Seven hours and two time zones apart, the New Year's Day pickup-truck attack in New Orleans and Tesla Cybertruck bomb in Las Vegas meant a violent, frightening start to 2025.

• President Biden said in televised remarks last evening that law enforcement officers were investigating whether there was "any possible connection": "Thus far, there's nothing to report on that."

🔎 In what could be either a coincidence or a systemic vulnerability, both vehicles were rented through Turo, a "peer-to-peer" vehicle-sharing app where renters connect directly with owners.

• "The concept is similar to Airbnb, in that customers can rent a specific car make and model and coordinate pickup and drop-off with the car owner," the N.Y. Times explains.
• Turo said it's working with law enforcement: "We do not believe that either renter had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat, and we are not currently aware of any information that indicates the two incidents are related."

🏈 The Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame, originally scheduled for last night in New Orleans, was postponed to 4 p.m. ET today.

Biden said during his remarks that Shamsud-Din Jabbar — the deceased 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran suspected of the New Orleans attack, which the FBI is investigating as an act of terrorism — "posted videos to social media indicating that he was inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill."

• The suspect was killed in a firefight with police. The death toll rose to 15 people, with at least 35 injured.
• "I know while this person committed a terrible assault on this city, the spirit of New Orleans will never, never be defeated," Biden said.

Photos show the truck crashed into construction equipment just short of the Royal Sonesta hotel at 300 Bourbon St., reports Axios New Orleans' Chelsea Brasted, who raced to the French Quarter after the attack.

• An ISIS flag was found inside the truck, as well as multiple weapons and a "potential" IED, the FBI said.

When Jabbar exited the truck, he began shooting and three NOPD officers returned fire, police said.

• Officials don't believe Jabbar was working alone.

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Police say camp-fuel canisters and large firework mortars were stuffed into the back of a Tesla Cybertruck that exploded yesterday outside the entrance of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• The driver was killed. Seven people nearby had minor injuries.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on his X platform that he had "confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself."

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill thanked Musk during a media briefing: "He gave us quite a bit of additional information."

• McMahill said Musk sent video from Tesla charging stations "directly to us," helping track the truck's journey.

After being rented in Colorado, the truck arrived in Vegas about 7:30 a.m. It was driven about an hour later into the valet area of the hotel, where it sat 15 to 20 seconds before exploding.

• Video of detonation ... Get the latest.

Democrats are pushing back furiously against a proposed change to House rules, unveiled yesterday, that would allow only Republicans to force a vote on removing the speaker, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

• Why it matters: Top Dems argue the move would inhibit bipartisanship and effectively make Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) answerable only to his members — not the entire House.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, said: "Instead of electing a Speaker of the House, they have decided to elect a Speaker of the Republican Conference."

• Dems are likely to follow McGovern's lead and close ranks against the package.

🔬 Zoom in: The 36-page rules package for the 119th Congress, which opens tomorrow, raises the threshold to introduce a motion to vacate.

• In the last Congress, any single House member could introduce such a motion. Now eight others have to co-sponsor the measure. All nine of those lawmakers have to be members of the majority party.

📜 Context: For most of U.S. history, any single House member in either party has been able to introduce a motion to vacate.

🔮 What's next: The House is set to vote on the package tomorrow, after the speaker is elected and members are sworn in — though that may be contingent on Johnson winning on the first ballot.

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One of the game-changers in our book, "Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less," is the idea of picking one thing to push in any given memo, deck or sales pitch. If you make four points, your audience will remember zero points. Figure out your one thing and hammer it.

• Why it matters: Also true for New Year's resolutions! If you have a list, you ain't doing 'em. If you pick one, you'll crush it.

Oliver Burkeman — author of "Four Thousand Weeks" (roughly how long you have if you live to 80!) — has an essay in The Wall Street Journal where he calls this "radical doability":

"Radical doability ... means focusing on a limited number of goals at a time. If 2025 is your year for getting fit, it probably isn't also the time to start decluttering your home or learning a new language. It also means daring to ask what you'd actually enjoy doing differently in life, not just how you think you ought to change."

The bottom line: "New Year, New You" doesn't work, as Burkeman puts it. But one thing? Now that you can do!

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The S&P 500 notched a fantastic year in 2024, closing up 25% on a total return basis (with dividends reinvested), Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

• Why it matters: Over longer time horizons, the performance looks even better. It's the best two-year return since the dot-com exuberance of 1998, and the best 20-year return since 2008.

👟 The long game: For most investors, what really matters isn't what happens to the stock market from day to day or even from year to year, but rather how their money grows over the long term.

• By that metric, stock returns have been excellent. The total return to the S&P 500 over the past decade is 242% — which means that $1,000 invested at the beginning of 2015 would be worth $3,425 today.
• Over 20 years, the return is 618% — $1,000 invested in 2005 would have turned into $7,175.

Context: 20-year returns peaked at more than 2,500% in 2000. 10-year returns were more than 400% in March 2019.

🌐 Reality check: America is exceptional, in large part because of the performance of a handful of huge tech companies. Other countries' stock markets, lacking megacap outperformers, have been underwhelming in comparison.

• The MSCI ACWI ex USA index, which tracks the performance of non-U.S. markets, is up a mediocre 6.1% over one year, 25% over five years and 68% over 10 years.

💭 Our thought bubble: It's natural to assume that what goes up must come down. But anybody betting that stocks would converge back to their long-term average valuations has lost a lot of money in recent years.

The bottom line: What goes up ... often goes up further.

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Drugstore chains are struggling partly because we're skipping high-margin impulse items and instead buying 'em on Amazon, Axios' Erin Brodwin reports.

• Why it matters: CVS and Walgreens long boosted their margins by selling tempting products on the way to the pharmacy in back. That model is no longer working.

What's happening: Both brands report declining retail sales, with Walgreens citing a "challenging" retail environment — which reads like code for locked-up items and "Amazon."

• Amazon's retail business continues to grow, even though its prescription business remains a fraction of those sales for CVS and Walgreens.
• "Pharmacies have an attachment factor — you go there for one product and buy another one on the way out," said Steven Wardell, managing partner at Wardell Advisors. "Anything that challenges this model is bad news for your neighborhood pharmacy."

🔭 The big picture: Pharmacies' core business faces challenges, too — including reductions in drug reimbursement, legislation to break up pharmacy-benefit managers, and ongoing pharmacist shortages.

• Walgreens announced plans to shutter a "significant" number of its 8,600 U.S. stores, and reportedly is in talks to be acquired by a private equity firm.
• CVS in 2021 said it would close 900 stores, or roughly 10% of its U.S. retail locations, over three years. One explanation was changing consumer spending patterns.
• Rite Aid recently emerged from bankruptcy.

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Violent crime — homicides, carjackings, robberies and more — declined in D.C. in 2024 after a post-pandemic crime spike, Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil reports.

• D.C. ended the year with fewer than 200 homicides for the first time since 2020.

Between the lines: D.C. has been focusing on capturing illegal guns and policing the "small number of people who are responsible for most crimes," Mayor Muriel Bowser told a congressional committee last month.

🧮 By the numbers: 2024 brought 190 killings — a 31% drop from 2023, when the city recorded a 26-year high in homicides, according to D.C. police stats.

• Violent crime in total dropped 35% in 2024.
• Carjackings declined by nearly half to 498 incidents — after increasing for six straight years.

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Hundreds of San Franciscans gathered at Ocean Beach on New Year's Day for a Polar Plunge into the 54-degree Pacific Ocean.

• Many ran in shirtless. A few strutted with parasols.

One man wore a bathrobe, Santa cap and white beard. A young woman did a handstand.

• 25 more photos on one page.