Good morning. It's Thursday, Jan. 15, and we're covering the latest on US efforts to acquire Greenland, a reboot of the internet's homepage, and much more. First time reading? Join over 4.5 million insatiably curious readers. Sign up here.
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🇺🇸 Civics Thursday—As America gears up for its semiquincentennial (its 250th birthday), we're releasing new pages on 1440 Topics exploring subjects you need to know to be a good citizen. Scroll down for the latest batch, including pages on the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and more! |
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Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland yesterday in Washington, DC. The meeting came as President Donald Trump ramped up pressure over Greenland, saying the US would not accept anything less than full control of the world’s largest island.
Greenland has been under Danish control for nearly 300 years, but the Arctic island of approximately 57,000 people gained self-rule status in 2009. It is home to the northernmost US military base, including around 150 US Air Force and Space Force personnel. Trump has joined other presidents in expressing an interest in acquiring Greenland. He has threatened to invade Greenland if Denmark does not sell the territory, citing the island’s large reserves of rare earth minerals, oil, and gas, and its strategic placement vis-à-vis Russia and China.
This week, Denmark expanded its military presence on Greenland and yesterday announced Operation Arctic Endurance—a multinational group that includes officers from Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. |
Rebooted message board platform Digg launched its open beta to the public yesterday. The release comes almost one year after the company was acquired by its original founder, Kevin Rose, and Reddit cofounder, Alexis Ohanian.
Founded in 2004 as a news aggregation site, Digg was once called the homepage of the internet. At its peak, the company boasted 40 million monthly users and was valued at $175M. However, a website redesign in 2010 saw Digg lose more than one-quarter of its users. Rose left Digg in 2011, and the company was split up the following year and sold (reportedly for as little as $500K) to Betaworks, LinkedIn, and The Washington Post. Meanwhile, competitor Reddit outpaced Digg by 2012.
Last year, Rose teamed up with Ohanian to purchase Digg for an undisclosed amount. The two are aiming to differentiate the platform from Reddit by emphasizing content moderation and cryptographic methods to verify users are real people. |
Wikipedia turns 25 today, boasting more than 65 million articles in over 300 languages—written, edited, and fact-checked by nearly 250,000 volunteers worldwide.
Jimmy Wales, a former financial trader, founded Wikipedia’s predecessor, Nupedia, in 2000. Entries were written by subject experts and underwent rigorous peer review, resulting in fewer than two dozen articles published by early 2001. In response, Wales and Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger launched a lower-barrier-to-entry platform. Powered by wiki software that enables collaborative editing, Wikipedia produced about 18,000 articles in its first year (see first 100), and by 2002, nearly 200 people were editing the site daily. Since 2003, Wikipedia has been operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit reliant primarily on donations averaging $11.
Wikipedia publishes about 500 articles daily and receives nearly 15 billion visits monthly, but its user base is shifting. Human traffic fell by 8% last year, and roughly 65% of Wikipedia's most intense traffic now comes from bots, largely scraping articles to train AI models. |
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In partnership with SmartAsset |
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What Can Be Deducted From Capital Gains Tax? |
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Sports, Entertainment, & Culture |
> Global music industry reaches record 5.1 trillion streams in 2025, up 9.6% from 2024, which held the previous annual streaming record; Christian, rock, and Latin music see most growth in the US (More) |
> Golden Globes show averages nearly 8.7 million viewers, down about 7% from last year; social media engagement up roughly 5% from 2025 to record level (More) |
> Spanish singer Julio Iglesias faces sexual abuse allegations from former live-in female employees (More) | "West Wing" actor Timothy Busfield appears in court on child sexual abuse charges related to alleged incidents involving child actors (More) |
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> US allows Nvidia to export H200 AI chips to China, provided they undergo a third-party review and there is sufficient domestic supply; Nvidia's most advanced chips–the Blackwell and forthcoming Rubin–are not approved for export (More) |
> Hidden growth rings reveal Tyrannosaurus rexes reached full size of roughly 8 tons at about 40 years; past studies estimated growth stopped around 25 years (More) | Explore the best resources we've found on dinosaurs (More) |
> Young tropical forests recover from disruptions, such as logging, wildfires, and agriculture, nearly twice as fast when nitrogen is added to their ecosystem (More) |
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> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.5%, Dow -0.1%, Nasdaq -1.0%) (More) | US existing home sales rise 5.1% month over month in December, the fastest pace since February 2023; median home price of $405,400 is up 0.4% from a year ago (More) |
> Saks Global, owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy roughly a year after acquiring rival Neiman Marcus (More) | Our favorite resources on bankruptcy (1440 Topics) |
> China hits record $1.2T trade surplus—when the value of exports exceeds the value of imports—in 2025 despite sweeping US tariffs (More) |
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> Iranian government reportedly postpones execution of 26-year-old protester amid pressure from President Donald Trump as death toll reportedly approaches 3,500 people; see live updates (More) | US military pulls some troops from Qatar (More) |
> FBI searches home of Washington Post journalist, seizes phone and two laptops as part of investigation into government contractor charged with illegal retention of classified information (More) |
> State Department announces it will suspend immigration visas for 75 countries beginning Jan. 21; the change will not apply to tourism, student visas (More) |
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In partnership with SmartAsset |
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The Top 10 Wealth Management Firms of 2025 |
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Whether you're looking for help with retirement, wealth management, or tax planning, the US is home to thousands of advisors who can potentially meet your specific needs. SmartAsset ranked the top 10 wealth management firms in the US based on AUM, fees, and more.
SmartAsset's no-cost tool will match you with vetted fiduciary advisors, obligated to work in your best financial interest. The criteria for the matching tool differs from the methodology for the list above and you may not be matched with the advisor firms mentioned in the article. See the list. |
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1440 Topics: Civics Thursday |
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In celebration of America's 250th birthday, each week we're sharing what we've learned about topics we should all know to become better citizens: |
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What is 1440 Topics? A continuously updated ecosystem where we curate the best evergreen resources we've found on thousands of topics for you to explore. Have a suggestion for our Civics section? Let us know here. |
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Historybook: Queen Elizabeth I is coronated (1559); Martin Luther King Jr. is born (1929); Harry Truman becomes the first US president to use radio and TV for his farewell address (1953); First Super Bowl is played (1967); Cranberries lead singer Dolores O’Riordan dies (2018). |
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"I've come to the conclusion that life is for the taking and just too short to dwell on the negative." |
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