australian Open quarterfinal.
• It’s National Peanut Butter Day on Wednesday, a top-shelf holiday.

Stat: There’s a new college basketball . With her 1,203rd career victory on Sunday, Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer passed Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski to become the winningest basketball coach in NCAA history. In a recent interview with the NYT, VanDerveer shared her rules for leading a winning team: “Hire right. As my dad said, ‘You can’t win the Kentucky Derby on a donkey.’ And not just players but staff. Be sure they complement you more than compliment you.”

Quote: “Nobody alive today will see it happen again.”

Entomologist Floyd W. Shockley wants to mentally prepare you for a historic—and loud—event this spring: two cicada groups emerging simultaneously. The last time Brood XIX, which has a 13-year cycle, and Brood XIII, which has a 17-year cycle, emerged in the same year was in 1803, when Napoleon was presumably so fed up by their mating calls that he sold the Louisiana Territory to Thomas Jefferson. The cicadas’ bacchanal will begin in late April. Then they won’t appear together for another 221 years.

Read: For older women with money, it’s yes to love but no to marriage. (Washington Post)

Stay warm: How NFL players (try) to stay warm on the frigid field.

Learn about Pinocchio: This video explains how Pinocchio is a story about life and God.

Thread the needle: Here’s a database of vintage sewing patterns.

Groove: Check out the jazz dance performances of Ohio State and Minnesota at nationals.

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