Axios

J.C. Penney announced 4th-quarter earnings Friday, posting a higher-than-expected loss and announcing the closure of up to 140 stores. Shares in the department store are down more than 1% in pre-market trading.

Why it matters: Americans increasingly want to shop online, and retailers are taking the hint. E-commerce sales now account for more than 8% of all retail sales, double the rate in 2011. That number is even higher when you remove sales of items like gasoline that can't be bought online. Penney's is joining the dozens of other stores like Sears, Macy's and CVS in announcing store closures this year.

Tucker Carlson, whose new 9 p.m. show on Fox has been a ratings and echo-chamber hit, sat down with McKay Coppins, now a staff writer for The Atlantic:

"The SAT 50 years ago pulled a lot of smart people out of every little town in America and funneled them into a small number of elite institutions, where they married each other, had kids, and moved to an even smaller number of elite neighborhoods. We created the most effective meritocracy ever. ...

"But the problem with the meritocracy ... [is that it] leeches all the empathy out of your society … The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid — I mean all the stuff that our ruling class is."

A keeper: "He recalls receiving a text message on election night from a stunned Democratic friend declaring his intention to flee the country with his family. Carlson replied by asking if he could use their pool while they were gone."

One quibble: McKay calls The Monocle, where he had lunch with Tucker, "upscale" when he meant "old-school."

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, after a hiatus following a rough bout of coverage, returned to TV last night to audience chants of "Kellyanne! Kellyanne!" She joined Sean Hannity on Fox News, before a live audience in suburban Maryland on the stage of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, where Trump will speak tomorrow morning. One man held a "Socialism Sucks" sign.

Axios mapped the launch date of 89 news websites over the past quarter century. The data shows there has been an explosion of right-leaning news sites, coinciding with the rise of the Tea Party and alt-right movements beginning in 2010. Many of these sites, in turn, were instrumental in spreading pro-Trump news during the 2016 elections.

Data: Staff research; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios