Hello, Quartz members, and welcome to Sunday Reads! From Greenland to the Panama Canal, it’s been a week of head-scratchingly swift activity that may, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth famously said, be no more than “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” We also had a new Congress sworn in, Jimmy Carter’s funeral, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and the horrific Los Angeles wildfires. But it’s Sunday, and time to shift your gaze to some hand-selected reads. Here are some of our favorite Quartz stories from the week, plus a sneak peek at one story coming next week to get your day started.
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5 things we especially liked on Quartz
🖥️ Zuck caves. It was never a sure thing that the world’s largest social media platforms would look out for their users, but one by one, the platforms are giving themselves over to mob rule. This week, Mark Zuckerberg blamed Congress and the media for his decision to stop fact-checking and moderating racist, hateful, fake, and inciting posts on Facebook and other Meta platforms. “Too much censorship,” he complained. William Gavin has more.
🍊What links Greenland and Ozempic? Trump tariffs. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent threats to slap tariffs on Denmark if it doesn’t sell Greenland to the United States would likely raise prices on the weight loss drugs made by Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk. Bruce Gil has the skinny.
📺 What’s new? Among the goodies at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Ultrahuman’s $2,200 platinum smart ring, Razer’s temperature-controlled gaming chair for all you joystick-riding couch potatoes, aRoomba-wannabe with legs, and a $60,000 OLED TV that’s as transparent as a window when it’s off. Britney Nguyen and Jackie Snow have the highlights.
🤖 The robots are coming: Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang announced a suite of AI tools and updates during his keynote speech at CES, focusing on AI agents — systems that can complete tasks autonomously, handling roles like customer service, coding, and research assistance. Britney Nguyen and Jackie Snow have more.
🏰 Forever for sale: For some poor, unfortunate millionaires and billionaires, owning a multi-million dollar home can come at a cost. Namely, paying property taxes for years on unwanted houses that they just can’t sell: Madeline Fitzgerald looks at why the ultra-wealthy can take years to offload an unwanted mansion.
1 sneak peek
🍾 The cost of going dry: Almost a century after Prohibition ended, alcohol faces a new reckoning. In New Mexico, where alcohol-related mortality rates are the highest in the U.S., lawmakers are preparing two proposals to reshape how the state taxes alcohol. But the alcohol industry has years of experience in taking down bills it opposes. Visit qz.com on Monday, when Jackie Snow breaks down Big Alcohol’s next big fight.
What we’re watching this week:
- Monday: JPMorgan Healthcare Conference begins in San Francisco (through Thursday); FAA public hearing on SpaceX quintupling Starship launches.
- Wednesday: Consumer Price Index for December 2024 is released. Major banks reporting earnings include JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citi.
- Thursday: Producer Price Index (PPI) for December 2024 is released. Bank earnings include Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Also reporting are United Health Group and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, joy, or new countries to buy. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Peter S. Green.