A MAGA-world civil war erupted over Christmas when a social media post on American culture turned into a pitched battle over race, immigration and billionaires versus the working class.
Why it matters: The fight exposes one of the MAGA movement's deepest contradictions: It came to prominence chiefly via the white, less-educated, working class but is now under the full control of billionaire technologists and industrialists, many of them immigrants.
Elon Musk showed off a trimmer figure in a holiday social media post on Wednesday while revealing that he has been taking an anti-obesity drug to shed pounds.
Why it matters: Musk's post highlighted just how mainstream weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have become in recent years as public figures openly admit to using them, helping transform perceptions and conversations around weight loss.
Apple is closing in on a $4 trillion stock market valuation, powered by investors cheering progress in the company's long-awaited AI enhancements to rejuvenate sluggish iPhone sales.
Why it matters: The company has pulled ahead of Nvidia and Microsoft in the race to the monumental milestone, thanks to an about 16% jump in shares since early November that has added about $500 billion to its market capitalization.
President-elect Trump's inauguration is drawing donations from an array of blue-chip companies, and it's likely to exceed all past ceremonies in terms of fundraising.
Russian companies are using bitcoin to evade Western sanctions, thanks to a new law, the country's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed in a television interview.
Why it matters: Russia's economy has been hampered by difficulties in making and receiving international payments, even with countries like China that don't use the U.S. dollar as their reserve currencies.
