If you’ve noticed way fewer incidents of people in Manhattan smacking the hood of a car and screaming “Hey! I’m walkin’ here!”, it might have something to do with New York’s new congestion pricing.

On Jan. 5, New York enacted the country’s first policy that charges drivers a toll for entering a central business district in an attempt to reduce traffic and raise $15 billion for mass transit infrastructure. People coming into Manhattan at or below 60th Street during peak hours by car are now paying $9 ($14.40 for small trucks and charter buses, $21.60 for large trucks and tour buses) on top of existing tolls and any parking fees.

According to the MTA, congestion pricing is having the desired effect.

• There’s been an average of 7.5% fewer vehicles in the central business district.
• Travel time between New York and New Jersey via the George Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel, and Lincoln Tunnel has been reduced between 30% and 40%. During the morning rush hour, the speed through the Holland Tunnel has nearly doubled to 28 mph.
• Crosstown drives are taking 20% to 30% less time.

Not everyone loves the open roads

While less pollution and more space for people in run clubs to meet their soulmates are clear benefits for NYC, some inside the congestion zone aren’t happy, including:

Parking garage owners: Gregg Reuben, the founder and CEO of a company that operates 35 parking garages in Manhattan, told the Wall Street Journal that business has declined by 20%.

Restaurant owners: The New York Times spoke to a restaurateur facing higher delivery surcharges from distributors (who also have to make adjustments), which is forcing her to consolidate three or four deliveries per week to one or two.

Restaurant workers: Employees living in the outer boroughs where mass transportation isn’t easily accessible must either pay $9 per day—about $2,000 per year—to commute to work or drive and park somewhere outside the congestion zone.

To ease the burden on customers, some restaurants are offering $9 discounts to offset the congestion toll.—DL

Trump’s Treasury secretary pick backs tariffs, tax cuts, and Russia sanctions. Scott Bessent, the hedge fund billionaire President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Treasury Department, was the latest nominee to be grilled at a Senate confirmation hearing. Telling lawmakers that Trump could usher in a “new economic golden age,” Bessent said tariffs could be a “revenue raiser” for the government while pushing for an extension of the 2017 tax cuts. He also called for more sanctions on Russian oil producers to bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table with Ukraine.—AR

Zyn authorized by FDA. Alert your bros: The Food and Drug Administration formally OK’d Zyn nicotine pouches for sale after reviewing their safety. The agency authorized the sale of 10 flavors of the popular product, marking the first time it signed off on nicotine pouches, though Zyn has been on the market for a decade. Health officials determined that the pouches pose a smaller risk of cancer than cigarettes or traditional chewing tobacco (which still doesn’t mean they’re good for you). That’s good news for Zyn’s parent company, Philip Morris, also a purveyor of old-school tobacco products, since pouches are the fastest growing segment of the US tobacco market.—AR

Legendary baseball announcer Bob Uecker dies at 90. Fondly known as “Mr. Baseball,” Uecker was the voice of the Milwaukee Brewers since 1971. The Brewers released a statement from the family that said Uecker had been privately fighting small-cell lung cancer since 2023. He became a national icon thanks to his charming appearances on late-night shows, a recurring spot in Miller Lite commercials, and his role as announcer Harry Doyle in the 1989 baseball classic Major League. In 2003, he received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is given annually to a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball.”—DL

Legendary short seller Nate Anderson announced this week that he is shutting down his firm, Hindenburg Research, due to extreme job stress. With only 11 employees, Anderson took gargantuan swings at companies—and their billionaire leaders.

Hindenburg published deeply researched reports about companies it believed were overvalued and rife with corruption. It got its big break when it shorted electric truck-maker Nikola in 2020, calling the company an “intricate fraud.” Regulators took note, and it led to three fraud convictions for Nikola founder Trevor Milton.

• Some other Hindenburg hits include billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises, Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc., and India’s powerful Adani family.
• Anderson claimed in his farewell note that “nearly 100 individuals have been charged civilly or criminally by regulators at least in part through our work.”

The firm also had some misses. Stocks for Roblox and Carvana were unscathed by Hindenburg’s reports.

Big picture: The heyday of vigilante short sellers might be behind us. If the growing legal challenges haven’t scared them off, the hordes of GameStop traders sure did. But Anderson did promise to spend the next six months putting together materials on the firm’s methods to ensure future short sellers could take on the mantle.—MM

Happy almost retirement to the original Switch, which appears to have taken The Substance and birthed a sleeker version of itself. After years of rumor-filled hype, yesterday, Nintendo showed the first looks at its next console, the Switch 2, which is expected to be a power-up for the gaming industry when it launches later this year.

Top notes include: A larger screen and bigger controllers, which will connect to the console’s ports magnetically instead of sliding in mechanically like the original model (Nintendo highlighted this change with a new sound logo—from the first generation’s snap to Switch 2’s echoey clack). Switch 2 will be backward-compatible with Switch games, Nintendo said.

We’re getting a new Mario Kart on Switch 2, and it could be an exclusive like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for OG Switch, which was so hotly anticipated it sold one-to-one with console purchases.

Big shoes: The original 2017 Switch is the No. 2 best-selling console in the US. It propelled Nintendo to its most profitable era ever, but momentum slowed, and Nintendo’s profits have been declining for more than a year.

Looking ahead…Nintendo will fully reveal Switch 2 on April 2. Analysts are hopeful that its release will lift video game hardware and digital sales, especially now that PC gaming is threatening the cashflows of traditional gaming companies.—ML

Ni hao may be the hottest phrase in America right now. Duolingo is quietly emerging as a big winner from the US TikTok ban slated to take effect on Sunday (unless it’s bought or given a legal reprieve). The language learning app reports a ~216% jump in new Mandarin learners in the US compared to the same period a year ago as fans of the short-form video platform bid goodbye to their Chinese spies and migrate in droves to fellow Chinese app Xiaohongshu, better known stateside as RedNote. RedNote, designed for Chinese users and navigable only in Mandarin, gained 700,000 users in two days after being suggested as a TikTok replacement, and now it seems the owl app and its satisfying bing-bing sound are helping those new American users get comfortable there.

And to all the new students discovering just how many years of study it takes to read a Chinese newspaper, we say: 加油.—AR