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Morning Brew Daily

Winter Storm Causes Travel Chaos & US TikTok Deal Finalized

26 Jan 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

1.246 - 20.073 Unknown

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20.334 - 34.476 Unknown

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36.262 - 44.562 Neal Freiman

Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, the winter storm led to more flight cancellations than the pandemic.

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44.802 - 53.663 Toby Howell

Then the rise of vibe coding has created a major vibe shift on Wall Street. It's Monday, January 26th. Let's ride. Let's ride.

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57.406 - 73.668 Neal Freiman

Good morning and welcome back to The Week. Tensions are high in the United States, and especially in Minneapolis, where federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Preddy, an ICU nurse, on Saturday morning. Preddy was fatally shot just over a mile away from where another 37-year-old U.S.

73.688 - 92.014 Neal Freiman

citizen, Renee Good, was killed by an ICE officer several weeks ago, which sparked widespread protests in Minneapolis against ICE agents throughout January. Videos from the scene, which spread all over social media, contradicted the government's initial claims that Preti was a domestic terrorist, and several Republican lawmakers called for an investigation into the shooting.

92.435 - 100.828 Neal Freiman

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, President Trump declined to say the officer did the right thing, as top officials claimed, and said they're, quote, reviewing everything.

100.808 - 117.012 Toby Howell

Minnesota CEOs are speaking out too, with over 60 business leaders of Minnesota-based companies from Target to UnitedHealth signing an open letter calling for, quote, the immediate de-escalation of tensions and asking state, local, and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.

117.613 - 132.934 Toby Howell

Every local professional sports team also signed the letter, including the Timberwolves, Lynx, Vikings, Wild, and Minnesota United. The pushback from corporate giants comes after hundreds of smaller businesses in the Minneapolis area were also shut down as they back protests against ICE in their city.

Chapter 2: What impact did the winter storm have on travel plans?

213.278 - 226.108 Neal Freiman

flights for Sunday, the most for a single day since the start of the pandemic. At Reagan in D.C., all flights were axed on Sunday, nearly 90% at New York's LaGuardia, and close to half at Atlanta-Hartsfield-Jackson, the world's busiest airport.

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226.088 - 240.203 Neal Freiman

And if you were stranded over the weekend, it might take a couple days to get back home because already more than 3,000 flights have been canceled for Monday. As for snow totals, at least 17 states got more than one foot. Toronto received 18 inches, nearly a record.

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240.463 - 252.636 Neal Freiman

And for the first time in more than 10 years, D.C., Baltimore, Philly, New York City and Boston all received at least six inches of snow. Toby, this was a monster and its impacts are going to linger for at least a few days.

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252.802 - 274.794 Toby Howell

I was looking at the satellite view of this storm and Monster is putting it lightly. It is covering 40 states. The only state that looked like it was totally spared looked to be Florida, which of course Florida is spared, but even Florida and Georgia and the Panhandle region We're getting temperature and tornado warnings. So even the southern states weren't fully spared.

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274.834 - 299.232 Toby Howell

I want to dive into where the power industry is kind of how it's facing in this massive storm, because obviously when cold temperatures hit, power demands on the power grid go up dramatically. And who is stepping up to the plate right now? It's mostly traditional fossil fuels like oil and natural gas. The largest grid operators were relying on natural gas for about 30% of their power yesterday.

299.292 - 317.622 Toby Howell

And that has caused this crazy spike in natural gas prices as well. Futures prices for natural gas jumped 70% in the US over the last week of trading. And it's only going to get worse as, you know, gas producing parts of the United States are facing these really low temperatures and demand is only going to keep spiking.

317.602 - 338.597 Neal Freiman

Yeah, everyone was looking at Texas specifically. Five years ago, there was this massive winter storm, Uri, that knocked out the power grid down in Texas, which is not connected to the grids elsewhere in the United States. So they did a lot of weatherization efforts in the past five years to beef up their infrastructure. And it seems like, for the most part, that held steady this time around.

338.577 - 353.911 Toby Howell

I was looking into some natural gas traders were also saying, how can we stay online during this crazy event? They were holing up in hotels to ensure that they still had connection to the Intercontinental Exchange so they could trade their natural gas future prices.

353.931 - 371.131 Toby Howell

So it was interesting that there was like a weatherization of the actual natural gas grid and the actual electric grid and also the people that were trading on those exact things that were powering the grid as well. So Texas was definitely... people were looking, would they be able to handle this a little bit better? And it does seem like they are handling it a little better.

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