President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Washington, en route to Baltimore to attend the Army-Navy football game. This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that “we will retaliate” after two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed in a Syria attack that the U.S. blames on the Islamic State group. He paid condolences to the three Americans killed and said three others who were wounded “seem to be doing pretty well.” THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed and three other people wounded in an ambush on Saturday by a lone member of the Islamic State group in central Syria, the the U.S. military's Central Command said. Central Command said in a post on X that as a matter of respect for the families and in accordance with Department of Defense policy, the identities of the service members will be withheld until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified. The gunman was killed, it said. Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said the civilian killed in the attack was a U.S. interpreter. The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which earlier said two members of Syria's security force and several U.S. service members had been wounded. Syria's Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba said a gunman linked to IS opened fire at the gate of a military post. He added that Syrian authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.” The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS. Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following the ouster of Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus. The interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with President Donald Trump. IS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group's sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq. U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.

Day 13 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar Day 13 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Sea of Galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope pointed its Near-Infrared Camera toward the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 and captured this image of hundreds of galaxies at varying distances and of different sizes, shapes, and colors—showing only a small section of the cluster. See the full advent calendar here, where a new image will be revealed each day until December 25. TheAtlantic.com © 2025 The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply

A newly established tribal business entity quietly signed a nearly $30 million federal contract in October to come up with an early design for immigrant detention centers across the U.S. Amid the backlash, the tribe says it's trying to get out of it. Tribal leaders and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security haven't responded to detailed questions about why the firm was selected for such a big contract without having to compete for the work as federal contracting normally requires. A former naval officer — who markets himself as the “go-to” adviser for tribes and affiliated companies seeking to land federal contracts — established the affiliate, KPB Services LLC, in April. “We are known across the nation now as traitors and treasonous to another race of people,” said Ray Rice, a 74-year-old who said he and other tribal members were blindsided. Tribal Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick promised “full transparency” about what he described as an “evolving situation.” In a video message to tribal members Friday, he said the tribe is talking with legal counsel about ways to end the contract. He alluded to the time when federal agents forcibly removed hundreds of Prairie Band Potawatomi families from their homes and ultimately corralled them on a reservation just north of Topeka. “We know our Indian reservations were the government's first attempts at detention centers,” Rupnick said in the video message. So we must ask ourselves why we would ever participate in something that mirrors the harm and the trauma once done to our people.” The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way in September for federal agents to conduct sweeping immigration raids and use apparent ethnicity as a relevant factor for a stop. An LLC owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama also has a multimillion dollar contract with ICE to provide financial and administrative services. Meanwhile, some shareholders of an Alaska Native corporation say their values don't align with the corporation's federal contracting division, Akima, to provide security at several ICE detention facilities. “I'm shocked that there is any tribal nation that's willing to assist the U.S. government in that,” said Brittany McKane, a 29-year-old Muscogee Nation citizen who attends the tribe's college in Oklahoma. Last month, actor Elaine Miles said she was stopped by ICE agents who alleged her ID from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon was fake. The economic arms of tribes, which can be run by non-Natives, are under increasing pressure to generate revenue because of decreased federal funding, high inflation and competition from online gambling, said Gabe Galanda, an Indigenous rights attorney based in Seattle. But the economic opportunities presented to tribes don't always align with their values, said Galanda, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in northern California. The Prairie Band Potawatomi has a range of businesses that provide health care management staffing, general contracting and even interior design. The tribal offshoot hired by ICE — KPB Services LLC — was established in Holton, Kansas, and is not listed on the tribe's website. Sole-source contracts above $30 million require additional justification under federal contracting rules. The contract raises a number of questions and seems to go against the Trump administration's stated of goal of cleaning up waste, fraud and abuse, said Attorney Joshua Schnell, who specializes in federal contracting law. “Although there is a role within this system for multimillion dollar sole-source contracts, these contracts are an exception to statutory competition requirements, and taxpayers are entitled to know how the government is spending their money.” A spokesperson for the Tribal Council did not respond to repeated requests from the AP for details, including who was terminated. What is known is that KPB was registered by Ernest C. Woodward Jr., a retired U.S. naval officer with degrees in engineering and business who is a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, according to a website for his one-time consulting firm, Burton Woodward Partners LLC. The consulting firm was registered to an office park in Sarasota, Florida, in 2017 but was delisted two years later after it failed to file an annual report. The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in a 2017 news release said Woodward's firm advised it on its acquisition of another government contractor, Mill Creek LLC, which specializes in outfitting federal buildings and the military with office furniture and medical equipment. Woodward also is listed as the chief operating officer of the Florida branch of Prairie Band Construction Inc., which was registered in September. The phone number listed on Burton Woodward Partners was disconnected, and he did not respond to an email sent to another consulting firm he's affiliated with, Virginia-based Chinkapin Partners LLC. Carole Cadue-Blackwood, who has Prairie Band Potawatomi ancestry and is an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, hopes the contract dies. She has been part of the fight against an ICE detention center opening in Leavenworth, Kansas, and works for a social service agency for Native Americans. “I'm in just utter disbelief that this has happened,” she said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Peter Greene, a character actor best known for his role as the iconic villain Zed in “Pulp Fiction,” has died. He died in his home in New York City, his manager, Gregg Edwards confirmed on Friday. His cause of death was not immediately released. “He was just a terrific guy,” said Edwards. “Arguably one of the greatest character actors on the planet; Has worked with everybody.” Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Greene landed some of his first leading roles in “Laws of Gravity” in 1992 and “Clean, Shaven” in 1993, according to IMDb. In 1994, he played the memorable villain in Quentin Tarantino's “Pulp Fiction,” who is brought in to torture characters played by Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames. That same year, he played another leading villain opposite Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz in “The Mask.” Greene was working on two projects when he died, including a documentary about the federal government's withdrawal of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to Edwards. “We've been friends for over a decade,” said Edwards.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. "Cowboy" Kent Rollins of New Mexico recreates a hearty bison chili from his Outdoor Channel series, emphasizing the dish's simplicity, rich flavors and long-standing ties to Western ranch life and traditional cowboy meals. For Kent Rollins, the American West isn't just a backdrop — it's an ingredient. The star of the Outdoor Channel's "Cast Iron Cowboy" has spent decades preserving cowboy cooking, but his rich and fiery bison chili recipe taps into something even older: a protein-packed staple once prized on the trail. As Rollins noted while cooking the dish in an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital, bison is one of the leanest, "healthiest meats" a modern cook can put in a pot. "But this is not just your ordinary chili. The meal was featured in a recent episode of "Cast Iron Cowboy," which has been renewed for a second season. Rollins begins by browning two pounds of ground bison with diced yellow onion. He then adds Ro-Tel tomatoes with green chilies, tomato sauce, jalapeños, adobo sauce and his own chili seasoning. "You're getting an extra push of protein from the beans," Rollins said. "But that bison meat is going to give you a lot of protein, a lot of power." Bison meat, pictured in this chili dish, is one of the "healthiest meats," Rollins told Fox News Digital. On cattle drives more than a century ago, cowboys almost never ate the longhorns they pushed to market, Rollins said. But if they spotted a bison, cowboys would shoot it and turn it into a hearty stew to fuel the men who worked from before sunrise to after sundown. "This is a frontier cowboy Western heritage meal classic," Rollins said. Bison has been making what he calls "a big surge" in recent years as a "really high protein meat that's also really good for you to eat." Rollins eats a bowl of his bison chili. As always, he cooks in cast iron — a tool he believes not only honors cowboy tradition but improves the final dish. It's naturally lean and low in cholesterol, Rollins said. "Wild game is your best bet," he added. Rollins said finding bison at a nearby store is easier than many people assume. "Nearly every grocery store of any size will have some bison meat," he said. If not, online ranchers and suppliers can ship it directly to your door. Despite the frontier flair, Rollins insists cowboy cooking is for everyone. Bison meat tends to be more costly — mostly due to limited supply, higher production and processing costs, smaller-scale ranching and "the unique challenges of raising and delivering bison compared with conventional beef," according to the Institute for Environmental Research and Education, based in Washington state. Yet "continued strong consumer demand has kept wholesale prices stable for the past four years," said the National Bison Association in Colorado. "Bison are making a comeback — at grocery stores, restaurants, and, slowly but surely, on America's wide-open plains," Modern Farmer pointed out. Cooking in cast iron brings out a "better flavor," Rollins said. As always, Rollins cooks in cast iron — a tool he believes not only honors cowboy tradition but improves the final dish. Cast iron "is always going to bring you a better flavor when you're cooking with it," he said, especially when simmering chili or searing meat. You're going to keep that simmer going most of the day, with a really low heat on cast iron." Despite the frontier flair, Rollins insists cowboy cooking is for everyone. Peter Burke is a lifestyle editor with Fox News Digital. He covers various lifestyle topics, with an emphasis on food and drink. A look at the top-trending stories in food, relationships, great outdoors and more. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., discusses the affordability issue Americans are facing on 'Fox Report.' I've been practicing financial planning for more than 30 years and am now seeing a new financial phenomenon spread through America like a quiet cancer. It's a rapidly growing population of Americans ages 30 to 50 who earn more than $100,000 per year, and yet they are living squarely paycheck to paycheck. I call them "lifestyle loopers" because even if they make $250,000, they've become irresistibly susceptible to perpetual lifestyle inflation. No access to ChatGPT or the internet? Having massive garnishments taken from their paychecks? According to long-running national surveys, roughly one in four Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and that figure has climbed from earlier decades. Combine that with other reports showing that a large share of households don't have enough savings to weather even a modest financial emergency, and you begin to understand why so many Americans, including higher earners, are one mishap away from financial distress. In a country with social media FOMO, sticky inflation, and constant lifestyle pressure, the six-figure paycheck doesn't stretch the way it used to years ago. But, the biggest reasons come down to financial behavior and, after working with thousands of families, here's what's really crushing the six-figure income earners. Many high-income households work like crazy to climb into the six-figure range. And when they finally get there, the internal monologue sounds like: "My neighbors just went to Italy, and I saw on Instagram my college roommate just bought a BMW. Why shouldn't I get one?" Dinner out four times a week? Holiday trip to Europe in peak season? The problem: there's no measurement system and nobody on the internet shares their net worth. Most six-figure earners who feel broke simply cannot tell you where the money goes. High earners often have the most dangerous financial mindset: "I'll always make this kind of money." That false sense of security leads to the worst habit in personal finance, which is saving only what's left over if they save at all outside of their 401K. Spoiler alert: nothing is ever left over. Six-figure earners often pre-spend their bonuses before they arrive. Instead, they should be living off base pay and treating bonuses as forced savings. Without a "pay yourself first" system, the money disappears instantly. Social Media Shame: The Silent Killer of Financial Progress One of the most surprising barriers is purely emotional, which is high earners are embarrassed to ask for help. They tell themselves, "If I'm smart enough to earn $200,000 or $300,000, I should be smart enough to manage my own money." But, family financial planning is a skill set of budgeting, balance sheets, cash flow analysis, insurance strategy and tax planning. It's no different than medicine or law. High income doesn't equal high financial literacy and doesn't mean you'll be a good financial decision maker. Poor Decisions on the Big Three: Home, Car, School Six-figure households often make the same three crippling decisions: One big decision can sink a budget. Three big decisions can sink a household. These choices lock families into high monthly obligations, forcing them to earn more just to survive rather than comfortably living off their current income. In a major CFP Board survey, households with a written financial plan, whether earning the national median or more than $100,000, were more than twice as likely to report financial comfort and stability compared to households without one. In today's America, you can make $100,000, $200,000, even $300,000 a year and still be one bad week away from financial disaster. The six-figure paycheck is no longer a safety net and no longer guarantees financial success. The only people lifestyle loopers impress are the ones that keep getting them to spend money. Ted Jenkin is president of Exit Stage Left Advisors and partner at Exit Wealth. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

President Donald Trump once again attacked the Indiana Senate Republican leader after the state body voted down a mid-decade redistricting bill. In a Truth Social message posted early Saturday, Trump vowed to primary Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray and other Republicans who opposed the GOP-friendly congressional map. “Republicans in the Indiana State Senate, who voted against a Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, should be ashamed of themselves,” he wrote. “Headed by a total loser named Rod Bray, every one of these people should be ‘primaried,' and I will be there to help! Trump previously indicated he would help primary anti-redistricting Indiana Republicans if the new map didn't pass. The map would have created two more GOP-leaning House seats in Indiana, so that Republicans would have had an advantage in all nine congressional districts. The president insisted he “wasn't very much involved” in the redistricting pressure campaign while again taking aim at Bray. “He'll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. He added anyone who wants to challenge Bray in an upcoming primary would receive his support. Bray is next up for a primary reelection in May 2028. Mike Braun (R-IN) intends to work with the president on helping primary state lawmakers who cost the Republican Party two more House seats. “I am very disappointed that a small group of misguided State Senators have partnered with Democrats to reject this opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps and to reject the leadership of President Trump,” Braun wrote on X after Thursday's vote. I will be working with the President to challenge these people who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can listen to a companion story on the CNN 5 Good Things podcast. For more positive stories like this one, listen wherever you get your podcasts — new episodes drop every Saturday. The cost of child care nearly doubled Emily Wildau's mortgage. Then last month, New Mexico launched universal child care. The free child care saves Wildau, a mother to an 11-month-old son in Albuquerque, about $21,000 a year, allowing financial breathing room that her family had never imagined before. “When my husband's car broke down this week, that would've been really hard for us to pay for both things. It just takes a lot of stress away.” Child care costs still rising as the Trump administration eyes incentives to boost falling birthrate The annual price of child care increased 29% from 2020 to 2024, outpacing inflation and intensifying the strain on families, according to Child Care Aware of America's report this year. Before November, a family of four in New Mexico had to earn less than $129,000 to qualify for free care, according to the state's Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD), which oversees the program. The program has already seen some potential signs of early success. ECECD data show that about 7,000 children (from nearly 6,000 families) were enrolled in the first month. Of these families, 63% were newly eligible because they previously made too much to qualify. The program is largely funded by the Early Childhood Trust Fund, which was created in 2020 with a $300 million endowment and has since ballooned to around $10 billion because of oil and gas revenue. ‘Double our mortgage': The child care crisis squeezing America New Mexico aims to add 1,000 registered child care homes, 120 licensed homes and 55 licensed centers to support 12,000 more children. Low funding and poor pay have contributed to worker shortages and closures of child care centers across the country, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley. To attract more talent, New Mexico is raising the base pay for child care workers from roughly $15 to $16-$19 per hour — an optional rate that 40% of licensed providers have opted into. The median wage for child care workers nationally was $32,050 per year as of May 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “By supporting higher wages for child care workers, we can strengthen the workforce, reduce turnover and ensure families are better off as they move up the income ladder,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement to CNN. But some child care providers are not so sure. Barbara Tedrow — who owns several centers in Farmington and serves as policy chair for the nonprofit New Mexico Early Childhood Association — said she's opted into the universal child care program (allowing the state to pay for contracts). But hasn't opted into the enhanced wage rates. “I can't pay my mortgage (for a child care center) and an enhanced rate at $19 an hour,” she said. State Rep. Rebecca Dow, who founded the first nationally accredited early childhood program in the town of Truth or Consequences, said higher wages could push low-income child care workers over the threshold for crucial federal benefits, like housing assistance and SNAP. She also worried universal eligibility could make it harder for vulnerable families — such as those who rely on care while seeking work — to gain access to child care. “I fully support high-quality, accessible child care for all. In my opinion, no,” said Dow, a Republican. New Mexico's program comes as affordability concerns take center stage in the United States. In Pennsylvania this week, President Donald Trump touched on the economy and said prices “are coming down,” though he added that the affordability question is a Democratic “hoax.” A few weeks earlier, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani told Trump that affordability remains a major burden for his constituents. Mamdani made universal child care a pillar of his mayoral campaign, and the idea continues to gain momentum in several other Democrat-led cities and states. For families and caregivers in New Mexico, free child care has already netted notable savings. Emily Wildau said her child care bills were about $1,800 before the program — more than $21,000 a year. Kierstin Steiner, an Albuquerque public school teacher and mother of a 4-year-old, said universal child care saves her family $300 to $400 a month — money she'll put toward emergencies or student loans. The relief and benefit for families is real, she said. “Paying early childhood educators more will be hugely impactful,” she said. US market indices are shown in real time, except for the S&P 500 which is refreshed every two minutes. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. Market holidays and trading hours provided by Copp Clark Limited.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Mark Ross, president of the St. Paul Police Federation, says Minnesota is facing a thousand-officer shortage and warns fraud, underfunding and political pressures are undermining public safety. EXCLUSIVE: Bipartisan House lawmakers are actively lobbying the Senate to take action on a bill reversing President Donald Trump's executive order on federal worker unions, a moderate Democrat said. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, successfully forced a vote on his legislation Thursday evening despite little appetite from the majority of House Republicans. It passed, however, with 20 GOP lawmakers' support — a significant number at a time when few in the party are willing to publicly butt heads with Trump. "When I said on the House floor that union collective bargaining rights are not a partisan issue, I meant it," Golden told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. "The greatest evidence of that is union members themselves. It has support from two Republicans as of now — Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine — the latter of which appeared to sign on after House passage on Thursday evening. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo) She's supported unions on certain issues in the past, so she's obviously a very important senator," said Golden, who worked for Collins before coming to Congress himself. And Golden is not lobbying senators alone — he said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., a moderate Republican who championed the bill in the House, is working alongside him. Fox News Digital reached out to Fitzpatrick's office for comment. "As you probably saw, it was a long process in the House, so you've got to stay dogged and be patient. Golden said he expected more Republican senators to sign on in the coming days. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., for instance, has not backed the legislation as of Friday afternoon, but Golden said he was a "great example" of someone who's "shown himself to be pro-labor." Hawley has also previously introduced his own bipartisan pro-union legislation earlier this year that would speed up the labor contract process for new unions. That bill is endorsed by Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien, a friend of the lawmaker's. Fox News Digital reached out to Collins, Murkowski and Hawley's offices for further comment. Golden got his bill passed by filing it as a discharge petition, which is designed to force a vote on legislation over the wishes of leadership, provided it gets support from a majority of House lawmakers. Discharge petitions are rarely successful in the House but have been used more frequently this year as Republicans grapple with a razor-thin majority. In Golden's case, five House Republicans had signed onto the petition along with 213 Democrats — Fitzpatrick and Reps. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., Don Bacon, R-Neb., Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Nick LaLota, R-N.Y. Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced the companion version of Golden's legislation in September. Chair Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, prepares for a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Golden have a relationship that dates back to his first time in Washington, D.C., not as a lawmaker, but as a staffer for the longtime Maine senator. They're also both known to buck their respective parties. Just before Golden's successful vote, Collins joined Senate Democrats to back their three-year extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies. But Warner's bill has sat in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, for several months. Whether it survives committee is unclear, given that Paul has introduced several right-to-work bills over the years. Republican opponents of the bill have said federal workers' unions are not the same as labor unions in the private sector, arguing that collective bargaining is a different scenario when working against Americans' own elected officials rather than for-profit companies. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

When you buy an annual membership or give a one-time contribution, we'll give a membership to someone who can't afford access. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today? A Pew Research Center survey published in September found that 50 percent of respondents were more concerned than excited about AI; just 10 percent felt the opposite. Most people, 57 percent, said the societal risks were high, while a mere 25 percent thought the benefits would be high. — of respondents said they fully trust AI's capability to make fair and unbiased decisions, while 60 percent somewhat or fully distrusted it. A weekly dose of stories chronicling progress around the world. Even the most optimistic takes on AI — heralding a world of all play and no work — can feel so out-of-this-world utopian that they're a little scary too. Purple line: AI-driven total human extinction and, uh, zero money. If I wanted to change people's minds about AI, to give them the good news that this technology would bring, I would start with what it could do for the foundation of human prosperity: scientific research. In a widely cited paper with the extremely unsubtle title “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?” economist Nicholas Bloom and his colleagues looked across sectors from semiconductors to agriculture and found that we now need vastly more researchers and R&D spending just to keep productivity and growth on the same old trend line. A 2023 Nature paper analyzed 45 million papers and nearly 4 million patents and found that work is getting less “disruptive” over time — less likely to send a field off in a promising new direction. With fertility in wealthy countries below replacement levels and global population likely to plateau and then shrink, you move toward an “empty planet” scenario where living standards stagnate because there simply aren't enough brains to push the frontier. And if, as the Trump administration is doing, you cut off the pipeline of foreign scientific talent, you're essentially taxing idea production twice. One major problem here, ironically, is that scientists have to wade through too much science. They're increasing drowning in data and literature that they lack the time to parse, let alone use in actual scientific work. But those are exactly the bottlenecks AI is well-suited to attack, which is why researchers are coming around to the idea of “AI as a co-scientist.” The clearest example out there is AlphaFold, the Google DeepMind system that predicts the 3D shape of proteins from their amino-acid sequences — a problem that used to take months or years of painstaking lab work per protein. Today, thanks to AlphaFold, biologists have high-quality predictions for essentially the entire protein universe sitting in a database, which makes it much easier to design the kind of new drugs, vaccines, and enzymes that help improve health and productivity. (Okay, technically, the prize went to AlphaFold creators Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of DeepMind, as well as the computational biologist David Baker, but it was AlphaFold that did much of the hard work.) In 2023, DeepMind unveiled GNoME, a graph neural network trained on crystal data that proposed about 2.2 million new inorganic crystal structures and flagged roughly 380,000 as likely to be stable — compared to only about 48,000 stable inorganic crystals that humanity had previously confirmed, ever. AI has vastly widened the search for materials that could make cheaper batteries, more efficient solar cells, better chips, and stronger construction materials. If we're serious about making life more affordable and abundant — if we're serious about growth — the more interesting political project isn't banning AI or worshipping it. Or take something that affects everyone's life, every day: weather forecasting. DeepMind's GraphCast model learns directly from decades of data and can spit out a global 10-day forecast in under a minute, doing it much better than the gold-standard models. (If you're noticing a theme, DeepMind has focused more on scientific applications than many of its rivals in AI.) That can eventually translate to better weather forecasts on your TV or phone. In each of these examples, scientists can take a domain that is already data-rich and mathematically structured — proteins, crystals, the atmosphere — and let an AI model drink from a firehose of past data, learn the underlying patterns, and then search enormous spaces of “what if?” possibilities. If AI elsewhere in the economy seems mostly focused around replacing parts of human labor, the best AI in science allows researchers to do things that simply weren't possible before. The next wave is even weirder: AI systems that can actually run experiments. One example is Coscientist, a large language model-based “lab partner” built by researchers at Carnegie Mellon. In a 2023 Nature paper, they showed that Coscientist could read hardware documentation, plan multistep chemistry experiments, write control code, and operate real instruments in a fully automated lab. It's still early and a long way from a “self-driving lab,” but it shows that with AI, you don't have to be in the building to do serious wet-lab science anymore. Then there's FutureHouse, which isn't, as I first thought, some kind of futuristic European EDM DJ, but a tiny Eric Schmidt-backed nonprofit that wants to build an “AI scientist” within a decade. In their own benchmarks and in early outside write-ups, these agents often beat both generic AI tools and human PhDs at finding relevant papers and synthesizing them with citations, performing the exhausting review work that frees human scientists to do, you know, science. The showpiece is Robin, a multiagent “AI scientist” that strings those tools together into something close to an end-to-end scientific workflow. In one example, FutureHouse used Robin to tackle dry age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. Put the pieces together and you can see a plausible near-future where human scientists focus more on choosing good questions and interpreting results, while an invisible layer of AI systems handles the grunt work of reading, planning, and number-crunching, like an army of unpaid grad students. That's exactly what we need to get economic growth going again: instead of just hiring more researchers (a harder and harder proposition), we make each existing researcher much more productive. That ideally translates into cheaper drug discovery and repurposing that can eventually bend health care costs; new battery and solar materials that make clean energy genuinely cheap; better forecasts and climate models that reduce disaster losses and make it easier to build in more places without getting wiped out by extreme weather. As always with AI, though, there are caveats. The same language models that can help interpret papers are also very good at confidently mangling them, and recent evaluations suggest they overgeneralize and misstate scientific findings a lot more than human readers would like. If you wire AI into lab equipment without the right checks, you risk scaling up not only good experiments but also bad ones, faster than humans can audit them. But if we're serious about making life more affordable and abundant — if we're serious about growth — the more interesting political project isn't banning AI or worshipping it. Instead, it means insisting that we point as much of this weird new capability as possible at the scientific work that actually moves the needle on health, energy, climate, and everything else we say we care about. This series was supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures. Vox had full discretion over the content of this reporting. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Here at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country. Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change. We rely on readers like you — join us. A billionaire's spiritual guide to letting go — of $19 billion. The US was making progress on its antibiotics-in-meat problem. It's been a long road to ensure that testing on human subjects is ethical. You can now place bets on elections, wars, and deportations.

In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here. In recent days, the Trump administration has amped up efforts to have CNN invite Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller on its airwaves, but the network continues to decline. After all, Miller is one of the best guests any cable or broadcast news outlet can book these days: He is unfiltered, unapologetic, prepared, and passionate — a rare combination in a world of hyperbolic, loud, or sleep-inducing guests. Instead, CNN might as well be called the Crockett News Network at this point, because the Democratic Texas lawmaker who never seems to actually work is on their airwaves more than any politician. Now, it's not as if Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who represents the Dallas area for now, until future redistricting essentially turns her seat into a Trump stronghold, didn't make news this week after she announced her run for Senate. Recent polling shows that no matter who her GOP opponent is, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, or Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), she will lose by double digits. And it may be because of statements such as this during an appearance on The Black Lawyers Podcast, after the conversation turned to black people not having to pay taxes. One of the things they propose is black folk not have to pay taxes for a certain amount of time because, then again, that puts money back in your pocket.” So if we're following along, it's not necessarily a bad idea to exempt one race of people from paying taxes. After giving it some thought, Crockett backtracked in the same interview. “If you do the no-tax thing, for people that are already, say, struggling and aren't really paying taxes in the first place, it doesn't really … but I think that we first need to do a study, we need to be very thoughtful,” she said. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) conducted in his state to see if handing out billions in reparations for slavery to black citizens was a good idea. Of course, California was never a slave state to begin with, but with his eyes always on the prize, the presidency, panderers gotta pander. Greg Abbott (R-TX), by calling him “Governor Hot Wheels.” She called for Elon Musk to be “taken out” during a time of rising political violence. This is also a person who celebrated Jay Jones winning the Virginia attorney general race last month. Jones, of course, fantasized in 2022 texts about putting “two bullets” into then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican, while also hoping that his two very young children died in their mother's arms because they are “little fascists.” Jones also promised to “piss on the graves” of dead Republicans. “I was very excited to see that he was able to pull off the win because it seems like people did not get caught up in the distractions.” This is a homicidal maniac who wished for the death of little children. Here she is this week with fellow racist and disgraced former MS Now host Joy Reid talking about a rally held by Trump in Pennsylvania on Tuesday: But in the meantime, the TV and podcast bookings will continue to pour in because it's exactly this kind of rhetoric that gets rewarded by liberal legacy media. They see, for example, that Crockett has more than 2 million followers on Instagram alone and therefore believe it will transfer over to TV ratings — it doesn't. Meanwhile, leaders on Capitol Hill with more experience and greater stature get fewer invites. His interviews are measured, and common sense is generally the theme. Fetterman has met with Trump and has called on his party to stop using inflammatory language against the administration and the voters who support it. “I'm the only Democrat in my family,” he shared during a NewsNation town hall recently. “I grew up in a conservative part of Pennsylvania. “And if you want a Democrat that's going to call people Nazis or fascists or all these kinds of things, well, I am not going to be that guy. But CNN and MS Now have essentially stopped calling Fetterman to appear on their respective networks. As for MS Now, Fetterman also hasn't appeared there in more than a month and only twice in the past nine months, which is laps behind a cartoon character such as Crockett. Know this: Without social media, Crockett is just another young, brash lawmaker who would like not to be noticed by national outlets. Very few break through to get free media attention on any substantial level. But apps such as X, TikTok, and Instagram have changed the game. In 2025, Crockett can speak in Congress and make outlandish statements such as the time she accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin of taking money from “Jeffery Epstein.” The clip quickly goes viral, and before you know it, there she is next to Kaitlan Collins on a set in CNN's Washington bureau. Collins asked her about it in a kid-gloved interview on CNN. “I wasn't trying to mislead people,” Crockett said with almost zero pushback. Other Democratic members of Congress have also become social media “stars,” including Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who is running for California governor despite having only one residence in Virginia 3,000 miles away. He also has a fairly large social media following, with more than 1 million followers on X and Instagram despite having no discernible legislative record. Like Crockett, there aren't too many days that go by without seeing him on the air. His Democratic opponent, Katie Porter, is barely seen in comparison, while Republican candidates Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco are mostly relegated to right-leaning outlets nationally. For them, it's all about vanity and celebrity — nothing more.

EXCLUSIVE — Bolivia has elected its first non-socialist government in decades, and the new administration has a very simple vision: less isolation, more cooperation with the United States, and a dismantled narco-state. President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, took office on Nov. 8 after winning a landslide election in October. His rise ended rival party Movement for Socialism's domination of the government since 2005. The Washington Examiner spoke with newly appointed Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo on Friday at the tail end of his first-ever trip to Washington, D.C. Bouncing from State Department meetings to media interviews, his message to the U.S. public is one of renewed friendship and shared opportunity. And we need those kind of responses in the short term.” Bolivian officials have inherited a world-class disaster of an economy. Breadlines are common, the government has entangled itself in subsidies for critical products such as fuel, and the treasury is experiencing a crippling shortage of U.S. dollars.` The freshly elected government has been variously characterized as centrist, reformist, and right-wing. President Donald Trump's administration is seen as its most crucial partner in that effort. The White House released its updated National Security Strategy on Dec. 4, laying out a short, unambiguous vision for an alliance of self-interested governments joined in a transnational fight against organized crime, mass migration, and foreign influence. “If you analyze the security strategy that U.S. has presented recently … we are a key player to implement that kind of strategy,” Aramayo told the Washington Examiner. “I think it's a situation in which we share principles. “In terms of Venezuela, for example, or in Nicaragua or other countries, we can be part of a coalition with other countries, including America, to strengthen the capacity that Venezuela would have to create conditions for democratic transition,” he continued. Many foreign countries, particularly those in the European Union, have balked at the White House's national security strategy as a heavy-handed encroachment on their sovereignty. Overtures from Trump calling for Europe to “regain its civilizational self-confidence” and “correct its current trajectory” are seen less as affectionate olive branches and more as a foot in the door to trans-Atlantic domination. Bolivia, however, has suffered politically and economically by keeping the U.S. at a distance for over two decades. Successive socialist regimes have fluctuated from tepid friendship with the White House to outright hostility. Since 2007, U.S. citizens wishing to visit Bolivia have required a visa, a situation that Aramayo called “an ideological position without content.” That visa restriction has now been lifted. “If you add all the money that we have lost because of that kind of decisions … we lost something like $900,000,000 USD,” Aramayo lamented. The Bolivian foreign ministry reestablished diplomatic relations with Israel this week, drawing ire from some critics who consider it a betrayal of the socialists' solidarity with Palestinians. Bilateral relations and increased presence on the global stage are a cornerstone of Bolivia's comeback plan to “increase their capacity” and become a more self-confident negotiator. Asked if this pan-global campaign to build friendships extends to rival powers such as China, Aramayo said he has already met with Chinese officials, and the administration is happy to have a “respectful dialogue,” but he's wary of their track record. And dramatically, if you see what China represents for the last 20 years in Bolivia, was a debt that represents 13% of our total bilateral debt,” Aramayo told the Washington Examiner.

That is, in essence, what investigators from Washington, D.C.-based law firm, Jenner & Block are trying to determine. The attorneys were initially hired in October following an anonymous tip about Moore, who on Friday was charged with one felony and two misdemeanors after allegedly breaking into the home of the woman he is said to have had a relationship with and threatening to harm himself. “All of the facts here must be known, so the University's investigation will continue,'' Grasso wrote. “I encourage anyone with information about this matter to confidentially contact UMconcerns@jenner.com.” People associated with Michigan athletics have told CNN that they believe there is a cultural problem, if not of indifference certainly of arrogance. It's been so damn big for so long, and it permeates the whole place.'' Offended that Frieder would abandon his team, then-athletic director Bo Schembechler instead handed Frieder his walking papers, declaring that a “Michigan man will coach Michigan.'' Steve Fisher was not geographically a Michigan man - he was raised in Illinois - but he had been on staff for seven years when Schembechler handed him the reigns of the team. The Wolverines won their only hoops national title that year. (Ironically, Fisher was later fired after he was implicated in an NCAA investigation involving his players and booster Ed Martin.) Pearson, a Michigan Tech grad, spent 23 years on staff before becoming the ice hockey head coach; Howard was part of the Fab Five, Fisher's trend-setting group of young players that went to back-to-back national title games; and Harbaugh played quarterback for Schembechler. Stalions coached there for five years and Moore for six, both getting their starts under Harbaugh. It is worth noting, too, that athletic director Warde Manuel, who has been in charge during this spate of scandals, is also a “Michigan Man.” He, too, played for Schembechler. In light of everything that has happened, the very notion of a “Michigan Man” is now under fire, with people questioning if a term meant to indicate a successful way of doing things is actually more evidence of an echo chamber. The university's response to the recent scandals has been more “prove it” than “mea culpa,” either drawing hard lines in the sand or moving slowly to act on alleged bad behavior. And when confronted with the recruiting violations stemming from the Covid period, Harbaugh repeatedly lied to investigators, according to the NCAA, despite being shown text messages and even a receipt for a hamburger he ate at breakfast with a recruit that was deemed an improper recruiting benefit. Similarly, former volunteer coach and ex-Michigan goalie Steve Shields filed a Title IX complaint in 2021, claiming he was fired from his position for filing complaints about Pearson. That prompted investigators from an outside law firm to conduct an anonymous survey with players and staff for the University's men's hockey team. As reported by The Athletic, players alleged that Pearson forced them to lie about contact tracing during the pandemic, called a player a “Jew” and failed to stop his director of operations from mistreating female staff members. The school did not fire Pearson, only merely opted not to renew his contract, announcing the decision in August of 2022. Pearson promised to clear his name and said the accusations would be proved wrong, but no major reveal has yet come. Howard, in the meantime, was fined and suspended by the Big Ten after being involved in a postgame altercation with a Wisconsin assistant coach in 2022, and told he would abide by a zero-tolerance policy for future bad behavior. In December 2023, Howard and strength coach Jon Sanderson had to be separated after arguing about the playing status of Howard's son, Jace. Sanderson, who had spent 15 years with the men's basketball program, was reassigned following the skirmish and eventually resigned. Despite his own one-game suspension for the post-Covid recruiting investigation, Moore was promoted to head coach after Harbaugh left for the NFL. And the school again backed its head coach in August of this year, when Moore was handed a two-year show cause for his failure to cooperate in the Stallions investigation, but kept his job. In and of itself, the relationship is not cause for firing but because the woman reported to him, he was, by university policy, required to disclose it. Per Michigan's Standard Practice Guide Policies, “the obligation to report an Intimate Relationship rests solely with the Supervisor. The obligation to prepare and monitor a Management Plan rests with the Higher Administrative Authority. During Moore's Friday arraignment, prosecutor Kati Rezmierski said that Moore and the woman had been in a relationship for “a number of years” until she ended it on Monday and – when Moore responded with a flurry of texts and calls – she went on Wednesday to university officials to come clean about the affair. How he was fired, however, raises red flags about the very concerns about how things are being handled at Michigan. A source familiar with the matter said that Manuel dismissed Moore without anyone from human resources present, and – while that is not required – it is standard behavior at most companies. Manuel's future is also now in question. Regardless, Moore's dismissal unlocked a chain of dangerous and frightening events this week, prosecutors allege. Upon being fired, Moore broke into the woman's apartment and grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors and a butter knife, and threatened his own life, Rezmierski said. “My blood is on your hands. Moore was arrested and jailed for two days before he was charged and posted bond. On Friday he appeared in a small cinder-block room wearing a white prison outfit, his hands folded in front of him. He said little, sticking largely to “Yes, your honor,” while his lawyer argued on his behalf. He was later released on bond, according to his attorney and will be required to wear a GPS monitor and must not contact the woman or go near her residence. A probable cause hearing is scheduled for January 22, only days after the college football season ends.