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An army of industry lobbyists met with Democratic governors this week, days before Trump issued a new executive order.
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Polls show that a majority of US voters — and especially Democrats — want more robust guardrails on artificial intelligence, but Democratic governors' silence on President Donald Trump's directive banning states from regulating AI has some observers asking if lobbying by the powerful industry is to blame.
Sludge‘s David Moore and Donald Shaw reported Friday that tech titans including OpenAI and Meta last week sent a small army of lobbyists to meet with attendees of the Democratic Governors Association's annual meeting, held this year at the swanky Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.
According to the report, lobbyists and governors — some of whom “are teasing White House bids in 2028 or rumored to be in the mix” — gathered for a closed-door meeting. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore were among those who reportedly met with the lobbyists.
Trump signed an executive order trying to prevent states from regulating AI and following through on the safety laws they enacted, but there was little public pushback from Democratic governors.AI lobbyists descended on the DGA winter meeting last weekend in Phoenix, per a list we obtained:
The meeting preceded Trump's Thursday signing of an executive order aimed at limiting states' ability to regulate rapidly evolving AI technology. The order directs the US Department of Justice to establish an AI Litigation Task Force empowered to sue states that enact “onerous and excessive” AI regulation. The edict also threatens to withhold federal funding from states that implement AI regulations that the Trump administration finds objectionable.
Democratic governors have been relatively muted on the order, especially given the overwhelming support for regulation of AI — which many experts say poses threats to humanity that may equal or outweigh its benefits — across the political spectrum.
As Moore and Shaw wrote:
While Democratic governors were silent, their Republican counterparts have been loudly arguing for months against the federal government preempting state AI policies. In June, 17 Republican governors sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune [R-SD] and House Speaker Mike Johnson [R-La.] warning them against preempting their states' protections on AI use. Over the past couple months, a trio of Republican governors—Spencer Cox (Utah), Ron DeSantis (Fla.), and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Ark.)—continued to make known their opposition to the Trump administration's executive order.
Newsom, who many observers believe is eyeing a 2028 White House run, especially disappointed proponents of AI safeguards last year when he vetoed what would have been the nation's strongest AI safety regulations.
It's not just Democratic governors — congressional Democrats have increasingly partnered with an industry expected to soon be worth trillions of dollars. Some Democrats, like Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, are personally invested in AI stocks. The AI industry also made record contributions to political campaigns during the 2024 cycle.
Other Democrats, including some who may have their sights set on higher office — notably Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — advocate stronger guardrails on AI development.
The public is worried about AI. Regulating AI is winning issue for Democrats but their own party leaders are too complicit with Silicon Valley to use it. www.thenation.com/article/poli…
“Voters want the party to get tough on the industry. But Democratic leaders are following the money instead,” Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, wrote Friday.
Citing voters' desire for stronger regulation, Heer argued that “Democrats have a tremendous opportunity to use the AI backlash for wedge politics,” adding that “it's a way to win back working-class voters who are already disillusioned with the GOP and Trump.”
December is the most critical time of year for Truthout, because our nonprofit news is funded almost entirely by individual donations from readers like you. So before you navigate away, we ask that you take just a second to support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation.
This year is a little different. We are up against a far-reaching, wide-scale attack on press freedom coming from the Trump administration. 2025 was a year of frightening censorship, news industry corporate consolidation, and worsening financial conditions for progressive nonprofits across the board.
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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
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US officials say the cargo was bound for Iranian companies, which acquire parts for Tehran's missile programme
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A US special operations team has seized a shipment of military equipment heading to Iran from China.
The interdiction was aimed at stopping Tehran from rebuilding its ballistic missile arsenal, which was heavily depleted during its 12-day war with Israel in June, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The ship, which has not been publicly identified, was off the coast of Sri Lanka when it was boarded by US special operatives who confiscated its cargo, which an official said comprised dual-use components capable of use as conventional weapons.
Chinese companies often provide measurement devices to improve the precision of Iranian missiles, such as spectrometers and gyroscopes, according to Behnam Ben Taleblu, the Iran director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“That is much more dangerous than chemical precursors,” he added.
Intelligence gathered by the US suggested the ship's cargo was bound for Iranian companies that specialise in acquiring parts for Tehran's missile programme.
Donald Trump's administration has taken an increasingly interventionist maritime strategy. The operation took place weeks before the US on Wednesday seized a sanctioned oil tanker near Venezuela, which had been used to transport oil to Iran.
Iran is attempting to rebuild its shattered ballistic missile arsenal, having bombarded Israel with around 500 during their 12-day war in June. Roughly 1,000 more are estimated to have been destroyed in Israeli strikes.
The UN imposed an arms embargo on Iran, and a ban on uranium enrichment and activity related to ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
In Jan 2024, US Central Command confiscated ballistic and cruise missile components made in Iran and bound for Houthi rebels off the coast of Somalia.
The US seized Iranian oil shipments from several tankers in 2020 and 2023, claiming they were violating sanctions and that proceeds would be used to fund Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the US and several other countries have named a designated terrorist organisation.
Two Democratic congressmen last month urged Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, to investigate several shipments of sodium perchlorate from China to Iran.
Raja Krishnamoorthi and Joe Courtney suggested the chemicals could be used for missile propellants and claimed Beijing “seems increasingly emboldened to assist Tehran's rearmament efforts with impunity”.
Last month, the US Treasury sanctioned dozens of entities around the world as part of its “maximum pressure” policy, claiming they had been used to procure supplies for Iran's ballistic missile and drone production.
“By remaining a permissive jurisdiction for the export of illicit technologies, China is an enabler for Iran's ballistic missiles programme,” Mr Ben Taleblu said.
On Wednesday, the US seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela destined for Cuba, escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas.
“We've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large – the largest one ever seized actually,” Mr Trump announced.
Footage of the moment US troops took control of the tanker shows helicopters hovering above the vast ship as soldiers rappel on to the deck and search for the crew.
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Several regions of Ukraine have endured a night of Russian drone and missile attacks targeting energy infrastructure that left more than a million households without power, according to the interior ministry.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used more than 450 drones and 30 missiles and that more than a dozen civilian facilities around the country had been damaged overnight Friday into Saturday.
“It is important that everyone now sees what Russia is doing – every step they take in terror against our people, all their attacks, for this is clearly not about ending the war,” Zelensky added.
The strikes also injured several civilians and left many areas without water supplies, regional authorities said.
Interior minister Ihor Klymenko said the strikes had delivered “painful blows to Ukraine's energy sector,” with the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions particularly impacted.
The attacks come as US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff prepares to meet Zelensky and European officials in Berlin for talks on advancing the US plan for a peace settlement in the nearly four-year-old war.
Russia has focused on crippling Ukraine's energy infrastructure as winter sets in and has been able to strike more targets in recent months by firing a mix of several hundred drones and missiles simultaneously.
In Odesa, “the targets were port and energy facilities. The enemy struck the Odesa seaport, causing a fire in the grain storage facilities,” said Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine's deputy prime minister and minister of community and territorial development.
Ukraine's largest power company DTEK said 20 electrical substations had been damaged in the Odesa region. Video supplied by DTEK showed personnel beginning to clear debris at the site of one of the power substations that had been hit.
Kuleba added that in the southern city of Kherson, the regional capital was without electricity, affecting more than 140,000 customers. Water supplies there have been reduced to four hours a day while repair work continues, according to local officials.
In neighboring Mykolaiv, the city's mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said the strikes had been “one of the most massive attacks on Mykolaiv and the region in recent times,” adding that five people had been injured.
In the north, Chernihiv was struck more than 30 times overnight, according to Vyacheslav Chaus, head of the regional military administration.
For its part, the Russian defense ministry said more than 40 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted overnight. Several apartments were struck in the southern city of Saratov, according to the regional governor Roman Busargin, killing two people.
On Friday, three Turkish-owned ships were damaged in Russian attacks on ports in the Odesa region, according to Ukraine's navy spokesperson.
Germany is set to host Witkoff, the US envoy, as well as European and Ukrainian delegations, in the coming days for further negotiations on a US-backed plan for ending the war.
After talks among European, US and Ukrainian officials in Paris on Friday, France said Europeans, Americans and Ukraine needed to agree on common ground in peace negotiations with Russia.
“It will be up to the Americans to use their power and their skill to convince the Russians that this option of consolidating this common ground between the Ukrainians and the Americans is indeed the one on which peace is built,” the French presidency said.
The Americans “insist on the issue of territories, while the Ukrainians and Europeans insist on the issue of security guarantees, and that is what must be balanced,” the presidency said.
“The Ukrainians have not made a deal on the territories, are not considering a deal on the territories today, are not considering a DMZ,” or demilitarized zone, it added. What happened on territory was bound up with security guarantees, the presidency said in a briefing.
On Friday, Russia said it had not seen the new peace proposals that resulted from the talks between Europe, the US and Ukraine, adding that it may not like them, according to Russian state media.
“What the Americans are currently coordinating with the Europeans and the Ukrainians should ultimately be shown to us. This will naturally provoke a corresponding reaction; I don't think we'll be entirely happy with it either,” Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said.
On the frontlines, a rare Ukrainian counterattack has inflicted heavy losses on Russian troops in the Kharkiv region, according to the Ukrainian military and analysts.
At the same time, Ukrainian forces continue to resist the Russian offensive aimed at taking the key hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, the military's commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Saturday.
The Russians were conducting “offensive operations along virtually the entire line of contact,” he said. “On some days, the number of combat engagements reaches 300 — the highest since the start of the war.”
In Kharkiv, the Ukrainians say they have driven Russian units out of the town of Kupiansk. The Khartiya corps reported that since September, more than 1,000 Russians had been killed and nearly 300 wounded as Ukrainian units counterattacked.
More than 200 Russian soldiers were currently surrounded, the Khartiya corps added.
Geolocated video published on Friday showed Ukrainian forces operating throughout the town.
Last month, the Russian defense ministry claimed that Kupiansk had been captured and the remnants of Ukrainian forces surrounded.
Commenting on the Kupiansk operation, analysts of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “and senior Russian military officials have been attempting to portray the frontline in Ukraine as imminently on the verge of collapse.” But the Ukrainian counter-attack and “resistance along the rest of the line shows that this narrative is false.”
Syrskyi said the situation in Pokrovsk and the adjacent town of Myrnohrad remained difficult with the Russians transferring additional units to the area.
“Over the past few weeks, we have been able to regain control of about 16 square kilometers in the northern part of the city,” Syrskyi asserted.
CNN's Max Saltman, Gul Tuysuz, Darya Tarasova and Pierre Bairin contributed reporting.
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Belarus freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and dozens of other prisoners on Saturday, capping two days of talks with Washington aimed at improving ties and getting crippling US sanctions lifted on a key Belarusian agricultural export.
The US announced earlier Saturday that it was lifting sanctions on Belarus' potash sector. In exchange, President Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 123 prisoners, Belarus' state news agency, Belta, reported.
A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by Western countries both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Belarus has released hundreds of prisoners since July 2024.
John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus who met with Lukashenko in Minsk on Friday and Saturday, described the talks to reporters as “very productive” and said normalizing relations between Washington and Minsk was “our goal,” Belta reported.
“We're lifting sanctions, releasing prisoners. We're constantly talking to each other,” Coale said, adding that the relationship between the US and Belarus was moving from “baby steps to more confident steps” as they increased dialogue, according to the Belarusian news agency.
Among the 123 prisoners were a US citizen, six citizens of US allied countries, and five Ukrainian citizens, a US official told the Associated Press in an email. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic negotiations, described the release as “a significant milestone in U.S.-Belarus engagement” and “yet another diplomatic victory” for US President Donald Trump.
The official said Trump's engagement so far “has led to the release of over 200 political prisoners in Belarus, including six unjustly detained U.S. citizens and over 60 citizens of U.S. Allies and partners.”
Pavel Sapelka, an advocate with the Viasna rights group, confirmed to the AP that Bialiatski and Kolesnikova were among those released.
Bialiatski, a human rights advocate who founded Viasna, was in jail when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 along with the prominent Russian rights group Memorial and Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties. He was later convicted of smuggling and financing actions that violated public order — charges that were widely denounced as politically motivated — and sentenced to 10 years in 2023.
Bialiatski told the AP by phone Saturday that his release after 1,613 days behind bars came as a surprise — in the morning, he was still in an overcrowded prison cell.
“It feels like I jumped out of icy water into a normal, warm room, so I have to adapt. After isolation, I need to get information about what's going on,” said Bialiatski, who seemed energetic but pale and emaciated in post-release videos and photos.
He vowed to continue his work, stressing that “more than a thousand political prisoners in Belarus remain behind bars simply because they chose freedom. And, of course, I am their voice.”
Kolesnikova, meanwhile, was a key figure in the mass protests that rocked Belarus in 2020, and is a close ally of an opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Known for her close-cropped hair and trademark gesture of forming a heart with her hands, Kolesnikova became an even greater symbol of resistance when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her in September 2020. Driven to the Ukrainian border, she briefly broke away from security forces at the frontier, tore up her passport and walked back into Belarus.
The 43-year-old professional flutist was convicted in 2021 on charges including conspiracy to seize power and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Among the others who were released, according to Viasna, was Viktar Babaryka — an opposition figure who had sought to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, widely seen as rigged, before being convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges he rejected as political.
Viasna reported that the group's imprisoned advocates, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich, and prominent opposition figure Maxim Znak were also freed. But it later said it was clarifying its report about Stefanovic's release, and Bialiatski told the AP that Stefanovic had not been freed, though he hopes he will be soon.
Most of them were brought into Ukraine, Franak Viachorka, Tsikhanouskaya's senior adviser, told the AP.
“I think Lukashenko decided to deport people to Ukraine to show that he is in control of the situation,” Viachorka said.
Eight or nine others, including Bialiatski, were being sent to Lithuania on Saturday, and more prisoners will be taken to the Baltic country in the next few days, Viachorka said.
Ukrainian authorities confirmed that Belarus handed over 114 civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said five of them were Ukrainian nationals.
Freed Belarusian nationals “at their request” and “after being given necessary medical treatment” will be taken to Poland and Lithuania, Ukrainian authorities said.
When US officials last met with Lukashenko in September, Washington said it was easing some of the sanctions against Belarus. Minsk, meanwhile, released more than 50 political prisoners into Lithuania, pushing the number of prisoners it had freed since July 2024 past the 430 mark.
“The freeing of political prisoners means that Lukashenko understands the pain of Western sanctions and is seeking to ease them,” Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition leader in exile, told the AP on Saturday.
Belarus pardons scores of prisoners ‘at the request' of Trump, Lukashenko says
She added: “But let's not be naive: Lukashenko hasn't changed his policies, his crackdown continues and he keeps on supporting Russia's war against Ukraine. That's why we need to be extremely cautious with any talk of sanctions relief, so that we don't reinforce Russia's war machine and encourage continued repressions.”
Tsikhnouskaya also described European Union sanctions against Belarusian potash fertilizers as far more painful for Minsk that those imposed by the US, saying that while easing US sanctions could lead to the release of political prisoners, European sanctions should push for longterm, systemic changes in Belarus and the end of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Belarus, which previously accounted for about 20% of global potash fertilizer exports, has faced sharply reduced shipments since Western sanctions targeted state producer Belaruskali and cut off transit through Lithuania's Klaipeda port, the country's main export route.
“Sanctions by the U.S., EU and their allies have significantly weakened Belarus's potash industry, depriving the country of a key source of foreign exchange earnings and access to key markets,” Anastasiya Luzgina, an analyst at the Belarusian Economic Research Center BEROC, told AP.
“Minsk hopes that lifting U.S. sanctions on potash will pave the way for easing more painful European sanctions; at the very least, U.S. actions will allow discussions to begin,” she said.
The latest round of US-Belarus talks also touched on Venezuela, as well as Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Belta reported.
Coale told reporters that Lukashenko had given “good advice” on how to address the Ukraine war, saying that Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin were “longtime friends” with “the necessary level of relationship to discuss such issues.”
“Naturally, President Putin may accept some advice and not others,” Coale said.
The US official told the AP that “continued progress in U.S.-Belarus relations” also requires steps to resolve tensions between Belarus and neighboring Lithuania, which is a member of the EU and NATO.
The Lithuanian government this week declared a national emergency over security risks posed by meteorological balloons sent from Belarus.
The balloons forced Lithuania to repeatedly shut down its main airport, stranding thousands of people. Earlier this year, Lithuania temporarily closed its border with Belarus, and Belarusian authorities responded by threatening to seize up to 1,200 Lithuanian trucks they said were stuck in Belarus.
The US official said improving ties between US and Belarus will require “positive action to stop the release of smuggling balloons from Belarus that affect Lithuanian airspace and resolve the impoundment of Lithuanian trucks.”
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The so-called war on terror laid the foundations for Trump to turn international waters into one-sided battlefields.
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On September 2, 2025, a small fishing boat carrying 11 people was targeted by a U.S. Reaper drone off the coast of Venezuela. Hellfire missiles were fired. Two survivors clung to the wreckage. Their identities and motives were unknown. Their behavior showed no hostility. Moments later, the drone operator launched a second strike — the so-called “double tap” — killing the final survivors. This scene is shocking, but it should not be surprising to anyone who has followed the trajectory of the U.S.'s drone wars. This tactic is familiar from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and, most recently, Gaza, where the Israeli military has used much worse violence to conduct genocide.
The U.S.'s first drone strike in the Caribbean, and the footage of the incident, reignited a debate about a conflict that Washington refuses to call a war — because it isn't one. Instead, the Trump administration is using sheer violence to terrorize non-white populations and, as usual, has normalized lethal force far from declared battlefields and without any legal mandate.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved at least 21 additional strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September, killing at least 87 people. He has aggressively defended the very first operation, insisting he would have authorized the second strike as well — despite claiming he did not see it. Hegseth even misinterpreted the visible smoke on the video as the “fog of war,” seemingly unaware that the term refers to uncertainty in conflict, not the physical aftermath of a missile strike.
The details matter because they reveal something essential: the senior leadership overseeing these operations does not appear interested in the law, accuracy, or the basic meaning of proportionality. Instead, it has embraced escalation and mass murder as official policy.
Almost all legal experts agree that the U.S. strikes in the Caribbean violate international law. The Trump administration claims that suspected smugglers are “narco-terrorists” and therefore legitimate targets. But as Khalil Dewan, a legal scholar at London's School of Oriental and African Studies who has studied U.S. and British drone programs for years, told me: “Drug trafficking is a crime, not an armed conflict.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved at least 21 additional strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September, killing at least 87 people.
International law permits lethal force outside war zones only to prevent imminent threats to life. There is no indication that any of the boats the U.S. targeted — including the one in the September 2 video — posed such a threat. Dewan is clear: these are extrajudicial killings taking place on the high seas.
Former Air Force drone technician Lisa Ling, who left the program under the Obama administration due to the civilian casualties she witnessed, shares the same assessment. “Suspicion of smuggling is not an imminent threat. Even if known traffickers were on board, it would not give the military the authority to launch missiles at a civilian vessel,” she told me. Ling emphasizes a point that U.S. officials seem intent on ignoring: The Caribbean is not a war zone.
Ling also raises a question the military prefers not to confront: Who bears responsibility? “We were taught to disobey unlawful orders,” she said. “I'm still waiting to see that principle applied to those who carried out strikes on civilian boats in international waters.”
The U.S. drone program did not begin with Trump. Its first lethal strike took place on October 7, 2001, in Kandahar province, targeting Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar. It missed and killed civilians instead. That pattern — high-value targets declared dead, only to reappear alive — became common. Figures like Osama bin Laden's number-two Ayman al-Zawahiri and Sirajuddin Haqqani were repeatedly targeted with drone strikes, many of which killed civilians, only to reemerge alive.
What happens in the Caribbean today is not an anomaly. It is the outcome of two decades of policy decisions made by presidents of both parties.
As these failures accumulated, the program expanded geographically. Under George W. Bush, the CIA and U.S. military conducted strikes not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — countries that were never formally declared war zones. The Bush administration embedded the idea that the “war on terror” should have no borders.
But many of the most consequential shifts happened under Barack Obama. He dramatically expanded covert operations, particularly in the Horn of Africa, and added other parts of the continent to the target map. Somalia is still being drone bombed by the U.S. today. The definition of a “combatant” widened beyond recognition. A 2012 New York Times investigation revealed that the Obama administration considered every “military-age male” near a strike zone to be an enemy fighter unless proven otherwise — an inversion of the most basic principles of civilian protection.
In fact, the prime example of this inhumane practice was the murder of a U.S. citizen himself: In October 2011, 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. After his death, Obama's press secretary blamed Abdulrahman's father, alleged al-Qaeda militant (and also a U.S. citizen) Anwar al-Awlaki for the aftermath. But Anwar was killed days prior his son, and in fact, the attack against him was illegal too.
Obama also institutionalized the weekly “kill list,” which evolved into a bureaucratic process for targeted killing. Critics warned at the time that any president could inherit this system and use it with fewer constraints. Trump did exactly that.
Trump has not only expanded the use of drone strikes but also removed the few modest oversight mechanisms Obama left behind. Now, under his second administration, the U.S. is openly striking vessels in international waters with almost no pretext.
The administration's argument — that these strikes disrupt drug smuggling — collapses under scrutiny. Criminal activity does not transform international waters into battlefields, and drug runners do not become combatants simply because Washington declares them so. In fact, this is the ultimate break with decades of legal norms. Nothing comparable exists in modern international law.
For years, critics of the war on terror have warned that a globalized drone program, paired with militarized domestic security agencies, would eventually produce consequences within the Americas too. That moment is here.
At least one family in Colombia has announced legal action after a fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, disappeared at sea. At the same time, Washington claimed to have killed “three violent drug-smuggling cartel members and narco-terrorists.” Carranza leaves behind a wife and five children.
What happens in the Caribbean today is not an anomaly. It is the outcome of two decades of policy decisions made by presidents of both parties. The world was declared a battlefield long before Trump returned to office. What we are seeing now is the cost of refusing to confront that reality.
December is the most critical time of year for Truthout, because our nonprofit news is funded almost entirely by individual donations from readers like you. So before you navigate away, we ask that you take just a second to support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation.
This year is a little different. We are up against a far-reaching, wide-scale attack on press freedom coming from the Trump administration. 2025 was a year of frightening censorship, news industry corporate consolidation, and worsening financial conditions for progressive nonprofits across the board.
We can only resist Trump's agenda by cultivating a strong base of support. The right-wing mediasphere is funded comfortably by billionaire owners and venture capitalist philanthropists. At Truthout, we have you.
We've set an ambitious target for our year-end campaign — a goal of $250,000 to keep up our fight against authoritarianism in 2026. Please take a meaningful action in this fight: make a one-time or monthly donation to Truthout before December 31. If you have the means, please dig deep.
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Emran Feroz is an Afghan-Austrian journalist, writer and activist currently based in Germany. He is the founder of Drone Memorial, a virtual memorial for civilian drone strike victims.
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The U.S. lifted sanctions on Belarusian potash in exchange for the release of over 100 political prisoners in Belarus, many of whom were transferred to Ukraine.
"Per the instructions of President Trump, we, the United States, will be lifting sanctions on potash," U.S. presidential envoy to Minsk John Cole said on Dec. 13 following a meeting with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
"This is a very good step by the U.S. for Belarus," Cole said.
The move comes amid a warming of relations between Washington and Minsk and follows the lifting of sanctions on Belarus's flag carrier, Belavia, in November.
Potash is one of Belarus's key exports and its most significant mineral resource, with the state-owned producer Belaruskali ranking among the world's largest suppliers.
Cole said Washington and Minsk would continue talks on sanctions and expressed hope that other measures could eventually be lifted altogether.
The lifting of sanctions was in exchange for the release of 123 political prisoners in Belarus, which included five Ukrainian nationals, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, HUR, said in a public statement.
Of those released, 114 of them were transferred to Ukraine, including prominent opposition figures Maria Kalesnikova and Viktor Babaryka, a former presidential candidate in the disputed 2020 election, HUR said. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was also released.
"I am very happy that I am free. I understand that in order for us to be free, we had to do a lot of work. We were able to be free thanks to the efforts of many thousands of people. First of all, the American diplomats, the American government officials, who made an effort for us to be free," Bialiatski said.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was told to ask for a pardon, but declined to do so, he said, adding that he was only told of his release earlier in the day.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled Belarusian opposition leader, told journalists in Vilnius on Dec. 13 that she is still awaiting a full list of those who have been released.
Eight released political prisoners, including Bialiatski, were transferred directly to Vilnius, Lithuania, while the rest "unexpectedly" ended up in Ukraine, according to Tsikhanouskaya. She is coordinating with Polish and Ukrainian authorities to ensure the safe transfer of prisoners to the Lithuanian border, she said.
"Now we have more than 100 people in Ukraine, we will try to agree now with the Polish, Ukrainian, American, and Lithuanian blocs about further steps, so that they can all move, at least to Lithuania, to Vilnius, so that we can see them here tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But again, there is no solution yet," Tsikhanouskaya's chief political advisor, Franak Viachorka, told the Kyiv Independent.
The released prisoners were taken to Ukraine "at the very last moment" despite initial plans for all to arrive in Lithuania as Minsk's attempt "to harm people," he said, adding that Kyiv was not expecting the arrival of the released prisoners, but that they are now "secured, and they are being treated" in Ukraine.
Tatsiana Khomich, the sister of Kalesnikava, said she had spoken with her and that Kalesnikava appeared well and was now free, a Kyiv Independent journalist reported on the ground.
"We knew about the possible release for a long time," Khomich told reporters. "But as we saw recently, as well as last month, it was kind of a surprise every time who was released. And, of course, I could not believe it until now."
Khomich added that lifting sanctions on Belarusian potash in exchange for the release of political prisoners was a "fair price."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the release of Ukrainian citizens was made possible by the involvement of the U.S., as well as cooperation between Ukrainian and U.S. intelligence services.
Zelensky also said he had instructed HUR and other bodies within the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) to intensify efforts to secure the release of Ukrainian POWs before the end of the year.
Belarus is under sanctions from a number of Western countries, including the U.S., over political repression under Lukashenko's regime. The restrictions were expanded after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Minsk is a close ally of the Kremlin.
U.S. sanctions imposed on Belaruskali in 2021 forced Belarus to redirect its potash shipments via Russia, tying Minsk more closely to the Kremlin economically.
Washington previously lifted sanctions imposed in 2021 on Belarusian airline Belavia after Lukashenko released 52 political prisoners in September.
The U.S. also removed the private jet used by Lukashenko's family from its sanctions list and authorized three additional aircraft linked to Lukashenko to operate.
Tsikhanouskaya told reporters that the release of prisoners may reflect Lukashenko's desire to continue dialogue with U.S. President Donald Trump, but stressed it does not signal any fundamental change in his regime.
"Sanctions are instruments. It is leverage to make dictators do something," Tsikhanouskaya said. "Lukashenko will not release people because he somehow became humane. He wants to sell people as expensively as possible."
Tsikhanouskaya also said that the sanctions against Belarus must remain in place, adding that political repression continues.
Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, is widely seen as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory to launch attacks on Ukraine at the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022.
News Editor
contributing author
News Editor
The U.S. lifted sanctions on Belarusian potash in exchange for the release of over 100 political prisoners in Belarus, many of whom were transferred to Ukraine.
"Per the instructions of President Trump, we, the United States, will be lifting sanctions on potash," U.S. presidential envoy to Minsk John Cole said on Dec. 13 following a meeting with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
"This is a very good step by the U.S. for Belarus," Cole said.
The move comes amid a warming of relations between Washington and Minsk and follows the lifting of sanctions on Belarus's flag carrier, Belavia, in November.
Potash is one of Belarus's key exports and its most significant mineral resource, with the state-owned producer Belaruskali ranking among the world's largest suppliers.
Cole said Washington and Minsk would continue talks on sanctions and expressed hope that other measures could eventually be lifted altogether.
The lifting of sanctions was in exchange for the release of 123 political prisoners in Belarus, which included five Ukrainian nationals, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, HUR, said in a public statement.
Of those released, 114 of them were transferred to Ukraine, including prominent opposition figures Maria Kalesnikova and Viktor Babaryka, a former presidential candidate in the disputed 2020 election, HUR said. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was also released.
"I am very happy that I am free. I understand that in order for us to be free, we had to do a lot of work. We were able to be free thanks to the efforts of many thousands of people. First of all, the American diplomats, the American government officials, who made an effort for us to be free," Bialiatski said.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was told to ask for a pardon while in prison, but declined to do so, he said, adding that he was only told of his release earlier in the day.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled Belarusian opposition leader, told journalists in Vilnius on Dec. 13 that she is still awaiting a full list of those who have been released.
Eight released political prisoners, including Bialiatski, were transferred directly to Vilnius, Lithuania, while the rest "unexpectedly" ended up in Ukraine, according to Tsikhanouskaya. She is coordinating with Polish and Ukrainian authorities to ensure the safe transfer of prisoners to the Lithuanian border, she said.
"Now we have more than 100 people in Ukraine, we will try to agree now with the Polish, Ukrainian, American, and Lithuanian blocs about further steps, so that they can all move, at least to Lithuania, to Vilnius, so that we can see them here tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But again, there is no solution yet," Tsikhanouskaya's chief political advisor, Franak Viachorka, told the Kyiv Independent.
The released prisoners were taken to Ukraine "at the very last moment" despite initial plans for all to arrive in Lithuania in Minsk's attempt "to harm people," he said, adding that Kyiv was not expecting the arrival of the released prisoners, but that they are now "secured, and they are being treated" in Ukraine.
Tatsiana Khomich, the sister of Kalesnikava, said she had spoken with her and that Kalesnikava appeared well and was now free, a Kyiv Independent journalist reported on the ground.
"We knew about the possible release for a long time," Khomich told reporters. "But as we saw recently, as well as last month, it was kind of a surprise every time who was released. And, of course, I could not believe it until now."
Khomich added that lifting sanctions on Belarusian potash in exchange for the release of political prisoners was a "fair price."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the release of Ukrainian citizens was made possible by the involvement of the U.S., as well as cooperation between Ukrainian and U.S. intelligence services.
Zelensky also said he had instructed HUR and other bodies within the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) to intensify efforts to secure the release of Ukrainian POWs before the end of the year.
Belarus is under sanctions from a number of Western countries, including the U.S., over political repression under Lukashenko's regime. The restrictions were expanded after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Minsk is a close ally of the Kremlin.
U.S. sanctions imposed on Belaruskali in 2021 forced Belarus to redirect its potash shipments via Russia, tying Minsk more closely to the Kremlin economically.
Washington previously lifted sanctions imposed in 2021 on Belarusian airline Belavia after Lukashenko released 52 political prisoners in September.
The U.S. also removed the private jet used by Lukashenko's family from its sanctions list and authorized three additional aircraft linked to Lukashenko to operate.
Tsikhanouskaya told reporters that the release of prisoners may reflect Lukashenko's desire to continue dialogue with U.S. President Donald Trump, but stressed it does not signal any fundamental change in his regime.
"Sanctions are instruments. It is leverage to make dictators do something," Tsikhanouskaya said. "Lukashenko will not release people because he somehow became humane. He wants to sell people as expensively as possible."
Tsikhanouskaya also said that the sanctions against Belarus must remain in place, adding that political repression continues.
Former election staff coordinator to Babaryka, Ivan Kravtsov, expressed hope that the release of political prisoners is a step in the right direction.
"I hope that we will come pretty soon to the point when there will be zero political prisoners in the country. Because it is absolutely logical that if Lukashenko, on his part, expects normalization of relations with the West, then there should not be political prisoners. I think we will come to this," he said.
Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, is widely seen as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory to launch attacks on Ukraine at the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022.
News Editor
contributing author
News Editor
Veja doesn't do surveys or freebies, hates greenwashing and Black Friday, and as demand for trainers wanes, it continues to go its own way
In the grand hierarchy of Paris fashion, it's tricky for a brand to stand out. Especially one whose coup de maître is a goes-with-everything white sneaker. Yet 20 years after Veja first began selling sustainable footwear, it has become the ultimate affordable It brand for scooter-wielding mums, sustainably minded millennials and A-list bigwigs who want to wear their values on their ethical leather-clad feet.
Veja's co-founder Sébastien Kopp says he doesn't know if people buy his trainers because of how they are made or because of how they look. The company is fastidious about social and fairtrade practices, “but because we don't do surveys, we don't do marketing, we simply don't know this information”, he says, speaking from Veja's Paris headquarters.
It also doesn't do freebies. When the actor Emma Watson wanted a pair, she did what no celebrity has ever done, “and she bought”. So did Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. “I received an email from the [palace] asking about them, but I thought it was fake so I didn't reply.”
The actor Marion Cotillard once listedit as a favourite brand alongside Valentino and Alexander McQueen, and it's been reported that the company even received a request from the maximalist costume department of Emily in Paris (on this, Veja prefers not to comment).
What Veja does know is that it has sold almost 15m pairs worldwide. Its success hinges on several factors. Like a Daunts tote bag, or even a Labubu, branded accessories have become material signals of taste or interest, a way of wearing your values.
“The Veja V tells the world this trainer is responsibly designed and produced, and that you care about that,” says Ima Shah, the director at the trend forecasting site Stylus. Fashion helped, too. Oversized clothing is popular right now, but inherently casual. “Big trousers and big shoes don't work. A sharper shoe formalises that look – it smartens it,” she says.
Veja makes sports shoes, but the earlier models, which are most popular, are in effect trainers for people who don't want to wear trainers.
Still, these are strange times for shoes. Of the 23bn shoes produced each year, about 60% are trainers. But according to Katy Lubin, the vice-president of brand and communications at the fashion marketplace Lyst, “demand for sneakers is currently down around 30% year on year”. The trend forecasting agency WGSN said sneakers were projected to decline next year, too. People wants boots and loafers, says Lubin.
It doesn't help that right now, no sneaker style dominates. Earlier this year, the New York Times declared the end of the dad trainer, but according to Lyst, the paternally shaped New Balance 204L is one of the hottest trainers of the year.
Gen Z are wearing slimline shoes such as Puma Speedcats, whereas millennials, such as Chanel's creative director, Matthieu Blazy, are still wearing Nikes (Blazy wore his for his debut Chanel bow).
On the catwalk you'll see Asics at Cecilie Bahnsen, and Prada went so far as to design its own. And despite Rishi Sunak's best efforts, even the Adidas Samba is back from the dead.
Yet the white sneaker prevails. The most popular Veja sneaker, according to Lyst, is the Campo. As spare and elegant as its noughties predecessor, the Stan Smith, much like the “quiet luxury” trend and no-makeup makeup, its blankness is also its appeal. The main difference is its customer.
“Stan Smiths are comparable, yes, but have always skewed younger,” says Shah. While Stan Smith had cultural cache – Jay-Z once rapped about them – “Veja's values are more linked to responsible purchasing rather than trends.” It helps, too, that they're French, which grants them a certain chicness.
Until 1980, Veja's Paris headquarters were the French Communist party's printing building. Updated with a poured concrete floor and a Bauhaus-esque staircase, it has a vegetarian canteen, although like some of its shoes, even that used to be vegan.
Veja began phasing out vegan sneakers because “the more we looked at leather, the more we realised natural materials have better traceability”, Kopp says. Vegan leather is often just polyester or plastic. “I know Stella McCartney is an icon [in the UK] but the vegan PVC shoes. For me? Non.” As for the canteen, it stopped being vegan because the staff supposedly missed cheese.
Kopp launched the brand with his childhood friend François-Ghislain Morillion – they both worked in finance – after noticing a lack of shoes that advocated ethical practice and traceability in their production process. The company now employs 500 people and has produced 14m pairs of sneakers, reaching the commerciality and ubiquity it once arguably resisted.
The sticking point with the ideal sustainability model – which advocates a “don't make, don't buy, don't throw anything away approach” – is that there are also jobs at stake. For this reason, Kopp thinks the issue is consumer moments such as Black Friday. “It creates an economy and a mindset that is not good.” Veja does not participate. The company's website discloses the contracts of its producers and wages of the factory workers.
Greenwashing is also a problem, says Kopp. “The word recycling has been co-opted,” he says. This is particularly true in footwear where a single pair of sneakers can contain up to 40 different materials.
“This is not just hard to recycle, it's virtually impossible,” says Daniel Schmitt, Veja's head of repair operations. For this reason, it now runs several cobblers, the idea being that one pair can be recycled – “or reborn”, says Schmitt – up to five times.
As the global capital of swank, recycling is not something you associate with Paris fashion. But nor is fast fashion and yet last month, Shein opened a shop in the French capital. “It's not crazy at all,” Kopp says. There is Primark, there is Zara. Nobody can stop or is really trying to stop consumption.”
That its practices “show what's fine with our supply chain and what's wrong with the supply chains of others” is just how it goes. “We are the grandfathers of this industry, we are from another era,” Kopp says.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and federal officers detain a migrant as he walks out from a hearing during targeted detainment at a U.S. immigration court in New York City, U.S., October 27.David Dee Delgado/Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump is expanding his crackdown on foreign nationals, announcing a series of measures that would further limit legal immigration and make it harder to visit the country as a tourist.
Mr. Trump has frozen all asylum applications, shut down immigration from 19 countries and promised to review cases of people who have already received asylum, after last month's arrest of an Afghan national in the killing of a National Guard member and critical wounding of another.
This week, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a proposal to oblige citizens of 42 countries in a U.S. visa-waiver program – including Britian, France and Australia – to submit five years' worth of social-media activity and the addresses of family members before entering the U.S.
The administration is also continuing its steady rollback of temporary protected status, signalling Friday that Ethiopian citizens will be the next group to lose the designation.
While Mr. Trump has mostly focused his immigration clampdown and rhetoric on those who entered the country illegally, the recent moves represent a sweeping effort to also curb those trying to come to the U.S. lawfully.
Opinion: Donald Trump has taken the mask off about immigrants in the U.S.
At a congressional hearing this week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem doubled down on Mr. Trump's promise to roll back humanitarian parole, which has allowed people potentially vulnerable to persecution to come to the U.S.
“Millions more in our country were exploited and were brought in under parole programs without even basic vetting,” during Joe Biden's presidency, she said.
At the hearing, of the House committee on Homeland Security, Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, suggested that the administration aims to deport everyone who entered the U.S. under parole programs during Mr. Biden's time in office.
“We simply cannot go back and retroactively vet these millions of folks who came in under Joe Biden. We have to locate them, and we have to deport them as soon as we possibly can,” he said.
Mr. Kent indicated that “2-to-2.7-million folks from Muslim countries” who entered the U.S. during that time are of particular concern.
In a series of reports, the Office of Inspector General, a U.S. government oversight body, found gaps in the screening of Afghans who came in under the 2021 program. But it did not find that there was no vetting and, earlier this year, lauded the FBI for screening Afghans for potential national-security threats.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the 29-year-old Afghan accused in the National Guard shooting case, is a former member of an Afghan counterterrorism unit that worked with the CIA. He came to the U.S. in 2021 under a Biden administration parole program and was granted asylum this year under the Trump administration.
Opinion: The mental health crisis among Afghan refugees is no longer simmering beneath the surface
In the wake of the shooting, Mr. Trump announced that the U.S. would indefinitely pause the immigration process for everyone from any of the 19 countries he had already placed under a travel ban. These include Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Haiti, Venezuela, Somalia and Cuba. This blocks anyone from these places from applying for asylum, a green card, work permits or any other form of immigration.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also stopped all processing of asylum claims from all countries. And the administration has floated reopening the cases of people already granted asylum or refugee status.
Anam Petit, a Virginia-based immigration lawyer, said the U.S. government currently doesn't have the bandwidth to handle everything the administration is proposing. Both the departments of State and Homeland Security are involved in processing cases, while the Department of Justice adjudicates deportation requests. They already face backlogs that mean cases can take years to complete.
“All of these different departments and systems are implicated by the sweeping changes this administration is making. All of them would need to increase their resources, their personnel, their budget to still be able to adjudicate cases in a way that doesn't result in a black hole or a crazy backlog,” said Ms. Petit.
Ms. Petit was one of nearly 100 immigration judges fired by the Trump administration this year, adding further delays. There are currently nearly four million deportation cases pending in court, plus more than 11 million cases being decided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration.
More Canadians, including children, detained in U.S. for immigration violations, new data show
This week, Homeland Security published the proposed rule change for citizens of the 42 visa-waiver countries. In addition to social-media history, it would require them to give the U.S. government every e-mail address and phone number used in the past decade.
The list includes most European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. Canadian citizens, who are under a different visa-free entry policy, would not be affected. The department is currently gathering feedback on the rule.
On Friday, Ms. Noem issued a draft decision that, when published officially, will take away temporary protected status for people from Ethiopia. Over the past year, the administration has already ended it for nationals from Haiti, Venezuela, Myanmar, South Sudan and Syria.
Hidetaka Hirota, an immigration historian at the University of California, Berkeley, said Mr. Trump's country-specific restrictions resemble U.S. policies from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
He pointed to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; the Immigration Act of 1917, which barred immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and most other parts of Asia; and the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited immigration from Italy, Greece and Eastern European countries.
It was not until 1965 that the U.S. abolished these country-based quotas.
“The core concept here is the racial hierarchy of desirability. Some immigrants are more welcome than others and some immigrants are more undesirable than others,” Prof. Hirota said.
At a rally this week, Mr. Trump lamented that too many immigrants to the U.S. come from African countries and not enough from Nordic ones.
“Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden,” he said. “But we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case of a Christian baker in California who was prosecuted for declining to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage celebration.
MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. Europe and the United States are increasingly at odds over the Ukraine peace process; Donald Trump insists on elections in Ukraine; and EU countries are sharply divided over whether and how to use frozen Russian assets to fund Kiev. These stories topped Wednesday's newspaper headlines across Russia.
A rift between Ukraine's allies – the United States on one side and Europe on the other – has grown markedly wider. Kiev and Brussels have effectively spurned the key provision of the US peace plan, declaring that Ukraine will not agree to territorial concessions, and are now preparing their own version of the document for Washington. Meanwhile, Europeans are clearly seeking to stall any settlement, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia.
Europe is not striving for any kind of peace, Director of the Department of European Cooperation at the Russian Foreign Ministry Vladislav Maslennikov told Izvestia. "They are plainly pursuing the goal of dragging out the settlement. This has long been evident to everyone," he said.
This realization is gradually reaching the United States as well. Washington has come to understand what the Zelensky regime represents and what Europeans truly seek, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov told Izvestia.
"Europeans want, under the cover of the Americans, to inflict a strategic defeat on us at any cost. But Trump is categorically opposed to this, because in addition to the high costs of supporting the Ukrainians in this confrontation, a powerful wave of instability is emerging. It seems to me that the Americans have understood this, and they too have become deeply disappointed in Europe," he said.
At the same time, the EU is still searching for funds to support Kiev. The bloc's member states are close to approving a decision on frozen Russian assets by qualified majority. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Izvestia that this would entail serious consequences for the countries involved, as well as for legal entities and individuals.
Washington will continue to press Brussels on reaching a peace agreement for Ukraine, Dmitry Novikov, Head of the Laboratory of Political Geography and Contemporary Geopolitics at the Higher School of Economics told the newspaper.
"On one side, there is military pressure from Russia; on the other, political pressure from the United States. Europe cannot confront both simultaneously. The EU must provide Ukraine with military assistance to contain Russia's military pressure, and economic assistance to contain US political pressure. Europe simply does not have such capacity at present," the expert said.
It is time for Ukraine to hold elections, US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Politico published on December 9. In the same interview, the American president once again stressed that Russia continues to maintain the initiative on the battlefield. Trump also did not spare his European allies, noting that they are failing to cope with many issues and are not pursuing the right course when it comes to the Ukrainian settlement, Vedomosti writes.
Trump wants by all possible means to push Vladimir Zelensky toward concessions in the settlement process, Pavel Koshkin, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Vedomosti. The expert explained that the current statements about elections are a logical extension of Trump's recent comments expressing dissatisfaction that Zelensky had not reviewed the US package of proposals for a settlement. But this is not the only factor.
"Trump understands that the ambiguity surrounding Zelensky's legal status creates a range of challenges for negotiations, and therefore wants to resolve this issue somehow," Koshkin said.
He noted that Trump would accept the election victory of either Zelensky or any other Ukrainian politician, because for him the paramount goal is to secure negotiations on terms he considers fitting.
Trump's remarks on elections amount to a "black mark" for Zelensky from the American president, political scientist and US specialist Malek Dudakov told the newspaper. As the US sees it, Ukraine's refusal to hold elections effectively turns it into an autocracy, which harms its international image, the expert stressed. In this regard, Dudakov does not rule out that the Americans may seek to replace Zelensky.
At the same time, the expert noted that, given Zelensky's and his circle's apparent unwillingness to relinquish power, the conflict between them and Trump will only intensify.
Governments in the Nordic European countries are increasingly concerned that they are allocating far more financial assistance to the Ukrainian side than other partners, Izvestia writes. The leaders of seven EU member states have already sent a letter to Ursula von der Leyen urging her to accelerate the decision-making process on the so-called "reparation loan" funded by Russian assets – a mechanism that has been widely highlighted in recent media reports.
Northern European governments are growing irritated by the fact that they are providing Ukraine with more support than other EU countries, The Economist reported. The publication also noted that last week Berlin provided Kiev with around €100 mln to revive its energy infrastructure, while the Dutch authorities added another €250 mln for arms procurement.
The article further stated that the question of the EU's use of Russian assets has become the main test of Europe's resolve. According to The Economist, the confiscation of these funds could trigger a deep internal rift within the bloc. A decision on whether to use these assets – and, as the publication noted, whether to approve the proposal – will be made at the European Council summit scheduled for December 18.
Maria Khorolskaya, Candidate of Political Sciences and Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told Izvestia that on the one hand, Berlin understands that Ukraine's economy is virtually unsustainable without its support, but on the other, it is becoming increasingly worried about the shift in US President Donald Trump's stance on the matter.
"German political elites understand that without external financing, Ukraine will struggle to maintain basic functionality. At present, Germany is particularly concerned because of the evolving US position on assistance to Ukraine," the expert explained.
Pavel Timofeev, Head of the Section for Regional Problems and Conflicts at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told Izvestia that President Emmanuel Macron's government does not want the discussion of loans for Ukraine to focus specifically on the Russian funds held in France. This reluctance, he said, stems from two factors: reputational and economic.
"First, Macron understands that the reputational risks of such an operation are extremely high. <…> Second, Paris is concerned about the French economy, which is experiencing a difficult period and requires assurances of stability for investors and bank depositors," the expert concluded.
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has been removed from the list of prospective members of US President Donald Trump's not-yet-established "Board of Peace'" for administering the Gaza Strip, following objections raised by Arab and Muslim states. The board is expected to be created during the second stage of the ceasefire to oversee an independent technocratic government in the enclave – one without participation from the Hamas Islamist movement – that likewise still needs to be formed. The composition, clearly defined functions, and structure of these new bodies remain unclear. Experts interviewed by Vedomosti argue that the board is unlikely to succeed in Gaza without a durable ceasefire and is set to face profound legitimacy challenges among Palestinians.
Trump announced that the peace process in Gaza would move into its next phase by the end of December, Axios reported.
Despite being excluded from the list of contenders, Blair may still retain a role in future administrative structures for Gaza, including on an executive committee alongside Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, US envoy Steve Witkoff, and senior officials from Arab and Western countries, a source told the Financial Times.
Although Blair has a poor reputation among the populations of Arab states, he has extensive experience in Middle Eastern affairs and a deep understanding of regional dynamics, Kamran Hasanov, political scientist at the University of Salzburg, told Vedomosti. Moreover, the expert continued, the former prime minister maintains close contacts with Trump's Middle East advisers as well as with the governments of wealthy Arab monarchies, which is why Trump initially put Blair forward for the board.
The prospects for the board in Gaza are uncertain, Hasanov believes. First, before it can be launched, the region must achieve at least a durable ceasefire backed by a mechanism for monitoring compliance – something that currently does not exist. Second, Palestinians are unlikely to accept an external governing authority over themselves in its proposed form. Moreover, from its earliest days, the board risks facing a serious crisis of legitimacy among the local population, making it highly challenging for it to operate effectively, the expert stressed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has authorized the joint venture between Rosneft and Shell to conduct transactions involving its stake in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). The decision paves the way for the JV's potential withdrawal from the project, although any such operations will remain contingent on the positions of the United States, Kazakhstan, and Western shareholders. Experts interviewed by Kommersant suggest that Kazakhstan may have pressed for the JV's exit from CPC's shareholder structure out of concern that 80% of its oil exports could be disrupted.
At the end of October, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, restricting their subsidiaries in which they directly or indirectly own more than 50%. In November, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a general license authorizing certain operations related to the CPC, though not the sale or transfer of equity stakes in the consortium.
According to Shell's latest report and Rosneft's earlier disclosures, the partners hold 49% and 51% of the joint venture, respectively. Because Rosneft continues to control the JV, it is classified under OFAC rules as a subsidiary of a sanctioned entity, meaning that transactions with it are prohibited without an OFAC license, Natalia Strelkova, consultant at the law firm Kamenskaya & Partners, told Kommersant. Senior attorney Ekaterina Tumanova from Kulkov, Kolotilov & Partners believes that US government approval may be required – something she considers "quite likely from a political viewpoint."
The presidential decree primarily creates a legal path for Shell to exit the project without being constrained by Russian domestic restrictions, managing partner at Kasatkin Consulting Dmitry Kasatkin noted.
According to analyst Natalia Milchakova, Kazakh authorities may have asked the JV to withdraw from CPC's capital structure out of fear that the pipeline could fall under secondary sanctions, effectively halting 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports. She did not rule out that the deal may have been discussed by the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan during the latter's recent visit to Moscow.
Losing a stake in the CPC is strategically painful but not financially crippling for Rosneft, head of the analytical department at investment company Rikom-Trust Oleg Abelev believes.
TASS is not responsible for the material quoted in these press reviews
For decades, reducing salt intake has been promoted as a cornerstone of healthy living. Many opt for a low-sodium diet and cook with only a pinch of salt. However, salt isn't just a seasoning—it's an essential mineral the body relies on to maintain both physiological and energetic balance.
MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has called European authorities "thimbleriggers" following the decision to freeze Russian assets for an indefinite term.
"Thimbleriggers," she told TASS when asked to comment on the decision by the Council of the European Union on the indefinite freeze of Russian sovereign assets.
According to the European Commission's plan, the indefinite asset freeze is the first stage in the expropriation of Russian assets under the guise of a reparations loan scheme for Kiev.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)
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.
“This is an ISIS attack,” the American president told reporters at the White House before departing for the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore.
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. AP's earlier story follows below.
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.
The attack on U.S. troops in Syria is the first to inflict fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.
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. He said the attack targeted soldiers involved in the on-going counter-terrorism operations in the region and is under active investigation.
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. The casualties were taken by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.
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. He denied reports that suggested that the attacker was a security member.
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 U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. 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.
____
Mroue reported from Beirut and Seung Min Kim from Washington.
___
An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect reference to Iraq.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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.
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A sign on a road off of U.S. Highway 75 welcomes motorists to the Prairie Band Potawatomi reservation, outside Mayetta, Kan., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
MAYETTA, Kan. (AP) — The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, whose ancestors were uprooted by the U.S. from the Great Lakes region in the 1830s, are facing outrage from fellow Native Americans over plans to profit from another forced removal: President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign.
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.
The criticism has been so intense that the 4,500-member tribe said it fired the economic development leaders who brokered the deal.
“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. “We are brown and they're brown.”
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. “We were placed here because we were prisoners of war. 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. With some Native Americans being swept up and detained in recent raids, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's overtures to tribes and even longstanding deals are generating extra scrutiny.
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.
Some tribal nations have advised their citizens to carry tribal IDs.
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. It previously qualified along with dozens of other companies to provide logistical support to the U.S. Navy although, to date, it hasn't performed any work for the federal government.
The ICE contract initially was awarded in October for $19 million for unspecified “due diligence and concept designs” for processing centers and detention centers throughout the U.S., according to a one-sentence description of the work on the federal government's real time contracting database. It was modified a month later to increase the payout ceiling to $29.9 million. 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.
“The public's trust in the federal procurement system depends on transparency and competition,” said Schnell. “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.”
It's unclear what the Tribal Council knew about the contract. 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 website described Woodward as a serial entrepreneur and tribal adviser on mergers and acquisitions, accessing capital and landing federal contracts. 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.
Attempts to locate Woodward were unsuccessful. 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.
—-
Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas, and Goodman from Miami. Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
NEW YORK (AP) — Peter Greene, a character actor best known for his role as the iconic villain Zed in “Pulp Fiction,” has died. He was 60.
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. “Just the nicest man.”
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"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.
AMERICA'S 'CAST IRON COWBOY' REVEALS WHY TRADITIONAL SKILLETS REMAIN THE ULTIMATE COOKING TOOL
"When [the weather] begins to cool off, I begin to have a hankering for chili," Rollins said. "But this is not just your ordinary chili. This is bison chili."
The meal was featured in a recent episode of "Cast Iron Cowboy," which has been renewed for a second season.
"Cowboy" Kent Rollins of New Mexico holds a bowl of his homemade bison chili. (Shannon Rollins)
"There's not a lot of fat in the meat that's in here," he said.
Rollins begins by browning two pounds of ground bison with diced yellow onion.
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He then adds Ro-Tel tomatoes with green chilies, tomato sauce, jalapeños, adobo sauce and his own chili seasoning. He also adds beans.
"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. (Shannon Rollins)
It's a simple one-pot meal, but it carries the weight of cowboy history.
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.
MOM'S UNEXPECTED SECRET CHILI INGREDIENT LEAVES MILLIONS OF TIKTOK VIEWERS DIVIDED: 'ABSOLUTELY NOT'
"This is a frontier cowboy Western heritage meal classic," Rollins said. "It's always been around."
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. (Shannon Rollins)
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.
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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. (Shannon Rollins)
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.
"It holds heat well. So, really, you're saving money. You can turn that burner down. You're going to keep that simmer going most of the day, with a really low heat on cast iron."
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Despite the frontier flair, Rollins insists cowboy cooking is for everyone.
"You can cook anything I ever cooked in my life — in the house, outside, on top of the house, in the barn," he said. It's "all simple" and "all easy."
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"That's what life is about for us and that's what cooking is," he said.
"Because you can't get full-on fancy."
Peter Burke is a lifestyle editor with Fox News Digital. He covers various lifestyle topics, with an emphasis on food and drink.
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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.
Are these people undereducated? No.
No access to ChatGPT or the internet? No.
Having massive garnishments taken from their paychecks? No.
So how does a six-figure household fall so far behind while making so much money today in America?
HAMBURGER HELPER SALES SURGE AS AMERICANS TIGHTEN BUDGETS AND SEEK CHEAP, FILLING MEALS
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.
1. No Spending Plan. Just Spending
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:
"I've earned this. I deserve this. I can buy what I want."
"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? Sure.
Holiday trip to Europe in peak season? Why not?
Designer clothes on sale? Grab them before they disappear.
The problem: there's no measurement system and nobody on the internet shares their net worth.
No budget.
No tracking.
No responsibility.
Most six-figure earners who feel broke simply cannot tell you where the money goes. Because, the truth is almost all of it goes out the door.
2. The Pay Yourself Last Rule
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.
3. 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. Pride keeps many from getting the help they need until the problem becomes unmanageable.
4. 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.
5. The Planning Gap Is Real
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.
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That's not a coincidence.
Planning produces clarity.
Clarity produces discipline.
Discipline produces wealth.
The Bottom Line
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.
That's not inflation.
That's not politics.
That's a warning.
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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.
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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! Indiana, which I won big, is the only state in the Union to do this!”
Trump previously indicated he would help primary anti-redistricting Indiana Republicans if the new map didn't pass. Out of 40 Republicans, 21 joined all 10 Democrats in the state's 50-seat upper chamber in rejecting the measure on Thursday.
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. Reps. Andre Carson (D-IN) and Frank Mrvan (D-IN) are the two sole Democrats in the state's congressional delegation.
Trump was disappointed by the outcome of the vote after the White House pressured Indiana Republicans in the state legislature to get behind his nationwide redistricting push. The Indiana House supported the bill last week before the Indiana Senate struck it down.
The president insisted he “wasn't very much involved” in the redistricting pressure campaign while again taking aim at Bray.
“You had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess, Bray, whatever his name is. I heard he was against it,” Trump said. “He'll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does, because he's done a tremendous disservice.”
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.
INDIANA GOVERNOR VOWS TO PRIMARY REPUBLICANS WHO VOTED AGAINST REDISTRICTING — BUT IT WON'T BE EASY
Siding with Trump on the redistricting issue, Gov. 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. “Ultimately, decisions like this carry political consequences. I will be working with the President to challenge these people who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers.”
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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.
“We would've made it work, but it would've been difficult,” Wildau told CNN. “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 Wildaus are among the first families to benefit from the New Mexico program, which took effect on November 1 — the state is the first to offer free child care to nearly all families, regardless of income or immigration status. Emily works for a nonprofit that helped the state design the program but said she was not involved.
The shift comes amid rising affordability concerns and soaring child care costs across the nation. 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. Now the program is open to everyone.
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. Additionally, there are 1,351 providers accepting the child care assistance subsidy, or 85% of all eligible providers.
Critics are worried about funding the program in the long term. It is expected to carry an annual price tag of roughly $600 million, according to the ECECD. 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
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said the program is an investment in the state's workforce and economic health. New Mexico aims to add 1,000 registered child care homes, 120 licensed homes and 55 licensed centers to support 12,000 more children. Licensed homes can care for more children than child care homes but must meet more regulatory requirements.
The success of the program rests largely on having enough qualified workers. 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.
The state estimates that an additional 5,000 early childhood professionals are needed to operate the program.
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 increased wage could mean a salary as high as $39,250 a year. 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. “It's just not going to work.”
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. Does that mean free? In my opinion, no,” said Dow, a Republican.
America faces an affordability crisis. Here's how 27 experts say they'd fix it
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. “Universal child care means more families can access daycare, more parents can return to work, and more kids can start school earlier and get excited about learning. That can shape education outcomes for life.”
CNN's Alicia Wallace contributed reporting.
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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. They vote Democrat, they vote Republican. They don't all vote, but they might vote if they knew that someone supported their collective bargaining rights."
Golden introduced his bill in April and a companion was brought forward in the Senate in September. 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.
MODERATE REPUBLICANS STAGE OBAMACARE REBELLION AS HEALTH COST FRUSTRATIONS ERUPT IN HOUSE
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)
"I didn't talk to her last night, but I'm really glad to see her on. It's not a surprise to me. 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.
He did say he spoke with "a few" senators after the bill passed but added, "the real push is gonna be coming in the days and weeks ahead."
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. It's important to do it in a way that's bipartisan, to create space for members of both parties to work together," Golden said. "I made sure all along that the Republican co-sponsors of the bill were comfortable with our messaging and also the steps that we were taking, so it's gonna need to be just like that in the Senate, too."
Golden said he expected more Republican senators to sign on in the coming days.
Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, attends a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, July 17, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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."
58 HOUSE DEMS VOTE AGAINST RESOLUTION HONORING 'LIFE AND LEGACY' OF CHARLIE KIRK
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. He said in a statement to Fox News Digital, "The bipartisan momentum in the House only strengthens our hand in the Senate, and I intend to build on it."
Chair Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, prepares for a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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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.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
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What if the best use of AI is restarting the world's idea machine?
America, you have spoken loud and clear: You do not like AI.
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. In another poll, only 2 percent — 2 percent! — of respondents said they fully trust AI's capability to make fair and unbiased decisions, while 60 percent somewhat or fully distrusted it. Standing athwart the development of AI and yelling “Stop!” is quickly emerging as one of the most popular positions on both ends of the political spectrum.
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Putting aside the fact that Americans sure are actually using AI all the time, these fears are understandable. We hear that AI is stealing our electricity, stealing our jobs, stealing our vibes, and if you believe the warnings of prominent doomers, potentially even stealing our future. We're being inundated with AI slop — now with Disney characters! 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.
Our contradictory feelings are captured in the chart of the year from the Dallas Fed forecasting how AI might affect the economy in the future:
Red line: AI singularity and near-infinite money. Purple line: AI-driven total human extinction and, uh, zero money.
But I believe part of the reason we find AI so disquieting is that the disquieting uses — around work, education, relationships — are the ones that have gotten most of the attention, while pro-social uses of AI that could actually help address major problems tend to go under the radar. 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.
But before I get there, here's the bad news: There's growing evidence that humanity is generating fewer new ideas. 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. We have to row harder just to stay in the same place.
Inside science, the pattern looks similar. 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. Then there's the demographic crunch: New ideas come from people, so fewer people eventually means fewer ideas. 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. AlphaFold even earned the ultimate stamp of science approval when it won the 2024 Nobel Prize for chemistry. (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.)
Or take material science, ie., the science of stuff. 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. That represented hundreds of years worth of discovery in one shot. 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. That's addition, not replacement.
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. The system actually orchestrates the robots that mix chemicals and collect data. 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. Remember that problem about how there's simply too much data and too many papers for any scientists to process? This year FutureHouse launched a platform with four specialized agents designed to clear that bottleneck: Crow for general scientific Q&A, Falcon for deep literature reviews, Owl for “has anyone done X before?” cross-checking, and Phoenix for chemistry workflows like synthesis planning. 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. The system read the literature, proposed a mechanism for the condition that involved many long words I can't begin to spell, identified the glaucoma drug ripasudil as a candidate for a repurposed treatment, and then designed and analyzed follow-up experiments that supported its hypothesis — all with humans executing the lab work and, especially, double-checking the outputs.
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.
Even if the global population plateaus and the US keeps making it harder for scientists to immigrate, abundant AI-for-science effectively increases the number of “minds” working on hard problems. 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. The same tools that can accelerate vaccine design can, in principle, accelerate research on pathogens and chemical weapons. 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.
When I look back on the Dallas Fed's now-internet-famous chart where the red line is “AI singularity: infinite money” and the purple line is “AI singularity: extinction,” I think the real missing line is the boring-but-transformative one in the middle: AI as the invisible infrastructure that helps scientists find good ideas faster, restart productivity growth, and quietly make key parts of life cheaper and better instead of weirder and scarier.
The public is right to be anxious about the ways AI can go wrong; yelling “stop” is a rational response when the choices seem to be slop now or singularity/extinction later. 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.
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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. Why is that?
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. CNN's problem, along with MS Now and others, is that she is not a serious person and certainly is not a serious threat to actually win statewide in Texas.
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. Easily.
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.
“I don't know. … That's not necessarily a bad idea,” she said. “But I'd have to think through it a lot. 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. In other words, if you're white or Asian or Hispanic or any other race, you aren't afforded the same courtesy.
Because that isn't racist or anything.
After giving it some thought, Crockett backtracked in the same interview. Well, kind of.
“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.
Yes, a study. The same kind of study Gov. 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.
Crockett is also the same freshman congressman who mocked a man in a wheelchair, Gov. 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 just appreciated that the Democrats got rid of the purity test,” Crockett told Roland Martin in November. “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.”
Distractions? This is a homicidal maniac who wished for the death of little children.
And of course, Crockett always plays the race card from the bottom of the deck. 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:
Reid: “It was giving a Klan rally.”
Crockett: “I think you summarized it.”
A perfect combo for a duo podcast after Crockett gets destroyed in her Senate race. 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.
Take Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). 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. I would never compare anybody, anybody to Hitler, and those things.”
“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. … I happen to believe the truth, regardless if it's the Republican or the Democratic voice,” he also told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo last month.
But CNN and MS Now have essentially stopped calling Fetterman to appear on their respective networks. It's been more than one month since he appeared on CNN, while Crockett has appeared multiple times in that same stretch. 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. Overall, there are 435 representatives and 100 senators. 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.
Of course, Zeldin took a donation from Dr. Jeffery Epstein, who is not the pedophile monster Jeffery Epstein. 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. “I said ‘a' Jeffery Epstein.
Uh-huh. Not misleading at all.
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.
In a deep-blue state, Swalwell could very well win. Like Crockett, there aren't too many days that go by without seeing him on the air. And it's not to discuss policy, of course, but to bash Trump and Republicans as so-called anchors just sit and nod along. 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.
TRUMP OWNS THE MORAL HIGH GROUND ON DRUGS AND BORDERS. HIS COMMUNICATIONS TEAM IS SETTING IT ON FIRE
That's the media ecosystem we live in now. Being a pragmatic adult won't get you airtime, but being an unhinged, unserious caricature absolutely will.
Crockett and Swalwell and others are not about substance or making the lives of voters better. For them, it's all about vanity and celebrity — nothing more.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
In this grab from a video provided by the Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine on Friday, Dec 12, 2025, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy records a video at the road entering of Kupiansk, Ukraine. (Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, recruits attend drills at a training ground in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, recruits rest after drills at a training ground in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, recruits rest after drills at a training ground in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, recruits attend drills at a training ground in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
A Ukrainian drone attack in southwestern Russia killed two people and parts of Ukraine went without power following Russian assaults on energy infrastructure, authorities said Saturday, as U.S.-led peace talks gain momentum.
Foreign policy advisers from the U.S., Ukraine and Germany, among others, will meet in Berlin on Sunday, German news agency dpa reported. Germany is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday, part of efforts by European leaders to steer the negotiations.
For months, American officials have tried to navigate the demands of each side as U.S. President Donald Trump presses for a swift end to Russia's war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into a major obstacle over who keeps Ukrainian territory that Russian forces have occupied in the nearly four-year invasion.
The drone attack in Russia's Saratov region damaged a residential building and several windows were also blown out at a kindergarten and clinic, said Gov. Roman Busargin. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had shot down 41 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight.
In Ukraine, Russia launched overnight drone and missile strikes on five Ukrainian regions, targeting energy and port infrastructure. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that over a million people were without electricity.
Zelenskyy said Russia had sent over 450 drones and 30 missiles into Ukraine overnight.
An attack on the Black Sea city of Odesa caused grain silos to catch fire at the port, Ukrainian deputy prime minister and reconstruction minister Oleksiy Kuleba said. Two people were wounded in attacks on the wider Odesa region, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
On the front lines, Ukrainian forces said Saturday that the northern part of the critical city of Pokrovsk was under Ukrainian control, despite Russia's claims earlier this month that it had taken full control of the city. The Associated Press was not able to independently verify the claims.
The latest round of attacks came after Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Friday that Russian police and national guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine's Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends the war. It underscores Moscow's ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas postwar. Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as U.S.-led negotiations drag on.
Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine's forces have withdrawn from the front line, Ushakov said in comments published in Russian business daily Kommersant.
In other developments, around 480 people were evacuated on Saturday from a train traveling between the Polish city of Przemysl and Kyiv after police received a call concerning a threat on the train, Karolina Kowalik, a spokesperson for the Przemysl police, told The Associated Press. Nobody was hurt and she didn't elaborate on the threat.
Polish authorities are on high alert since multiple attempts to disrupt trains on the line linking Warsaw to the Ukrainian border, including the use of explosives in November, with Polish authorities saying they have evidence Russia was behind it.
___
Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2025 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel and the ‘Outnumbered' panel discuss the update on Andrew Wolfe, the West Virginia National Guard member shot during the November attack in Washington, D.C.
The National Guardsman who was shot in the head in late November in Washington, D.C., is making "extraordinary progress," as he "is now breathing on his own and can stand with assistance," a neurosurgeon revealed.
MedStar Washington Hospital Center's Jeffrey Mai provided the update on U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, as U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, who was killed in the Nov. 26 attack, was laid to rest this week in West Virginia. Gov. Patrick Morrisey described Tuesday's ceremony for her as "incredibly moving."
"Sixteen days ago, Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe was airlifted to MedStar Washington Hospital Center with a critical gunshot wound to the head. Thanks to the immediate response of emergency personnel and the exceptional care provided by our trauma and neurosurgery teams, he received lifesaving treatment, including emergency surgery to control bleeding and relieve pressure on his brain," Mai said in a statement released Friday.
"Today, we are proud to share that Staff Sgt. Wolfe has made extraordinary progress. He is now breathing on his own and can stand with assistance— important milestones that reflect his strength and determination. Based on these improvements, he is now ready to transition from acute care to inpatient rehabilitation as the next step in his recovery journey," he added.
TRUMP GIVES UPDATE ON WOUNDED NATIONAL GUARD MEMBER FOLLOWING DC AMBUSH SHOOTING
National Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, was shot on Nov. 26 in Washington, D.C. (Anthony Peltier/AP; U.S. Attorney's Office via AP)
"While this remains an early phase of healing, his progress gives us every reason to feel hopeful about what lies ahead," Mai also said.
Wolfe's parents, Melody and Jason Wolfe, released their own statement saying, "The care has been remarkable, and they have told us Andy's progress is miraculous."
"We also want to thank the world for the prayers. We know and appreciate the power of prayer, and we see the result of God working with and through these amazing medical professionals," they added. "People around the world are praying for Andy and the presence of God was evident in his room on many occasions."
TRUMP INVITES FAMILIES OF TWO NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS SHOT IN DC TO WHITE HOUSE, PLANS TO HONOR SOLDIERS
This image captures the dignified transfer of U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, a member of the West Virginia National Guard, at the Dodd and Reed Funeral Home in her hometown of Webster Springs, West Virginia, on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Edwin L. Wriston)
Morrisey said Friday that, "I think we're all going to remember Sarah [Beckstrom] for a very, very long time because she was such a brave woman who we lost in that tragic, unprovoked attack."
The National Guard said Beckstrom was "laid to rest with full military honors during a ceremony and interment Dec. 9 at the West Virginia National Cemetery in Grafton, West Virginia."
"As you look across these hills and out onto the rows of headstones, each stone a brick to the foundation of freedom upon which we stand today, I encourage you to remember this," 111th Engineer Brigade Chaplain (Maj.) Christopher Bennett was quoted as saying as he presided over the ceremony. "No plots in the West Virginia National Cemeteries can be purchased. Each must be earned, and we know Spc. Sarah Backstrom has earned her place here among us today."
U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was "laid to rest with full military honors during a ceremony and interment on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, at the West Virginia National Cemetery in Grafton, West Virginia," the National Guard said. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Edwin L. Wriston)
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"There are many understandable responses to Sarah's tragic murder," Bennett added. "Anger, grief and confusion are natural and understandable, and God is big enough to handle all of those emotions and more. We can take comfort in knowing that God is just and that in the end, justice will be served."
Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.
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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.
“To the American people … our arms are open, and we extend our hand,” Aramayo told the Washington Examiner. “But that's 50% of the relationship. We need to receive responses. U.S. citizens are welcome … not only to visit Bolivia as a tourist, but also to invest in Bolivia. And we need those kind of responses in the short term.”
“You can feel confident that Bolivia will respect all the agreements that we are building right now,” he continued. “We need to show to the world that this alliance between Bolivia and U.S. has impact 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.`
A slew of political oracles in the U.S. and elsewhere have tried to prognosticate the ideology the Paz administration will embrace in the post-socialist era. The freshly elected government has been variously characterized as centrist, reformist, and right-wing.
But according to Aramayo, the Bolivian government is avoiding ideological rigidity, which he believes created the deeply corrupt state they are inheriting, instead sticking to pragmatic “moral principles” for reviving the failed state.
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.
The NSS pays particular attention to the Western Hemisphere, where its main goal moving forward is to “enlist and expand” with a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.
“We will enlist established friends in the Hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen stability and security on land and sea,” the document states. “We will expand by cultivating and strengthening new partners while bolstering our own nation's appeal as the Hemisphere's economic and security partner of choice.”
Bolivia is a prime candidate for U.S. support as the latest South American country to break away from the socialist status quo, and Aramayo is bullish on its future if a partnership with the U.S. focuses on commonsense goals.
“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. It's not possible to be in favor of corruption or cartels or illicit economies or organized crime.”
“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. “We believe that dialogue and the possibility of mediat[ion] in that kind of situation is something that Bolivia can implement in a very, very strong way.”
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 U.S. is one of the most important economies in the planet. The relevance that U.S. has politically for South America and for all the planets is also something that is well known, so we are clear on that.”
The U.S. is not the only bilateral relationship ended by past administrations that Paz's government is reactivating. 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.
Aramayo thinks that's absurd. “People are more concentrated now on emotional and overly ideological positions and not analyzing what is going on realistically,” he told the Washington Examiner. “We're not supposed to interrupt our relationships with countries that represent values and share goals like Israel … We have these kind of relationships from a long time ago, and those relationships have been interrupted just under an ideological argument.”
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.
“I'm an economist.
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. “So we can have better agreements with China … but at the present, China, they don't represent for us benefits.”
COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT CLAIMS TRUMP'S VENEZUELA FIGHT IS ‘ABOUT OIL' INSTEAD OF DRUGS
Aramayo hopes that the new era of Bolivian politics can inspire its neighbors to adopt similar reforms to lessen the influence of cartels and corruption on the continent more broadly.
“We could represent, in the short term, a laboratory of success — because we can prove to the region and to the world that to defeat 20 years of a narco-state is possible democratically,” he told the Washington Examiner.
In the past three years, the University of Michigan athletic department:
Which begs a simple, yet critical question: Is what happened with Moore a serious, but isolated, incident or a symbol of a broader, cultural problem within the walls of Michigan athletics?
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.
But sources with knowledge of the situation say that they are also delving into the procedures within the department, something that Domenico Grasso, the university's interim president, alluded to in his letter to the Michigan community.
“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.
“They are beyond zealots, beyond, about protecting the Michigan brand,'' said one former employee. “Beyond it. It's been so damn big for so long, and it permeates the whole place.''
The university has long held itself in high regard both academically and athletically, giving rise to the very idea of the “Michigan Man.”
The phrase runs deep in the lore of the institution but gained traction in 1989 when basketball coach Bill Frieder announced he would leave for Arizona State after the season. 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.)
Of the coaches enmeshed in the various scandals dotting the department in the last few years, most were Michigan men. 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.
When, for example, initially faced with the evidence of the Stalions' sign-stealing scandal, the university fought back. While critics crowed about Michigan's degradation of the integrity of the game, the university argued in a response to the initial notice of allegation that the sign stealing had “minimal relevance to competition.''
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. He denied that he lied, merely saying that he didn't recall being there.
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 summary of the survey was completed on June 8, 2021, and a final report by the law firm completed on May 5, 2022. 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. Howard, who had been sidelined after treatment for a heart ailment, returned to the bench three days after the altercation with Sanderson and was only fired at the conclusion of the season, when the Wolverines finished 8-24.
All of which leads to the most serious situation, the one involving Moore.
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.
Sources say that the relationship between the married Moore and his co-worker was an “open secret,'' on campus and within the larger sports community for the past two years. 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. Failure to comply with this policy will be subject to sanctions, up to and including dismissal from employment.''
Both, however, denied the relationship and the university's initial investigation went nowhere.
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. Moore was fired that day.
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. The source familiar with the matter told CNN that the university's board of regents held a call on Thursday to discuss Manuel's future. He remains in his role despite reports he had been fired.
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.
“I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to make you watch,'' Moore is alleged to have said, according to Rezmierski. “My blood is on your hands. You ruined my life.''
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. The magistrate on the case entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
A probable cause hearing is scheduled for January 22, only days after the college football season ends.
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Aerial footage from Thursday December 11th, shows deputies from the King County Sheriff's Office Marine Rescue Dive Unit assisting residents from Duvall, Washington as many in the region experience flooding this week.
Days of torrential rain in has caused historic floods, stranding families on rooftops and washing over bridges. Video from the Coast Guard shows a helicopter crew lifting people from roofs in Sumas.
A family in Washington state got some good news while checking on a flooded chicken coop in their back yard - most of the chickens survived. Days of rain triggered floods, stranding families on rooftops and washing over bridges. (AP video: Cedar Attanasio, Carrie Antlfinger)
Emergency crews, including National Guard soldiers, wort in a neighborhood flooded by the Skagit River on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
Eric Gustin paddles to dry land after rescuing one of several chickens from a flooded coop, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
This photo taken on Thursday, Dec.11, 2025 by Lora Lee Wicks shows the view from her flooded home in Duvall, Washington. (Lora Lee Wicks via AP)
Portions of a neighborhood are flooded on Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
Eric Gustin rescues a chicken from a flooded coop, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Burlington, Wash. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
BURLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — When Eddie Wicks and his wife went to bed in their house next to the Snoqualmie River on a Washington state farm known for its sunflower mazes and Christmas trees, they weren't too worried about the flooding heading their way.
After 30 years living in the city of Duvall northeast of Seattle, their family had plenty of experience with floods and always made it through largely unscathed. But as they moved their two donkeys to higher ground and their eight goats to their outdoor kitchen, the water began to rise much quicker than anything they'd experienced before.
“It was hours, not days,” he said. “In four hours it had to come up 4 feet.”
As the water engulfed their home Thursday afternoon, deputies from the King County Sheriff's Office marine rescue dive unit were able to rescue them and their dog, taking them on a boat the half mile (800 meters) across their field, which had been transformed into a lake.
They were among the thousands forced to evacuate as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days this week and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.
The record floodwaters were expected to continue to slowly recede Saturday, but authorities warn that waters will remain high for days, and that there is still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There is also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday.
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Still, no deaths have been reported.
Authorities have yet to estimate the costs, but photos and videos show widespread damage, with entire communities or neighborhoods flooded around western and central Washington. Officials have conducted dozens of water rescues, debris and mudslides have closed highways, and raging torrents have washed out roads and bridges.
President Donald Trump has signed the state's request for an emergency declaration, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said.
Officials issued “go now” orders Wednesday to tens of thousands of residents in the Skagit River flood plain north of Seattle, including the farming city of Burlington, home to nearly 10,000 people. By Friday morning, muddy water overflowed a slough and rushed into homes, prompting more urgent warnings for Burlington.
The rain arriving Sunday will cause rivers to rise again, said Robert Ezelle, director of the Washington Military Department's emergency management division.
National Guard members knocked on hundreds of doors in Burlington early Friday to tell residents about the evacuation notice and help transport them to a shelter. By late morning the evacuation order was lifted for part of the city and waters were slowly receding.
The Skagit River drains a wide swath of the rugged Cascade Range before winding west across broad, low-lying farmlands and tulip fields on its way to Puget Sound. Cities like Burlington sit on that delta, leaving them especially vulnerable to floods.
The river crested overnight Thursday into Friday at 37 feet (11.2 meters) in the valley's biggest city, Mount Vernon, surpassing the previous record by a few inches. A flood wall held fast and protected the downtown area.
About 1,000 Burlington residents had to evacuate in the middle of the night, Ferguson said. The water was reportedly 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) deep in certain areas as it flooded homes, police department spokesperson Michael Lumpkin said.
Mario Rincón had been staying at a hotel with his family, including a week-old infant. They returned to their Burlington property Friday but couldn't get inside, as murky floodwaters reached part-way up the first floor.
“It's going to be a few days before the water recedes,” he said.
Near the U.S.-Canada border, Sumas, Nooksack and Everson — which together have about 6,500 residents — were inundated. The border crossing at Sumas was closed.
In a social media message, Sumas Mayor Bruce Bosch acknowledged community members were anxious to return to their homes.
“Hang in there,” he wrote.
In King County, crews worked through the night to fill a sinkhole on a levee along the Green River in the Seattle suburb of Tukwila, County Executive Girmay Zahilay said Friday.
Authorities across the state in recent days have rescued people from cars and homes.
Helicopters rescued two families on Thursday from the roofs of homes in Sumas that had been flooded, according Frank Cain Jr., battalion chief for Whatcom County Fire District 14.
Near Deming, two homes collapsed into the Nooksack River as erosion undercut them. No one was inside at the time.
Climate change has been linked to some intense rainfall. Scientists say that without specific study they cannot directly link a single weather event to climate change, but in general it's responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.
___
Rush reported from Portland, Oregon, and Golden from Seattle. Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
President Donald Trump's U.S. attorney in Delaware resigned after a ruling finding Alina Habba was serving unlawfully as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware Julianne Murray submitted her resignation on Friday in a public statement that began by defending her record and maintaining that she did not serve political interests in her position.
“I naively believed that I would be judged on my performance and not politics. Unfortunately, that was not the case,” Murray wrote, blaming the “highly politicized, flawed blue slip tradition” for cutting her interim tenure short.
“Senator Coons and Senator Blunt Rochester refused to return a blue slip for political reasons, not performance reasons,” she added. “This is not about advice and consent. Because of this incredibly flawed tradition, I wasn't even considered by the Judiciary Committee, let alone the entire Senate.”
Murray, the former chairwoman of the Delaware Republican Party, then cited the ruling that triggered Habba's stepping down as a reason for her resignation, arguing it was necessary for the maintenance of the rule of law.
“Stability and protecting the integrity of our investigations is my only focus. I cannot in good conscience allow my office to become a political football. The employees of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware are dedicated, hard-working people that should be able to do their work without this distraction,” she wrote, before endorsing her successor, Ben Wallace, as “the only person” she would want in her role if she is unable to be in it.
Murray said she would continue to serve the Justice Department in a different position, then ended with a note of defiance.
“The people that think they have chased me away will soon find out that they are mistaken,” Murray concluded. “I did not get here by being a shrinking violet. God has a plan, and my faith gives me the comfort that I do not need to know what that plan is. Onward.”
Statement from Julianne MurrayActing US Attorney for the District of Delaware and Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General pic.twitter.com/GTpXYMWvGk
TRUMP COMPLAINS HE CAN'T ‘APPOINT ANYBODY' AFTER HABBA RESIGNS AS ACTING US ATTORNEY
The “blue slip” practice for judicial nominees has caused a significant headache for Trump, and he has repeatedly called for Congress to abolish it. Republicans have so far given rare resistance to Trump's wishes, with Senate Republicans siding with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who has been a strong defender of the century-old unofficial rule.
The Senate Judiciary Committee does not advance certain nominees unless both senators from the state of the appointment return a blue slip in favor of the nominee. With Democrats steadfastly against nominees who have little prosecutorial experience or are perceived as loyalists, Trump has tried to appoint his picks to acting terms that quickly expire. Attempts to stay past their deadline have been dealt a critical blow in the courts, recently resulting in the resignation of Habba.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Former FBI Director James Comey speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department violated the constitutional rights of a close friend of James Comey and must return to him computer files that prosecutors had hoped to use for a potential criminal case against the former FBI director, a federal judge said Friday.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly represents not only a stern rebuke of the conduct of Justice Department prosecutors but also imposes a dramatic hurdle to government efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey after an initial one was dismissed last month.
The order concerns computer files and communications that investigators obtained years earlier from Daniel Richman, a Comey friend and Columbia University law professor, as part of a media leak investigation that concluded without charges. The Justice Department continued to hold onto those files and conducted searches of them this fall, without a new warrant, as they prepared a case charging Comey with lying to Congress five years ago.
Richman alleged that the Justice Department violated his Fourth Amendment rights by retaining his records and by conducting new warrantless searches of the files, prompting Kollar-Kotelly to issue an order last week temporarily barring prosecutors from accessing the files as part of its investigation.
The Justice Department said the request for the return of the records was merely an attempt to impede a new prosecution of Comey, but the judge again sided with Richman in a 46-page order Friday that directed the Justice Department to give him back his files.
“When the Government violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures by sweeping up a broad swath of a person's electronic files, retaining those files long after the relevant investigation has ended, and later sifting through those files without a warrant to obtain evidence against someone else, what remedy is available to the victim of the Government's unlawful intrusion?” the judge wrote.
One answer, she said, is to require the government to return the property to the rightful owner.
The judge did, however, permit the Justice Department to file an electronic copy of Richman's records under seal with the Eastern District of Virginia, where the Comey investigation has been based, and suggested prosecutors could try to access it later with a lawful search warrant.
The Justice Department alleges that Comey used Richman to share information with the news media about his decision-making during the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Prosecutors charged the former FBI director in September with lying to Congress by denying that he had authorized an associate to serve as an anonymous source for the media.
That indictment was dismissed last month after a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the prosecutor who brought the case, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed by the Trump administration. But the ruling left open the possibility that the government could try again to seek charges against Comey, a longtime foe of President Donald Trump. Comey has pleaded not guilty, denied having made a false statement and accused the Justice Department of a vindictive prosecution.
The Comey saga has a long history.
In June 2017, one month after Comey was fired as FBI director, he testified that he had given Richman a copy of a memo he had written documenting a conversation he had with Trump and had authorized him to share the contents of the memo with a reporter.
After that testimony, Richman permitted the FBI to create an image, or complete electronic copy, of all files on his computer and a hard drive attached to that computer. He authorized the FBI to conduct a search for limited purposes, the judge noted.
Then, in 2019 and 2020, the FBI and Justice Department obtained search warrants to obtain Richman's email accounts and computer files as part of a media leak investigation that concluded in 2021 without charges. Those warrants were limited in scope, but Richman has alleged that the government collected more information than the warrants allowed, including personal medial information and sensitive correspondence.
In addition, Richman said the Justice Department violated his rights by searching his files in September, without a new warrant, as part of an entirely separate investigation.
“The Court further concludes that the Government's retention of Petitioner Richman's files amounts to an ongoing unreasonable seizure,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “Therefore, the Court agrees with Petitioner Richman that the Government has violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is making a big bet on defined outcome exchange-traded funds — also known as buffer ETFs, which use options to help protect against market losses.
This month, Goldman Sachs agreed to buy defined outcome ETF provider Innovator Capital Management for $2 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.
Bryon Lake, co-head of the firm's Third-Party Wealth team, expects the funds to be a major growth engine for the industry.
"We did this deal with Innovator. We've loved that business for years. We've known the founders. We've known the team. We're really excited about this space that they've invented, the defined outcome space," he told CNBC's "ETF Edge." "Defined outcome, in particular, is a very fast and attractive space to us."
His reasoning: The ETFs solve particular problems for investors.
"They're looking for income. They're looking for downside protection. They're looking for further growth," Lake said.
Kathmere Capital Management, which has $3.4 billion in assets under management as of late November, invests extensively in ETFs.
According to Nick Ryder, the firm's chief investment officer, defined-outcome ETFs are used in some client portfolios as part of a stock strategy built to reduce downside risk. They're used in tandem along with tools like trend-following and covered-call strategies.
"There's both a client demand for these and we also see a role for them in portfolios," Ryder said.
He added that the ETFs are so attractive because they're geared for investors seeking stock market exposure with a built-in safety net.
"Equities go up, and they go down. Over the long haul, they tend to work their way upwards to the right. But we know as through years of experience... the ride is anything but smooth," Ryder said. "So for us, this category of these risk-managed equity solutions... plays a role in a portfolio, and that's where our adoption is really driven by."
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko freed 123 prisoners on Saturday including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and leading opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava after two days of talks with an envoy for U.S. President Donald Trump.
In return, the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash. Potash is a key component in fertilisers, and the former Soviet state is a leading global producer.
The prisoner release was by far the biggest by Lukashenko since Trump's administration opened talks this year with the veteran authoritarian leader, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Western governments had previously shunned him because of his crushing of dissent and backing for Russia's war in Ukraine.
Nine of the released prisoners left Belarus for Lithuania and 114 were taken to Ukraine, officials said.
Bialiatski, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, is a human rights campaigner who fought for years on behalf of political prisoners before becoming one himself. He had been in jail since July 2021.
Visibly aged since he was last seen in public, he smiled broadly as he embraced exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on arrival at the U.S. embassy in Lithuania.
Bialiatski told Reuters he had spent the previous night on a prison bunk in a room with nearly 40 people, and was still getting to grips with the idea of being free.
He said the goals of the human rights struggle for which he and his fellow campaigners had won the Nobel prize had still not been realised.
"Thousands of people have been and continue to be imprisoned ... So our struggle continues," he said in his first public comments in the three years since he won the award.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee expressed "profound relief and heartfelt joy" at his release.
Kalesnikava, a leader of mass protests against Lukashenko in 2020, was among the large group taken by bus to Ukraine.
"Of course, it's a feeling of incredible happiness first of all: to see with your eyes the people who are dear to you, to hug them, and understand that now we are all free people. It's a great joy to see my first free sunset," she said in a video published by the Ukrainian Telegram channel Khochu Zhit.
It showed her embracing Viktar Babaryka, an opposition politician arrested in 2020 while preparing to run against Lukashenko in an election. Babaryka said his son Eduard was still in prison in Belarus.
Tatsiana Khomich, Kalesnikava's sister, told Reuters she had been worried she might refuse to leave Belarus and had been prepared to try to persuade her.
"I very much look forward to hugging Maria... the last five years was very hard for us, but now I talked to her (by phone) and I feel as if the five years did not happen," she said.
U.S. officials have told Reuters that engaging with Lukashenko is part of an effort to peel him away from Putin's influence, at least to a degree - an effort that the Belarus opposition, until now, has viewed with extreme scepticism.
Trump's envoy, John Coale, had earlier told reporters in Minsk: "Per the instructions of President Trump, we, the United States, will be lifting sanctions on potash."
The U.S. and the European Union imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Belarus after Minsk launched a violent crackdown on protesters following a disputed election in 2020, jailing nearly all opponents of Lukashenko who did not flee abroad.
Sanctions were tightened after Lukashenko allowed Belarus to serve as a staging ground for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The exiled Belarusian opposition expressed gratitude to Trump and said the fact that Lukashenko had agreed to release prisoners in return for the concessions on potash was proof of the effectiveness of sanctions.
The opposition has consistently said it sees Trump's outreach to Lukashenko as a humanitarian effort, but that EU sanctions should stay in place.
"U.S. sanctions are about people. EU sanctions are about systemic change — stopping the war, enabling democratic transition, and ensuring accountability. These approaches do not contradict each other; they complement each other," exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said.
Lukashenko has previously denied there are political prisoners in Belarus and described the people in question as "bandits." As recently as August, he asked why he should free people he sees as opponents of the state who might "again wage war against us."
Trump has referred to Lukashenko as "the highly respected president of Belarus," a description that jars with the opposition, who see him as a dictator. He has urged him to free up to 1,300 or 1,400 prisoners whom Trump has described as "hostages."
"The United States stands ready for additional engagement with Belarus that advances U.S. interests and will continue to pursue diplomatic efforts to free remaining political prisoners in Belarus," the U.S. embassy in Lithuania said.
Belarusian human rights group Viasna — which is designated by Minsk as an extremist organization — put the number of political prisoners at 1,227 on the eve of Saturday's releases.
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Business: Clearwater Analytics Holdings is a provider of comprehensive cloud-native platforms for institutional investors across global public and private markets. The company's single-instance, multi-tenant architecture delivers real-time data and artificial intelligence-driven insights throughout the investment lifecycle. The platform eliminates information silos by integrating portfolio management, trading, investment accounting, reconciliation, regulatory reporting, performance, compliance, and risk analytics in one unified system. The company serves insurers, asset managers, hedge funds, banks, corporations and governments. The company is also a provider of enterprise risk analytics and developer infrastructure. Its capabilities in complex portfolio management across both public and private markets include structured products, private credit, and derivatives.
Stock Market Value: $6.37 billion ($21.76 per share)
Ownership: ~4.9%
Average Cost: n/a
Activist Commentary: Starboard is a very successful activist investor and has extensive experience helping companies focus on operational efficiency and margin improvement. They are known for their excellent diligence and for running many of the most successful campaigns. Starboard has initiated activist campaigns at 59 prior information technology companies and their average return on these situations is 36.92% versus an average of 20.01% for the Russell 2000 during the same time periods. Additionally, Starboard has taken a total of 163 prior activist campaigns in their history and has an average return of 21.26% versus 14.34% for the Russell 2000 over the same period.
On Dec. 9, Starboard announced a nearly 5% position in Clearwater Analytics and is urging the company to run a robust sales process if it has received in-bound interest from potential buyers.
Clearwater Analytics is a provider of front-to-back, cloud-based investment accounting solutions. The company has steadily taken share from legacy solutions, such as BlackRock, State Street and SS&C, as they are widely viewed as the premium modern platform. In 2016, private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe became the majority investor in the company. In 2020, Warburg Pincus and Permira made minority investments, and, about a year later, these three firms took the company public at $18 per share.
Clearwater performed fairly well from its IPO through 2024, supported by consistent growth and historically strong margins that drove a premium valuation relative to peers, and these sponsors were rewarded accordingly. Warburg and Permira, which owned 22%, each sold their positions entirely and WCAS, which owned 56%, reduced its stake to roughly 1% by November 2024, at prices as high as $29.11 per share.
Shortly thereafter, the company started making a string of acquisitions — a public company, Enfusion, and two private businesses, Beacon and Bistro. All of these transactions were announced between January and March of this year and closed within the following few months. The consequence of this is that Clearwater shifted from being a clean high-growth vertical software story with strong margins, a premium valuation, and a net cash balance, to a riskier, less certain integration story with leverage around 3x EBITDA.
Unsurprisingly, the market questioned the company's decision to change course so sharply as well as its ability to integrate these three acquisitions while continuing to maintain its core organic growth story, and the stock sold off sharply, ultimately reaching a low of $15.73 per share after its third-quarter earnings report last month.
Shortly thereafter, it was reported that Clearwater had engaged advisers to evaluate strategic options after receiving a bevy of unsolicited offers from firms like Thoma Bravo and even Warburg Pincus and Permira, both of whom still had representatives on the board.
These announcements prompted Starboard to disclose its nearly 5% position in Clearwater and urge the company to run a robust sales process if it has received in-bound interest from potential buyers. But don't misunderstand Starboard's motive or thesis. They are not short-term strategic investors jumping on an opportunity for a quick return. They have likely been looking at Clearwater for many months and had owned it because they like the standalone story and see an opportunity to create long term value. But, to paraphrase the overused quote attributed to Mike Tyson (but really said by Cus D'Amato), everyone has a plan until they get hit. And Starboard is as good as anyone with rolling with the punches. So, when news surfaces that the company is considering a sale and that two of its board members may be bidders, Starboard is doing what any good activist would do and making sure there is a fair process to maximize value for shareholders. Starboard will then decide whether that price is better than the risk adjusted value shareholders could receive from a standalone plan of integrating the acquisitions and growing the core business. Moreover, a credible and fair process could likely attract additional bidders, including strategics such as BlackRock and Nasdaq. While the leveraged buyout math works in the high $20s per share, strategics could push it to a 3 handle.
There could be a quick resolution here if the board decides to sell to the company and receives a bid that is good for everyone. But that is a risky activist thesis on its own. What makes this a good activist campaign for Starboard is that they are a believer in the company as a standalone entity and see a path to create shareholder value.
If the standalone path is ultimately pursued, it would make a lot of sense for the private equity investors who no longer own any material position to resign from the board and be replaced with industry experts and a shareholder representative who can guide management through a standalone plan.
Essentially, there are three potential outcomes to Clearwater's current inflection point: (i) a standalone plan where the company integrates its acquisitions and grows its core; (ii) a sale of the company for a satisfactory premium following a real and competitive review process; or (iii) an abbreviated sale process orchestrated in part by Warburg and Permira resulting in a sale to Warburg and Permira. Starboard would likely be happy with (i) or (ii) and we expect them to do everything within their power to prevent (iii).
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholder activism, and the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D Activist Fund, a mutual fund that invests in a portfolio of activist investments.
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SpaceX is preparing to go public next year and has opened a secondary share sale that would value the company at $800 billion, according to a letter to shareholders sent by the company's CFO Bret Johnsen and reviewed by Reuters.
The Elon Musk-led company's move towards a public listing, which could rank among the largest global initial public offerings, has been driven primarily by the rapid expansion of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet business, including plans for a direct-to-mobile service and progress in its Starship rocket program for missions to the moon and Mars.
In the letter dated Dec. 12, Johnsen said SpaceX has approved an arrangement where new and existing investors and the company will buy up to $2.56 billion of shares from eligible shareholders at $421 a share.
"We are preparing the company for a possible IPO in 2026. Whether it actually happens, when it happens, and at what valuation are still highly uncertain, but the thinking is that if we execute brilliantly and the markets cooperate, a public offering could raise a significant amount of capital," Johnsen said.
SpaceX aims to use the capital to ramp Starship's flight rate, deploy artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in space, build Moonbase Alpha and send uncrewed and crewed missions to Mars, Johnsen said.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg News and The New York Times reported the share sale on Friday.
Musk hinted at a possible SpaceX IPO in a post on social media platform X earlier this week.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the matter, that the rocket and satellite company is looking to raise over $25 billion in an IPO that could come as early as June.
Investors have welcomed reports that SpaceX was considering an IPO that would fund Musk's Mars ambitions and value the rocket and satellite company at more than $1 trillion.
SpaceX ranks as the world's second-most valuable private startup after ChatGPT maker OpenAI, according to data from Crunchbase.
Talks over a listing plan are unfolding against the backdrop of a resurgence in the IPO market in 2025 after a three-year dry spell.
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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 31-year-old Harsh Varshney, who works at Google and lives in New York. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
AI has quickly become a silent partner in our daily lives, and I can't imagine life without AI tools.
Day-to-day, they help me with deep research, note-taking, coding, and online searches.
But my job means I'm very aware of the privacy concerns associated with using AI. I've worked at Google since 2023 and spent two years as a software engineer on the privacy team, building infrastructure to protect user data. I then switched to the Chrome AI security team, where I help secure Google Chrome from malicious threats, like hackers and those who use AI agents to conduct phishing campaigns.
AI models use data to generate helpful responses, and we users need to protect our private information so that harmful entities, like cybercriminals and data brokers, can't access it.
Here are four habits I've made that I believe are essential for protecting my data while using AI.
Sometimes, a false sense of intimacy with AI can lead people to share information online that they never would otherwise. AI companies may have employees who work on improving the privacy aspects of their models, but it's not advisable to share credit card details, Social Security numbers, your home address, personal medical history, or other personally identifiable information with AI chatbots.
Depending on the version being used, the information shared with public AI chatbots can be used to train future models and generate responses that are more relevant. This could result in "training leakage," where the model memorizes personal information about one user and later regurgitates it in responses to another. Plus, there's the risk of data breaches, which would expose what you've shared with a chatbot.
I treat AI chatbots like a public postcard. If I wouldn't write a piece of information on a postcard that could be seen by anyone, I wouldn't share it with a public AI tool. I'm not confident about how my data could be used for future training.
It's important to identify whether you're using a more public AI tool or an enterprise-grade one.
While it's uncertain how conversations are used for training public AI models, companies can pay for "enterprise" models. Here, models aren't typically meant to train on user conversations, so it's safer for employees to talk about their work and company projects.
Think of it like having a conversation in a crowded coffee shop where you could be overheard, versus a confidential meeting in your office that stays within the room.
There have reportedly been instances where employees have accidentally leaked company data to ChatGPT. If you work on unreleased company projects or are trying to get a patent, you probably don't want to discuss your plans with a non-enterprise-grade chatbot due to the risk of leakage.
I don't discuss projects I'm working on at Google with public chatbots. Instead, I use an enterprise model, even for tasks as small as editing a work email. I'm much more comfortable sharing my information because my conversations aren't used for training, but I still minimize the personal information I share.
AI chatbots usually keep a history of your conversations, but I recommend deleting it on both enterprise and public models regularly to protect your user privacy in the long term. Due to the risk of your account being compromised, it's a good precautionary habit to have, even if you're confident you aren't putting private data into the tools.
Once, I was surprised that an enterprise Gemini chatbot was able to tell me my exact address, even though I didn't remember sharing it. It turned out, I had previously asked it to help me refine an email, which included my address. Because the tool has long-term memory features, enabling it to remember information from previous conversations, it could identify what my address was and retain it.
Sometimes, if I'm searching for things I don't want the chatbot to remember, I'll use a special mode, a bit like incognito mode, where the bots don't store my history or use the information to train models. ChatGPT and Gemini call this the "temporary chat" feature.
It's better to use AI tools that are well-known and are more likely to have clear privacy frameworks and other guardrails in place.
Other than Google's products, I like to use OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.
It's also helpful to review the privacy policies of any tools you use. Sometimes, they'll explain more about how your data is used to train the model. In the privacy settings, you can also look for a section with the option to "improve the model for everyone." By making sure that setting is turned off, you're preventing your conversations from being used for training.
AI technology is incredibly powerful, but we must be cautious to ensure our data and identities are safe when we use it.
Do you have a story to share about using AI to help you at work? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com
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This essay is based on a conversation with Jan Gerber, 44, who runs the Paracelsus Recovery clinic in Zurich. Business Insider has verified his admission to another Swiss clinic for burnout. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2022, I realized something was wrong. I had almost lost my company, my marriage was falling apart, and it felt like everything hit all at once. I did outpatient therapy while things were unraveling, but I was clearly getting worse.
About six months later, that December, I checked myself into an inpatient program in Zurich, where I was diagnosed with acute depression brought on by stress. The symptoms fit burnout, too — burnout and depression often overlap.
At the time, I had spent 12 years helping other people recover from burnout, depression, and addiction. I'm the founder of Paracelsus Recovery, a private clinic in Zurich that treats executives, founders, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals who require discreet and private care. A six-week stay can cost around $800,000.
This is the third installment of Business Insider's five-part series, The Burnout Cure, which examines how people recognize burnout, confront it, and rebuild their lives on the other side. Check out their stories below and share yours here.
I was an ambitious Amazon exec who solved my burnout without skipping a beat at work. Here's how.
I burned out from 2 years of job hunting, so I changed everything about how I apply. I won't let the job market break my spirit anymore.
It all started when a friend of a friend, the CEO of a major, publicly listed corporation, called my parents, who worked in the mental health space, for help, and moved into their guest room for treatment. The person needed very discreet treatment for alcohol addiction — if it went public, the stock market impact could have been in the billions.
I previously worked in consulting and medical concierge services, and had launched my own businesses in the travel sector. So, the entrepreneur in me realized there was a niche here: offering discreet treatment for people who couldn't just go to any old rehab.
In 2011, I co-founded a clinic in the high-end mental health space with my mother and then step-father, which initially offered one-on-one care. In 2012, this became Paracelsus Recovery.
In the early years of Paracelsus Recovery, we had a small number of clients, but it took years to establish a reputation. The high cost is a big hurdle for potential clients. We primarily find ultra-high-net-worth clients through family offices and membership organizations, such as Campden Wealth.
About half are members of wealthy families, trust fund babies who don't develop a sense of purpose or drive. The other half is a mix of royalty, entertainers, entrepreneurs, founders, and top executives — those who have the funds to come to us.
Clients rarely experience burnout on its own. In many cases, people are self-medicating and in a cycle of taking downers like sleeping pills in the evening, then stimulants in the morning, such as ADHD medication or illicit drugs like cocaine. Eventually, they reach a dead end.
Often, burnout is not solely prompted by the number of hours worked, but also by the responsibility of overseeing thousands of employees, investors, and business partners, which weighs heavily on their shoulders. If you're in the public eye or run a public company, where, for example, earnings aren't meeting expectations, that can also have a significant impact on stress levels.
The average worker typically seeks burnout treatment after a spouse, their kids, or employer tells them they can't show up late or get drunk every night anymore. Founders and professional executives tend to have much more to lose, and a network of people who help them conceal some of their issues. As a result, they'll hold on for dear life until they just can't anymore. And, in general, they seek help much later.
Sleep is usually the first to go. That was a massive red flag for me. I used to be a good sleeper, even in stressful times, but it started to deteriorate — not just a week or a month, but about half a year of restless nights. By the time these CEOs seek treatment, it's often when a substance is involved, and it's showing up as a fatty liver or cardiovascular issues, coming from alcohol abuse, for example.
We offer a 10-day program called an "Executive Detox." These programs don't solve everything, but they stabilize clients and buy them some time. On average, people stay with us for six weeks; however, in extreme cases, they may stay for six months or more.
A week at Paracelsus Recovery costs around £100,000, or about $131,000. This includes a private residence, a chef, a driver, a live-in therapist, and a daily schedule of psychotherapy, medical treatments, infusions, and complementary therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, and fitness training.
My own treatment at another clinic encouraged me to introduce treatments such as shiatsu and breath-work.
Success is relative. For me, it mostly means that someone leaves equipped with the tools to live a better life. Treatment at a clinic like Paracelsus Recovery is what I consider an acute stabilization, while the real work happens afterward. People should have ongoing therapy and support.
To recover from burnout, the most vital thing — and it's hard for career executives and entrepreneurs to hear — is to pull the emergency brake. If you continue to hold on for another week, another month, or step back halfway while the stress persists, you'll still crash.
You have to decide between investing in the quality of your life over just your career trajectory.
Personally, I didn't do that. For the sake of business continuity, I had to hang on. I still haven't fully recovered. I still feel brain fog from being burned out, and my memory is worse than it was. I'm not sure if it will ever return.
But my own experience, and my treatment at another clinic in Zurich, taught me about the value of proper inpatient treatment.
At Paracelsus Recovery, we typically treat only three or four clients at a time, which makes for a warmer and more personal experience, whereas the Swiss Clinic I attended had a capacity of about 75 patients.
Our patients stay in penthouse apartments with lake views, where most of their treatments take place. No day is like another, as treatment is tailored for each client. They have access to medical treatments, a midday IV to rebalance their biochemistry, as well as a personal trainer and private chef. Their food and supplements are curated based on their lab tests and genetics.
Yes, the price tag is very high, but you get a lot for your money. Besides, there's no price on health and well-being.
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Empty nesters Renee and Kelley Hayes, 58, downsized from an over 2,000 square-foot home in Texas to a roughly 45-foot RV.
"We may be living tiny, but we've got the world's largest suitcase," Kelley said.
Kelley dreamed of living in an RV and traveling the country full-time during retirement. However, he and his wife got to embrace this goal a few years earlier than intended.
Are you living in an RV? How are you spending time as an empty nester? Share your experience at mhoff@businessinsider.com.
They loved raising a family in their Texas home with a three-car garage and a pool, but they're happy exploring the US as retired empty nesters in their RV. They get to see what different states offer, such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona and the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
"We camped right on the grounds where the balloons took off, so every morning the balloons would fly over, right over the RV itself, and at night they would have the glow," Kelley said.
Renee and Kelley purchased an RV for roughly $82,000 in August 2018, while their kids attended college. They were looking for something to do as new empty nesters. A few months later, Kelley, who worked for General Motors before his retirement in 2022, was transferred to an office in Georgia, which meant leaving Texas and figuring out their next home.
The family spent the 2018 holidays on the road and then visited Twin Lakes RV Park, a campground in Georgia, right after Christmas.
Kelley looked at some houses in January, but nothing caught his eye. Plus, Renee said, housing prices were expected to drop in Georgia, which could have meant selling their next home would be tougher. "We knew we were only going to be there three years, so we thought instead of taking that risk, we can just live in our RV," she said.
Renee went back to Texas to downsize and work on selling their home, while Kelley stayed in Georgia for work, residing in the Twin Lakes RV Park. They listed the home for $399,000 in January 2019, and it sold in March. Renee rejoined Kelley at the campground.
They traveled during COVID when Kelley's job at the GM regional office went remote, and then Kelley retired at 55 in 2022. He said he still did some contract work until last year. Since Kelley retired, they have split their time between traveling and caring for Renee's family farmhouse in Michigan, enjoying alternating between being fairly stationary in the summer and traveling for the other half of the year.
Kelley and Renee still make some money. They earn from social media content, and Kelley said he does "odds and end jobs up there in the summertime, working for farmers" or Renee's father.
They use Harvest Hosts, a membership for overnight stays at wineries, golf courses, and other places. They stay at campgrounds, parks, and park in friends' or family members' driveways, among other places.
"We do it to see things and have adventures, but also to spend time with friends and family," Renee said.
There are a lot of logistics that can come with living on the road, such as whether you sell your home, what kind of RV to live in, and how to maintain it. Renee suggested people downsize before jumping into RV life and start early because it can take a while to go through all the items accumulated over the years.
Renee and Kelley still have lots of space to live in their model. Kelley said the back is basically a multipurpose room. "It's our mud room, it's our garage where we house our bikes, our kayaks, our tools, it's our secondary bedroom for when the kids come to stay," he said, adding they also eat there, and it opens up to a patio.
Renee said fuel can be expensive, potentially adding up to hundreds in just a month. "The slower you go and the longer you stop and are stationary, that helps keep your costs down on fuel," she said.
However, they don't have to pay for Texas' property taxes, which tend to be high. They also don't have to pay for other home expenses like homeowners' association fees and house upkeep.
Although they are saving on home costs, they still have expenses that can add up. They said they pay for medical, two phones, internet, insurance, groceries, entertainment, and subscriptions to RV and travel-related apps. Tire replacements can also be costly. The couple noted they spent hundreds of dollars between September and November to stay at multiple RV parks.
The couple, who post about their travels on social media, sometimes stay for free in exchange for promotional content.
Because living in an RV can require a lot of maintenance, Renee recommends taking some courses to learn how to repair things on your own. "If you're not mechanical or if you're not handy, this could become very expensive," Renee said. "Luckily, Kelley's handy and he's able to pretty much repair or replace things as we go."
She also suggested renting an RV before buying if you have never been in one before, to see what it's like. Kelley said there are RV shows that people can go to so they can figure out what they want to travel in, because finding the perfect way to travel for someone can take time, just like finding a home.
Ultimately, the couple thinks people interested should just take the leap and do it. The couple said they are happy to help answer people's questions.
"There are so many people when you get to a campground that will help you," Kelley said.
The couple plan to continue this lifestyle for as long as they're able to, even if it means downsizing further. Renee said she doesn't drive the truck with the 45-foot RV attached, but would be able to if they had a smaller vehicle.
"Our priority right now is to see and do stuff rather than to accumulate stuff," Renee said.
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Cambodia said Thai forces, including fighter jets, continued to strike targets across their disputed border on Saturday morning, in the hours after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed to have brokered a ceasefire.
"Thai forces have not stopped the bombing yet and are still continuing the bombing," the Cambodian ministry of information said.
Thailand's military countered with accusations that Cambodia was committing "repeated violations of international rules" by targeting civilian locations and laying landmines.
Thailand and Cambodia had agreed "to cease all shooting" effective on Friday, Trump said after calls with the Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian premier Hun Manet on Friday night.
But neither leader referenced an agreement in statements after the call, and Anutin said there was no ceasefire. When asked about Trump's claim, Thailand's foreign ministry referred reporters to his statement.
In a statement on Saturday on Facebook, Manet referred to the call with Trump and an earlier discussion with Malaysian leader Anwar Ibrahim and said Cambodia continues to seek a peaceful resolution of disputes in line with an earlier agreement signed in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in October.
Still, Manet said he advised the U.S. and Malaysia use their intelligence gathering capabilities to "verify which side fired first" in the latest round of fighting.
Since Monday, Cambodia and Thailand have been firing rockets and artillery at multiple points along their disputed 817-km (508-mile) border, in some of the heaviest fighting since the five-day clash in July, which Trump halted with calls to both leaders.
Trump was keen to intervene again to rescue that truce, which was expanded in October when he met the Thai and Cambodian prime ministers in Malaysia. The two sides agreed on a process to withdraw troops and heavy weapons and release 18 Cambodian prisoners of war.
But Thailand last month suspended that agreement after a Thai soldier was maimed in the latest in a series of incidents involving landmines that Bangkok says were newly laid by Cambodia. Cambodia rejects the allegations.
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Related Stories
YouTube's CEO Neal Mohan is the latest in a line of tech bosses who have admitted to limiting their children's social media use, as the harms of being online for young people have become more evident.
Mohan, who took the helm of YouTube's leadership in 2023, was just named Time's 2025 CEO of the Year. He said in an interview with the magazine that his children's use of media platforms is controlled and restricted.
"We do limit their time on YouTube and other platforms and other forms of media. On weekdays we tend to be more strict, on weekends we tend to be less so. We're not perfect by any stretch," Mohan said in one TikTok video posted by Time Magazine on Thursday.
He stressed "everything in moderation" is what works best for him and his wife, and that extends to other online services and platforms. Mohan has three children: two sons and one daughter.
Experts have continued to sound the alarm on how excessive smartphones and social media use has harmed children and teenagers. Jonathan Haidt, NYU professor and author of "The Anxious Generation," has advocated for children to not have smartphones before the age of 14 and no access to social media before the age of 16.
"Let them have a flip phone, but remember, a smartphone isn't really a phone. They could make phone calls on it, but it's a multi-purpose device by which the world can get to your children," Haidt said in an interview with CNBC's Tania Bryer earlier this year.
This week, Australia became the first country to formally bar users under the age of 16 from accessing major social media platforms. Ahead of the legislation's passage last year, a YouGov survey found that 77% of Australians backed the under-16 social media ban. Still, the rollout has faced some resistance since becoming law.
Mohan said in a more extensive interview with Time on Wednesday that he feels a "paramount responsibility" to young people and giving parents greater control over how their kids use the platform. YouTube Kids was launched in 2015 as a child-friendly version of the Google-owned platform.
He said his goal is "to make it easy for all parents" to manage their children's YouTube use "in a way that is suitable to their household," especially as every parent has a different approach.
Several tech bosses have taken a similar approach. YouTube's former CEO Susan Wojcicki, also barred her children from browsing videos on the app, unless they were using YouTube Kids. She also limited the amount of time they spent on the platform.
"I allow my younger kids to use YouTube Kids, but I limit the amount of time that they're on it," Wojcicki told CNBC in 2019. "I think too much of anything is not a good thing."
Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, is amongst the tech titans who are against allowing young people too much screen time. With three children, now adults, Gates openly talked about not giving them cell phones until they were in their teens.
"We don't have cell phones at the table when we are having a meal, we didn't give our kids cell phones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier," Gates said years ago.
Meanwhile, billionaire Mark Cuban would even resort to installing Cisco routers and using management software to monitor which apps his children were on and shut off their phone activity.
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Vanguard's global head of quantitative equity, John Ameriks, said bitcoin BTC$90,114.46 still resembles a speculative collectible more than an asset meant to build long-term wealth, comparing it to a “digital Labubu,” the plush toy that has become a popular collectible.
Ameriks' words came during Bloomberg's ETFs in Depth conference in New York on Thursday, where he said bitcoin lacks the income, compounding, and cash-flow traits Vanguard seeks when it evaluates long-term investments.
His dismissive stance comes as Vanguard just opened its platform to crypto exchange-traded funds, allowing its 50 million clients access to regulated investment vehicles from rivals like BlackRock and Fidelity.
The asset management giant's begrudging embrace of crypto is a reversal of long-time skepticism towards the entire asset class. For years, Vanguard stood against offering cryptocurrency products to clients, reiterating that it saw digital assets as highly speculative and unaligned with its core investment philosophy.
That view, according to Ameriks, apparently hasn't changed. As a result, Vanguard does not plan to launch its own crypto-focused ETFs. The decision is notable as bitcoin ETFs have become BlackRock's top revenue source.
Still, after Vanguard saw crypto ETFs and funds “have been tested through periods of market volatility, performing as designed while maintaining liquidity,” the firm opened its brokerage platform to these products.
Even with that access, Vanguard will not advise clients on whether to buy or sell crypto assets or which tokens to hold, Ameriks said.
Ameriks said bitcoin could eventually show non-speculative value in certain conditions, such as high inflation or political instability, but he argued the evidence is still limited. “You've still got too short of a history,” he said.
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Michael Saylor's Strategy Hangs on to Spot in Nasdaq 100 Index
The annual Nasdaq 100 rebalance saw six companies dropped and three new additions, with changes taking effect on December 22, but bitcoin treasury company Strategy hung onto its spot.
What to know:
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
The crypto market is shifting again. Some tokens are losing steam. Others are preparing for bigger moves. Among all the noise, three names stand out in very different ways: Tapzi (TAPZI), Monero (XMR), and XRP. Each has a story. Each speaks to a different kind of investor. But only one of them currently shows the strongest upside potential, Tapzi.
If you are searching for the best crypto to invest in right now, you need a mix of early-stage growth, proven stability, and sector diversity. Tapzi brings explosive early-stage momentum. XMR brings privacy-centric appeal but faces growth limits. XRP brings institutional relevance but moves cautiously. Together, they paint a clear picture of where the market is heading.
Let's break down each token, what makes them move, and why Tapzi continues to outperform both short-term and long-term.
Tapzi (TAPZI) is a skill-based GameFi token built around fast competitive games like Chess, Checkers, Rock-Paper-Scissors, and more. Unlike many GameFi tokens that rely heavily on hype, Tapzi (TAPZI) focuses on real utility where players stake tokens, compete, and win based on skill.What makes Tapzi (TAPZI) stand out is simple: presale price and low market-cap entry.
Key numbers investors watch:
If Tapzi reaches $0.10, early presale investors would see a gain of nearly 28×. If GameFi enters a strong bull phase, some analysts stretch the projection toward a $0.20–$0.35 range, placing Tapzi among the best crypto to invest in for high-risk, high-reward portfolios.
Why Tapzi Outperforms XMR and XRP Right Now
Tapzi's arc is clear: if the game sticks, the token grows.
Monero is one of the oldest and strongest privacy-focused cryptocurrencies. It is designed for users who want maximum anonymity in transactions. It uses sophisticated cryptography to hide sender, receiver, and transaction amounts.
Strengths of MON
These factors make XMR a stable long-term pick.
But XMR's problems are becoming visible
Current market condition
XMR appears stalled. Price action is flat, and large pumps are not expected soon. XMR is good for stability but not for explosive returns, especially when compared to early-stage GameFi tokens like Tapzi.
XRP is one of the most recognized cryptocurrencies. It was built to transform global payments. Banks use it, institutions follow it, and it has one of the strongest brand presences in the market.
After years of legal challenges, XRP is finally regaining momentum. Analysts see a cautiously bullish outlook.
Why XRP is still relevant
Why growth is cautious, not explosive
XRP remains reliable but moves like a large ship—not fast, not flexible, but steady. It suits low-risk portfolios far more than high-return hunters.
Crypto wealth is created through diversification. One token rarely changes your life, but a balanced basket can.
If you combine:
You create a luxury-grade growth portfolio.
This approach protects you during corrections and multiplies your wealth during bull runs. Early-stage tokens like Tapzi bring explosive potential. Large caps like XRP bring safety. With smart allocation, you build a path toward financial independence, travel freedom, lifestyle upgrades, and long-term comfort.
Crypto is a tool through which portfolios can build lifestyles.
To complete the diversification model, analysts suggest watching:
Sui (SUI)
Sui is a fast, scalable Layer-1 blockchain built for high-performance applications. Its developer activity is strong, and new projects launch on it every week. With growing user adoption and rising ecosystem value, Sui stands out as a solid mid-cap pick for steady, sustainable portfolio growth.
Dogwifhat (WIF)
Dogwifhat is a high-volatility meme token driven entirely by community energy and social momentum. It thrives during hype cycles and often leads meme-sector rallies. While risky, WIF can deliver sharp, explosive gains during bull phases, making it a powerful speculative addition to a diversified portfolio.
Beam (BEAM)
BEAM powers Web3 gaming infrastructure and supports developers creating decentralized gaming ecosystems. It benefits from rising GameFi adoption and provides essential tools for on-chain gaming operations. With strong utility and increasing project integrations, BEAM offers a balanced mix of long-term potential and sector-focused growth.
Tapzi currently tops many analyst lists because of low presale pricing, real utility, and strong upside potential. It is considered one of the best crypto to invest in for early-stage gains.
Every presale carries risk. But Tapzi's utility model, GameFi design, and transparent pricing make it more structured than typical meme launches.
Yes, but growth will likely be slow and steady. Privacy tokens depend on regulation and niche usage.
Many analysts expect a slow upward trend. But huge parabolic runs are unlikely unless institutions accelerate adoption.
Invest what aligns with your risk level. Early-stage tokens can multiply fast but also fluctuate hard. Diversification is key.
Tapzi (TAPZI) leads this list with its powerful early-stage momentum and realistic 10×–50× potential. XMR and XRP offer stability, but the biggest wealth-building window lies in Tapzi's GameFi utility, low presale price, and growing community.
If you want the best crypto to invest in, Tapzi (TAPZI) deserves serious attention, especially before it lists.
Join Tapzi's $500,000 community giveaway and compete across nine prize categories to earn $TAPZI tokens—sign up today and become an early adopter!
Media Links:
Website: https://www.tapzi.io/
Whitepaper: https://docs.tapzi.io/
X Handle: https://x.com/Official_Tapzi
This article is not intended as financial advice. Educational purposes only.
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Silver price action made headlines this week courtesy of its parabolic move and a new historic high above $64.
There could be more to the precious metal's latest performance than meets the eye, as some analysts believe it may be a precursor to crypto's upcoming rally.
Hawk-eyed analysts noted that Bitcoin (BTC USD) price action followed silver price with a bit of a lag in recent history. The correlation between silver and Bitcoin goes as far back as 2021.
If history repeats, then Bitcoin could be headed for a rally in response to the recent silver upside. However, this delay could take weeks or months to manifest in BTC's price action.
This latest silver rally into new ATHs suggests that liquidity has been rotating away from gold. Perhaps an indication that liquidity may also rotate into other assets that are currently discounted.
Investors expected that the latest rate cut announcement by the FED and the end of QT would be favorable for risk-on assets. However, that was not the case, signaling that some other market forces were driving the market.
Bitcoin price retreated by over 4% after the FED's meeting, while silver and gold rallied. One of the key reasons behind this outcome was stagflation fears.
The FED decided to cut rates while inflation was elevated. Moreover, this decision was against the backdrop of rising stagflation fears.
This may have discouraged investors from parking their money in risk-on assets such as Bitcoin and altcoins.
Instead, the preference for safe-haven assets benefited gold and silver, whose prices have been rallying this week.
The dynamics behind these different asset classes also suggest that liquidity rotation out of gold and silver may favor Bitcoin and altcoins.
Analysts have also been debating whether a stagflation environment would be bullish or bearish for Bitcoin (BTC USD).
The answer to that question may depend heavily on the state of the global monetary system. The latter could be a ticking time bomb courtesy of one major factor.
There's no doubt that the macroeconomic situation has had a major impact on Bitcoin (BTC USD) and crypto prices recently. This may continue to be the case courtesy of the Bank of Japan (BOJ).
In the first week of August 2024, the crypto market crashed because of the Japanese Yen carry trade after the BOJ raised rates.
Recent reports revealed that the BOJ is contemplating raising rates, which could lead to further unwinding of the carry trade.
Global liquidity is heavily intertwined with the Japanese Yen, and Japan also happens to be one of the biggest holders of U.S. Treasuries.
If Japan raises rates and continues to sell U.S. Treasuries, then the markets may enter another tumultuous phase.
This outcome will likely lead to outflows from risk-on assets such as Bitcoin (BTC USD) and altcoins.
Analysts already believe that the upcoming BOJ meeting was the reason behind the recent crypto market crash after the Federal Reserve slashed rates.
The contents of this page are intended for general informational purposes and do not constitute financial, investment, or any other form of advice. Investing in or trading crypto assets carries the risk of financial loss. The forecasted data (also called “price prediction”) on this page are subject to change without notice and are not guaranteed to be accurate.
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Brazil's largest privately-owned asset manager, Itáu Asset Management, has recommended investors allocate 1% to 3% of their portfolios to bitcoin BTC$90,114.46.
In a year-end note, Renato Eid, head of beta strategies and responsible investment for Itaú Asset Management, argued that bitcoin's lack of correlation with traditional local assets makes it a useful diversification tool.
The note echoes the bitcoin allocations recommended by other major asset managers. Earlier this month, Bank of America greenlit wealth advisors to recommend a BTC allocation of up to 4%, while BlackRock has pointed to 2%.
Eid emphasized a measured approach, not turning crypto into the centerpiece of a portfolio but using it as a complementary asset that can help absorb shocks from currency depreciation and global volatility.
“The idea is not to make cryptoassets the core of the portfolio but to include them as a complementary component — sized appropriately to the investor's risk profile,” Eid wrote.
This year, bitcoin surged to a record near $125,000 before falling back to around $90,000. For local investors, the ride was even bumpier due to currency fluctuations.
Products like BITI11, a bitcoin ETF traded in Brazil, saw their performance in reais affected by the weakening fiat currency. But in periods of stress, such as late 2024, the global nature of BTC provided some insulation.
Eid warned against trying to time the market and suggested a disciplined, long-term mindset. A small, steady exposure to bitcoin, he says, can act as a partial hedge and offer access to global returns, especially as traditional asset correlations become less reliable.
“It calls for moderation and discipline: set a strategic slice (for example, 1%–3% of the total portfolio), keep a long-term horizon and resist the temptation to react to short-term noise,” Eid wrote.
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Michael Saylor's Strategy Hangs on to Spot in Nasdaq 100 Index
The annual Nasdaq 100 rebalance saw six companies dropped and three new additions, with changes taking effect on December 22, but bitcoin treasury company Strategy hung onto its spot.
What to know:
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
SWIFT's five-year delay in adopting blockchain technology has sparked sharp criticism from industry experts, with some likening its slow progress to companies like Kodak and Blockbuster that failed to adapt to technological change. As faster blockchain alternatives gain traction in the financial sector, questions arise about whether SWIFT can keep up. With growing customer demand for quicker, cheaper payments, the pressure is on for SWIFT to deliver innovative solutions.
SWIFT's recent announcement regarding the integration of blockchain technology into its cross-border payment system has sparked criticism from industry experts. The payment messaging giant revealed plans to introduce a blockchain-based ledger system, aiming to create a real-time record of transactions. However, the slow pace of development has drawn comparisons to companies that failed to adapt to technological change, such as Kodak and Blockbuster.
One notable critic, software engineer Vincent Van Code, expressed his concerns over SWIFT's five-year delay in even beginning to prototype the system. “The legacy system is dead, just like Kodak, Blockbuster, and saddlers—all obsolete,” he said. Van Code's comments underscore a growing frustration within the tech community about SWIFT's inability to keep up with the rapid advancements in blockchain technology.
In September, SWIFT announced that it was moving forward with a blockchain-based payment system. The company's vision was to build a shared, real-time ledger to track transactions across borders. However, many in the industry see this move as too little, too late. Critics point out that SWIFT's slow approach to blockchain technology may prevent it from keeping pace with the faster, more efficient alternatives offered by newer blockchain networks.
The XRPL (XRP Ledger) network, for instance, has demonstrated the ability to confirm transactions in seconds using stablecoins like RLUSD. In contrast, SWIFT's traditional infrastructure can take several days to process payments. As customer demand for quicker, cheaper payment solutions continues to grow, the question remains whether SWIFT will be able to meet these evolving expectations.
SWIFT faces mounting pressure from newer, more agile blockchain solutions. In recent years, companies like Ripple have gained significant traction by offering faster and more affordable cross-border payments. Ripple, for example, has already received approval as a U.S. bank and is expanding its reach in the blockchain payments space.
According to some experts, the shift toward blockchain technology is inevitable for all players in the financial industry. Les Purves, an industry commentator, noted that large banks with global reach already possess the liquidity needed to support blockchain-based transactions. Smaller banks, however, may look to companies like Ripple for faster solutions that they cannot access through traditional networks.
Van Code also highlighted that SWIFT's customers would likely abandon its services once faster alternatives become available. With blockchain platforms offering real-time settlement and lower fees, the traditional SWIFT model may soon seem outdated.
While SWIFT's announcement mentioned using a blockchain-based ledger, some experts argue that its system may not meet the fundamental characteristics of true blockchain technology. Edward, another critic, described SWIFT's proposed ledger as a system that allows banking institutions to view payment statuses in real-time but does not offer the transparency or decentralized nature that is central to blockchain's promise.
The system proposed by SWIFT may only offer a partial solution, lacking the speed, decentralization, and transparency that define more advanced blockchain networks. Some financial institutions, like Sony Bank, are already preparing to issue their own stablecoins in collaboration with companies like Ripple and Circle, which may put additional pressure on SWIFT to adjust its strategy.
The regulatory landscape surrounding blockchain payments remains complex, particularly in countries like the U.S. While regulatory uncertainty has slowed the widespread adoption of blockchain in traditional finance, experts predict that the financial sector will eventually be forced to adapt to new technologies.
SWIFT's future in the blockchain space depends on its ability to address both technological and regulatory challenges. While its blockchain plan is still in the early stages, it remains to be seen whether SWIFT can overcome its delay and develop a system that is competitive in the fast-evolving payments landscape.
Kelvin Munene is a crypto and finance journalist with over 5 years of experience in market analysis and expert commentary. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism and Actuarial Science from Mount Kenya University and is known for meticulous research in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and financial markets. His work has been featured in top publications including Coingape, Cryptobasic, MetaNews, Coinedition, and Analytics Insight. Kelvin specializes in uncovering emerging crypto trends and delivering data-driven analyses to help readers make informed decisions. Outside of work, he enjoys chess, traveling, and exploring new adventures.
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Ethereum's MACD turns green, but charts highlight $3,900 resistance, a $2,400 flag risk, and IWM comparison.
Ethereum's MACD turned green after a three month stretch, while a separate chart kept the spotlight on $3,900 as the key breakout level. Meanwhile, another setup warned of a potential flag driven drop toward $2,400 as ETH also drew fresh comparisons with IWM, a Russell 2000 proxy.
Ethereum's momentum indicator flashed a fresh bullish signal after the Moving Average Convergence Divergence line turned positive for the first time in about three months, according to crypto trader Merlijn The Trader in a post on X.
Ethereum USD 2 Day Price Chart with MACD: Source: Merlijn The Trader via X
However, the same chart showed a sharp two day downswing on Coinbase. ETH USD printed an open near $3,325, then fell to a low around $3,058, before closing near $3,063, a drop of about $262, or 7.88%, based on the price panel shown in the post.
At the same time, the chart highlighted a broad support band near the mid $2,000s. Price dipped into that zone during the recent slide and then rebounded, which the post described as support holding.
Still, the graphic flagged the area around $3,900 as the key overhead level. The chart labeled that zone as the level Ethereum “needs to break,” while the MACD panel below showed a bullish crossover and a shift back to green histogram bars.
Crypto commentator Mister Crypto said Ethereum is “starting to catch up” to the Russell 2000, in a post on X that paired ETH price candles with a line representing IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF.
Ethereum vs IWM Russell 2000 Comparison Chart. Source: Mister Crypto via X
The graphic plotted both series across the same timeline, with IWM shown as a blue line and ETH shown as candlesticks. The two traces moved in broadly similar waves through 2024 and 2025, including a sharp selloff and a later rebound, based on the chart's layout.
On the far right, the chart highlighted a recent ETH bounce after a steep drop, while the IWM line appeared to remain higher relative to its prior range. Mister Crypto framed that gap as room for Ethereum to close, while the image included a vertical marker suggesting a potential catch up move.
Crypto analyst Ali Martinez, known as @alicharts on X, said Ethereum could slide toward $2,400 if a flag pattern on his chart plays out.
Ethereum TetherUS Perpetual Contract 12 Hour Flag Setup. Source: Ali Martinez (Ali Charts)
The chart showed an Ethereum TetherUS perpetual contract on the 12 hour timeframe on Binance. At the time shown, ETH traded near 3,244.47 USDT, up about 8.70 USDT, or 0.27%.
The setup followed a steep drop, then a rising, tight channel that formed between two upward sloping trendlines. The latest move on the chart broke below the channel and extended into a projected downswing, which aligned with Martinez's $2,400 level.
The graphic placed that downside area near the lower right of the price scale, with the projection moving from the low 3,000s toward the mid 2,000s. Martinez framed the move as conditional, saying the $2,400 target applies if the structure is a flag.
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AI-powered trading hasn't yet reached an “iPhone moment,” when everyone is carrying around an algorithmic, reinforcement learning portfolio manager in their pocket, but something like that is coming, experts say.
In fact, the power of AI meets its match when faced with the dynamic, adversarial arena of trading markets. Unlike an AI agent informed by endless circuits of self-driving cars learning to accurately recognize traffic signals, no amount of data and modeling will ever be able to tell the future.
This makes refining AI trading models a complex, demanding process. The measure of success has typically been gauging profit and loss (P&L). But advancements in how to customize algorithms are engendering agents that continually learn to balance risk and reward when faced with a multitude of market conditions.
Allowing risk-adjusted metrics such as the Sharpe Ratio to inform the learning process multiplies the sophistication of a test, said Michael Sena, chief marketing officer at Recall Labs, a firm that has run 20 or so AI trading arenas, where a community submits AI trading agents, and those agents compete over a four or five day period.
“When it comes to scanning the market for alpha, the next generation of builders are exploring algo customization and specialization, taking user preferences into account,” Sena said in an interview. “Being optimized for a particular ratio and not just raw P&L is more like the way leading financial institutions work in traditional markets. So, looking at things like, what is your max drawdown, how much was your value at risk to make this P&L?”
Taking a step back, a recent trading competition on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, involving several large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-5, DeepSeek and Gemini Pro, kind of set the baseline for where AI is in the trading world. These LLMs were all given the same prompt and executed autonomously, making decisions. But they weren't that good, according to Sena, barely outperforming the market.
“We took the AI models used in the Hyperliquid contest and we let people submit their trading agents that they had built to compete against those models. We wanted to see if trading agents are better than the foundational models, with that added specialization,” Sena said.
The top three spots in Recall's competition were taken by customized models. “Some models were unprofitable and underperformed, but it became obvious that specialized trading agents that take these models and apply additional logic and inference and data sources and things on top, are outperforming the base AI,” he said.
The democratization of AI-based trading raises interesting questions about whether there will be any alpha left to cover if everyone is using the same level of sophisticated machine-learning tech.
“If everyone's using the same agent and that agent is executing the same strategy for everyone, does that sort of collapse into itself?” Sena said. “Does the alpha it's detecting go away because it's trying to execute it at scale for everyone else?”
That's why those best positioned to benefit from the advantage AI trading will eventually bring are those with the resources to invest in the development of custom tools, Sena said. As in traditional finance, the highest quality tools that generate the most alpha are typically not public, he added.
“People want to keep these tools as private as possible, because they want to protect that alpha,” Sena said. “They paid a lot for it. You saw that with hedge funds buying data sets. You can see that with proprietary algos developed by family offices.
“I think the magical sweet spot will be where there's a product that is a portfolio manager but the user still has some say in their strategy. They can say, ‘This is how I like to trade and here are my parameters, let's implement something similar, but make it better.'”
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Michael Saylor's Strategy Hangs on to Spot in Nasdaq 100 Index
The annual Nasdaq 100 rebalance saw six companies dropped and three new additions, with changes taking effect on December 22, but bitcoin treasury company Strategy hung onto its spot.
What to know:
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
Figure Technology Solutions, the blockchain-focused fintech firm best known for tokenized asset markets and on-chain lending infrastructure, has submitted a second Initial Public Offering (IPO) application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
This time around, the fintech seeks to gain permission to make its own equity available directly on a public blockchain with this recent IPO submission.
This move comes just a few days after Figure Technology's recent listing on Nasdaq. The latest public offering aims to expand the use of decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Solana blockchain.
Mike Cagney, the co-founder and CEO of financial services company Figure Technology Solutions, announced their latest decision to file an IPO with the SEC during the Solana Breakpoint conference. According to Cagney, this recent public offering aims to establish what he refers to as “a new version of Figure equity on a public blockchain,” with a particular focus on Solana.
Afterwards, the co-founder made it clear that this blockchain-based equity would not be made available for trade on regular exchanges, such as the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. Cagney also noted that it will not rely on brokers such as Robinhood or leading firms like Goldman Sachs.
Preferably, it will be issued and made available for trade directly on the blockchain via Figure's alternative trading system. Cagney referred to this trading system as “essentially a decentralized exchange.”
The American entrepreneur also argued that investors can utilize the tokenized security within DeFi protocols, which will enable them to borrow against it or lend it out, following the introduction of equity directly on Solana.
Meanwhile, sources close to the situation mentioned that the firm's main objective extends further than merely tokenizing its own shares, citing an earlier statement from Cagney. In this statement, the CEO outlined intentions to provide assistance to other firms, enabling them to offer equity directly within the Solana ecosystem.
“One of our main goals is not only to bring equity into the Solana ecosystem but also to allow for native Solana equity issuance,” he said.
Following Figure's latest decision, analysts acknowledge that Solana has already positioned itself as one of the largest public blockchains by activity. With this classification, they also discovered that Solana is increasingly becoming a crucial player in the tokenized assets market, gradually boosting its holdings in the real-world asset (RWA) market over the past year.
Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Bitwise Asset Management, a leading crypto asset manager, shared his belief that Solana will probably become the main network for stablecoins and tokenized assets preferred in the financial industry in the future. He made these remarks although Ethereum has solidified its position as a leader in tokenization today.
On the other hand, analysts anticipate that blockchains offering accelerated, high-capacity, and swift transaction finality will draw the interest of most investors in the financial sector. This prediction was released when Wall Street announced that it was carefully examining the viability of tokenized assets over time.
In the meantime, Hougan claimed that Solana has a competitive edge in this sector over several other networks. To support this claim, research from RedStone highlighted that Solana is a “high-performance challenger” in the RWA field, particularly in tokenized US Treasury markets.
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Disclaimer. The information provided is not trading advice. Cryptopolitan.com holds no liability for any investments made based on the information provided on this page. We strongly recommend independent research and/or consultation with a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.
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Figure Technology Solutions, the blockchain-focused fintech firm best known for tokenized asset markets and on-chain lending infrastructure, has submitted a second Initial Public Offering (IPO) application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
This time around, the fintech seeks to gain permission to make its own equity available directly on a public blockchain with this recent IPO submission.
This move comes just a few days after Figure Technology's recent listing on Nasdaq. The latest public offering aims to expand the use of decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Solana blockchain.
Mike Cagney, the co-founder and CEO of financial services company Figure Technology Solutions, announced their latest decision to file an IPO with the SEC during the Solana Breakpoint conference. According to Cagney, this recent public offering aims to establish what he refers to as “a new version of Figure equity on a public blockchain,” with a particular focus on Solana.
Afterwards, the co-founder made it clear that this blockchain-based equity would not be made available for trade on regular exchanges, such as the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. Cagney also noted that it will not rely on brokers such as Robinhood or leading firms like Goldman Sachs.
Preferably, it will be issued and made available for trade directly on the blockchain via Figure's alternative trading system. Cagney referred to this trading system as “essentially a decentralized exchange.”
The American entrepreneur also argued that investors can utilize the tokenized security within DeFi protocols, which will enable them to borrow against it or lend it out, following the introduction of equity directly on Solana.
Meanwhile, sources close to the situation mentioned that the firm's main objective extends further than merely tokenizing its own shares, citing an earlier statement from Cagney. In this statement, the CEO outlined intentions to provide assistance to other firms, enabling them to offer equity directly within the Solana ecosystem.
“One of our main goals is not only to bring equity into the Solana ecosystem but also to allow for native Solana equity issuance,” he said.
Following Figure's latest decision, analysts acknowledge that Solana has already positioned itself as one of the largest public blockchains by activity. With this classification, they also discovered that Solana is increasingly becoming a crucial player in the tokenized assets market, gradually boosting its holdings in the real-world asset (RWA) market over the past year.
Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Bitwise Asset Management, a leading crypto asset manager, shared his belief that Solana will probably become the main network for stablecoins and tokenized assets preferred in the financial industry in the future. He made these remarks although Ethereum has solidified its position as a leader in tokenization today.
On the other hand, analysts anticipate that blockchains offering accelerated, high-capacity, and swift transaction finality will draw the interest of most investors in the financial sector. This prediction was released when Wall Street announced that it was carefully examining the viability of tokenized assets over time.
In the meantime, Hougan claimed that Solana has a competitive edge in this sector over several other networks. To support this claim, research from RedStone highlighted that Solana is a “high-performance challenger” in the RWA field, particularly in tokenized US Treasury markets.
Get $50 free to trade crypto when you sign up to Bybit now
Disclaimer. The information provided is not trading advice. Cryptopolitan.com holds no liability for any investments made based on the information provided on this page. We strongly recommend independent research and/or consultation with a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.
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Your gateway to web3.
Copyright 2025 Cryptopolitan
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The increasing demand for intelligent and privacy-preserving machine learning in future 6G networks presents significant challenges, but researchers are now exploring the potential of quantum federated learning (QFL) to address them. Dinh C. Nguyen, Md Bokhtiar Al Zami, and Ratun Rahman, from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, alongside colleagues including Tuy Tan Nguyen from Florida State University and Fatemeh Afghah from Clemson University, present a novel framework, QFLchain, that integrates QFL with blockchain technology. This innovative approach moves beyond traditional centralised learning, offering a decentralised and tamper-resistant infrastructure for collaborative intelligence at the network edge. By investigating key areas such as communication overhead, scalability, energy efficiency, and security vulnerabilities, the team demonstrates that QFLchain offers substantial improvements in training performance compared to existing methods, paving the way for robust and scalable 6G intelligence.
Quantum resilience is paramount in future wireless networks, yet the anticipated dynamism and data intensity of 6G environments demand a move beyond traditional, centralised federated learning. Blockchain technology offers a decentralised and tamper-resistant infrastructure, enabling secure collaboration among distributed quantum edge devices. Scientists now present QFLchain, a novel framework integrating quantum federated learning with blockchain to support scalable 6G intelligence. This work investigates critical aspects of the system, including communication overhead, scalability, energy efficiency, and security, demonstrating potential advantages over current approaches in training performance.
This paper introduces QFLchain, a framework combining Quantum Federated Learning (QFL), blockchain, and quantum communication technologies to address challenges in future 6G networks. The authors identify limitations in traditional federated learning and propose QFLchain as a solution. Key components include QFL to enhance learning performance, blockchain for secure model aggregation, and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) for secure key exchange. QFLchain aims to reduce overhead, improve scalability, enhance energy efficiency, and strengthen security. A case study demonstrates advantages over existing approaches in training performance and system efficiency, while the authors highlight areas for future work.
Scientists present QFLchain, a novel framework integrating quantum federated learning with blockchain technology to support scalable 6G intelligence. The work investigates communication overhead, scalability, energy efficiency, and security vulnerabilities, demonstrating potential advantages over state-of-the-art approaches in training performance. QFLchain operates through a local model update chain, where selected quantum devices perform training on private data and share updates via secure links. A local consensus protocol validates these updates before recording them into a new blockchain block, enabling inter-group synchronization and secure aggregation of diverse local updates.
Experiments reveal that QFLchain significantly reduces communication overhead through quantum entanglement, minimising bandwidth consumption in dense 6G networks. The team also demonstrates faster agreement through quantum consensus protocols, achieving consensus with fewer message exchanges and reduced computational effort. Measurements confirm near-instant node synchronization by combining quantum communication and consensus, enabling rapid update sharing and validation, which is critical for time-sensitive applications. The research also highlights adaptive resource management, where QFLchain intelligently distributes storage and processing workload across participating devices, optimising system performance and scalability. This work establishes a foundation for future advancements in decentralised AI training within next-generation 6G networks.
This work presents QFLchain, a novel framework integrating quantum federated learning, blockchain technology, and quantum communication to address the demands of future 6G networks. Researchers investigated key aspects of QFLchain, including communication and consensus overhead, scalability, energy efficiency, and security vulnerabilities, demonstrating its potential advantages over existing approaches in training performance and system efficiency. The framework aims to enable scalable, secure, and quantum-resilient artificial intelligence architectures for next-generation wireless systems. While QFLchain demonstrates promising benefits, the team acknowledges remaining challenges, including ensuring reliable quantum key distribution in mobile environments, reducing the hardware and energy demands of quantum edge devices, and improving fault tolerance within quantum circuits. Future research will focus on optimising hybrid quantum federated learning and blockchain architectures under realistic hardware constraints, and developing adaptive protocols suitable for dynamic network topologies. This ongoing work seeks to refine the framework and pave the way for practical implementation in future 6G deployments.
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🗞 When Quantum Federated Learning Meets Blockchain in 6G Networks
🧠 ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09958
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White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks looks on before President Donald Trump signs executive orders earlier this year.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
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David Sacks, President Trump's influential adviser on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, is on the defensive over government paperwork that critics say grant him "carte blanche" to shape U.S. policy while retaining hundreds of investments in the tech world.
Sacks is a prominent venture capitalist who, along with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, is a member of the Paypal Mafia, a group of executives of the online payments company who helped spark the digital economy after the dot-com bust.
The debate over Sacks' investments comes just as he helped shape a controversial executive order instructing the Justice Department to challenge state AI laws deemed "onerous" to the industry — something that's faced resistance from both parties and members of the MAGA movement who distrust the tech elite.
The controversy centers on routine government paperwork known as ethics waivers that special government employees, like Sacks, often receive.
The documents are intended to justify the public interest rationale for the White House to hire a former industry insider and disclose investments related to the sector over which the official will be crafting policy.
Sacks did divest from some tech holdings like Amazon, Meta, and Musk's xAI, but public documents show that he and his firm, Craft Ventures, maintain more than 400 investments in tech firms with ties to AI.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis, characterized the sweeping nature of the waiver as highly unusual.
"These are sham ethics waivers," Clark said. "They lack the kind of rigorous objective ethics analysis that would ensure that public policy is made for public benefit. Instead, they were aimed at enabling Sacks to profit from his government position," she said, describing the waivers as "like a presidential pardon in advance."
Clark said the waivers are essentially saying: "Go ahead and take action that would ordinarily violate the criminal conflict of interest statute, we won't prosecute you for it."
After The New York Times recently published an investigation into Sacks' AI and crypto holdings, dozens of his friends in the tech world rushed to his defense on X, heaping him with praise and maligning the newspaper.
"While Americans bicker, our rivals are studying David's every move. I've known David for decades, and I've never seen him sharper or more necessary," billionaire Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff wrote on X about Sacks, who is also a billionaire.
As the Times was looking into Sacks, he said he hired a defamation law firm to send threatening letters to the paper, which Sacks claims "willfully mischaracterized or ignored the facts to support their bogus narrative."
In a statement, a Times spokesperson said it remains confident in its reporting on Sacks, which revealed "the ethical complexities and intertwined interests of his dual roles as a government advisor and a major investor."
Sacks declined to speak with NPR but addressed the controversy on his podcast, All-In, which he continues to co-host even as he works at the White House.
"The truth is that I divested hundreds of millions of dollars in positions in promising technology ventures at a substantial cost to my net worth," Sacks said. "So not only is this job not benefiting me, it's actually cost me a lot of money to serve."
He emphasized that the Office of Government Ethics approved his public waivers and concluded he had no conflicts of interest among his venture firm's investments.
The conflict-of-interest questions come just as Sacks landed a major victory with Trump's signing of an executive order Thursday which aims to undo some of the more than 100 laws states have passed to regulate AI. Most target AI deepfakes, or require additional transparency and disclosure of how AI models operate.
The idea had been shelved the first few times Sacks advocated for it, but the president signing the order putting state AI laws in the crosshairs was something Silicon Valley executives have wanted for months.
In particular, OpenAI, Google and the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, have lobbied for months for the measure, saying a patchwork of state laws could hamper the AI boom and give China an edge.
"A 50-state patchwork is a startup killer," said Marc Andreessen, an influential venture capitalist, on X last month. "Federal AI legislation is essential. There's no bigger issue for Little Tech — the builders who create the future, for America."
On Friday, appearing on Bloomberg Tech, Sacks said: "What we need is a single federal or national framework for AI regulation."
Overriding state AI laws has drawn resistance, not only from AI safety advocates but also from within the MAGA world.
Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, has emerged as a key opponent to Sacks' policies, calling for a pause on AI labs' pursuit of superintelligence until the risks are better understood.
"I think the issue with Sacks is, to me, it's not he's got these conflicts. My bigger problem is his judgment," Bannon told NPR shortly after he had spent time lobbying against Sacks' policies at Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
Bannon said Sacks is focused solely on the tech industry's growing dominance, with no regard for public safety.
"Right now, you have more regulations, ten times more regulations, to open a nail salon on Capitol Hill than you have into one of the most promising yet one of the most dangerous technologies ever invented," Bannon said. "My question to this group: Where's the risk mitigation? I haven't seen it."
Bannon also expressed deep concern that Sacks and his allies could push the federal government to orchestrate a taxpayer bailout for the tech industry should the current AI investment bubble burst.
This concern is amplified by Sacks' history: two years ago, he was one of the loudest voices advocating for a government rescue of the failed Silicon Valley Bank. And the federal government did step in to backstop $175 billion in deposits.
"When you start talking about their equity, and if the taxpayer is going to step up and give a guarantee, and that's gonna be kind of chopped up and dealt out, we're gonna see what kind of public servants these guys are," Bannon said.
Sacks, in his posts on X, has sent mixed messages about the specter of a federal bailout for the tech industry. Last month, he wrote that if one of the major AI frontier labs, like OpenAI and Anthropic, fails, others will take its place.
"There will be no federal bailout for AI," Sacks wrote.
But in another post weeks later about the surging pace of AI investments that has analysts fearing a bubble, Sacks wrote: "A reversal would risk recession," he said. "We can't afford to go backwards."
Clark, the ethics expert, said she thinks this shows that "if the bubble breaks, there will be a lot of heart ache, and the folks who have invested in those bubbles are going to be asking for a bailout."
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Amin Ayan is a crypto journalist with over four years of experience in the industry. He has contributed to leading publications such as Cryptonews, Investing.com, 99Bitcoins, and 24/7 Wall St. He has...
A 69-million-year-old triceratops fossil has become the newest trophy among crypto's wealthy investors amid a shift from digital collectibles.
Key Takeaways:
Wintermute co-founder Yoann Turpin and a small group of crypto investors have quietly purchased a fully intact dinosaur fossil, according to a recent Bloomberg report.
The fossil, one of only 24 known specimens, now sits inside Le Freeport in Singapore, a fortress-like storage facility owned by crypto billionaire Jihan Wu and often described as “Asia's Fort Knox.”
When Bloomberg's Suvashree Ghosh visited the vault with Turpin and co-owners including collectibles entrepreneur Chaw Wei Yang, the dinosaur wasn't the only surprise.
The halls were lined with tokenized gold bars, fine art, rare wine, and hard drives holding hundreds of millions in digital assets, a real-world archive of crypto wealth that has spilled far beyond the blockchain, per the report.
Turpin told the media that the splurge was partly passion, partly prestige, echoing a trend that has swept through the upper tiers of the industry.
Just last year, Citadel's Ken Griffin paid $44.6 million for a near-complete stegosaurus, the highest price ever for a fossil at auction.
For crypto's nouveau riche, the shift from NFTs to fossils marks a broader turn toward ultra-scarce, tangible collectibles, assets that can't suddenly vanish in a protocol upgrade.
However, while some crypto figures are digging up dinosaurs, others are building new digital-asset infrastructure.
BAYC falls below 5 ETH for the first time since August 2021NFTs had been down bad and its poster child, BAYC, is no exceptionBut there's a catalyst beyond the broader NFT market that's leading to BAYC being down below 5ETH…What is it?ApeCoin staking rewards ends today… pic.twitter.com/rfwZG1DHr1
Malaysia's crown prince, Tunku Ismail Ibrahim, recently launched RMJDT, a ringgit-backed stablecoin under his firm Bullish Aim.
AirAsia parent Capital A and Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia are also exploring a ringgit-pegged token as part of the country's digital asset pilot programs, signaling growing interest in regulated stablecoin projects.
As reported, Meta is reducing investment in its metaverse division and shifting its focus to AI-powered glasses and wearable devices, reflecting one of its biggest strategic resets in years.
The move follows rising investor skepticism over the commercial viability of virtual worlds and large-scale VR platforms.
The company has spent more than a decade and billions of dollars building out its metaverse vision, including rebranding to Meta in 2021.
However, user growth on Horizon Worlds has stagnated, and headset sales have repeatedly fallen short of expectations.
Bloomberg reported that metaverse spending may be cut by as much as 30%, a signal to markets that the company is rebalancing priorities.
Meanwhile, NFT sales have slumped to their lowest levels of the year, with monthly volume dropping to $320 million in November, roughly half of October's total.
Early December data shows only $62 million in sales during the first week, signaling that the slowdown is likely to continue as demand for digital collectibles weakens.
The downturn reflects a steep drop in NFT valuations across the board. CoinGecko data shows the sector's market capitalization has fallen to $3.1 billion, a 66% decline from January's $9.2 billion peak.
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Once a breakout non-fungible token (NFT) project during the 2021 crypto boom, Pudgy Penguins is turning to real-world visibility with a high-profile ad placement at the Las Vegas Sphere during Christmas week.
Only a few crypto-related brands have secured ad space at the Sphere, a massive LED-covered venue known for its immersive displays and performances by acts like U2 and the Eagles. A bitcoin-focused activation ran in July, but other examples have been rare.
Pudgy Penguins' ad will run for several days starting December 24 and will include multiple animated segments, according to a person familiar with the deal. The brand spent roughly $500,000 on the placement — standard for a run at the Sphere.
“It's sort of showing that a crypto project can exceed and go out of crypto, touch the hearts and minds of everyday consumers,” Vedant Mangaldas, chief of strategy and brand at Pudgy Penguins, told CoinDesk. He said that the deal was made possible because the project has a “real business” behind it.
Launched in 2021 on Ethereum, Pudgy Penguins is best known for its collection of 8,888 cartoon-style penguin NFTs, each with unique traits. Under new leadership, the project has since expanded into physical toys sold at major retailers and a browser-based social game called Pudgy World.
The most popular Pudgy Penguin was reportedly sold in August 2022 for 400 ETH — valued at around $650k at the time. Today, the NFT would be worth over $1.2 million at ETH's current price of $3,086.
The project fought to stay relevant during the recent years-long NFT bear market — not without success. Last December, it made fresh headlines when it said it was planning to launch a token called PENGU on Solana SOL$132.39.
A few weeks later, the NFT set became the world's second most-valued NFTs with a minimum — or floor — price for any of the 8,888 comic penguins topping $100,000 and flipping the collections' value above its comic monkey forerunner, the Bored Apes Yacht Club.
PENGU, which is listed on major exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), is down about 80% over the past year and about 74% from its all-time high of $0.042 in July.
More For You
Protocol Research: GoPlus Security
What to know:
More For You
Most Influential: Jesse Pollak
Base, the layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, exploded in popularity this year.
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
Once a breakout non-fungible token (NFT) project during the 2021 crypto boom, Pudgy Penguins is turning to real-world visibility with a high-profile ad placement at the Las Vegas Sphere during Christmas week.
Only a few crypto-related brands have secured ad space at the Sphere, a massive LED-covered venue known for its immersive displays and performances by acts like U2 and the Eagles. A bitcoin-focused activation ran in July, but other examples have been rare.
Pudgy Penguins' ad will run for several days starting December 24 and will include multiple animated segments, according to a person familiar with the deal. The brand spent roughly $500,000 on the placement — standard for a run at the Sphere.
“It's sort of showing that a crypto project can exceed and go out of crypto, touch the hearts and minds of everyday consumers,” Vedant Mangaldas, chief of strategy and brand at Pudgy Penguins, told CoinDesk. He said that the deal was made possible because the project has a “real business” behind it.
Launched in 2021 on Ethereum, Pudgy Penguins is best known for its collection of 8,888 cartoon-style penguin NFTs, each with unique traits. Under new leadership, the project has since expanded into physical toys sold at major retailers and a browser-based social game called Pudgy World.
The most popular Pudgy Penguin was reportedly sold in August 2022 for 400 ETH — valued at around $650k at the time. Today, the NFT would be worth over $1.2 million at ETH's current price of $3,086.
The project fought to stay relevant during the recent years-long NFT bear market — not without success. Last December, it made fresh headlines when it said it was planning to launch a token called PENGU on Solana SOL$132.46.
A few weeks later, the NFT set became the world's second most-valued NFTs with a minimum — or floor — price for any of the 8,888 comic penguins topping $100,000 and flipping the collections' value above its comic monkey forerunner, the Bored Apes Yacht Club.
PENGU, which is listed on major exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN) and Robinhood (HOOD), is down about 80% over the past year and about 74% from its all-time high of $0.042 in July.
More For You
Protocol Research: GoPlus Security
What to know:
More For You
Most Influential: Jesse Pollak
Base, the layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, exploded in popularity this year.
Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.
J.P. Morgan just made waves in the finance world by facilitating a commercial paper issuance on the Solana blockchain. This is not some random crypto payroll platform move, but a serious signal that institutions are warming up to digital assets. It's one of the first institutional debt issuances on a public blockchain, and it involves big names like Galaxy Digital, Coinbase, and Franklin Templeton. This could be a game changer for how financial markets operate.
Blockchain tech is shaking up the financial sector, giving it a much-needed dose of transparency, security, and efficiency. Traditional banking methods can feel like they belong in the stone age with their slow transaction speeds and high costs. But blockchain? That could streamline everything and lessen the need for middlemen. It's not just a passing fad; it's a shift in how we do finance. Crypto payroll and digital banking startups are just the beginning of this transition.
Now, let's get to the nitty-gritty. J.P. Morgan's arranged a short-term commercial paper issuance for Galaxy Digital on Solana. This is a big deal, as it's one of the first institutional debt issuances on a public blockchain. Key players like Coinbase and Franklin Templeton are involved, pointing to a growing interest in digital assets via blockchain infrastructure. J.P. Morgan is showing that they are ready to explore new options for financial efficiency.
Why Solana, you ask? Well, its high throughput and low transaction fees make it a perfect fit for commercial paper issuance. Traditional methods are often bogged down by multiple intermediaries and long settlement times. Solana, on the other hand, offers near-instant settlements and lowers counterparty risk. In the fast-paced world of corporate borrowing, this efficiency is crucial. What we see here is not just a technical feat; it's a possible template for future transactions in finance.
The names attached to this transaction—J.P. Morgan, Galaxy Digital, Coinbase, and Franklin Templeton—highlight the importance of regulatory compliance and secure asset management in the blockchain space. As institutions navigate the maze of digital asset regulations, working with credible players could boost trust and legitimacy. This could be a blueprint for future blockchain initiatives, emphasizing compliance-focused innovation in the crypto banking landscape.
What does this mean for the markets? Well, if more institutions start using blockchain for securitized instruments, we might see a spike in stablecoin usage and digital asset investments. This could change the game for traditional finance, forcing businesses to rethink how they handle crypto payments and treasury management. A global crypto business banking ecosystem isn't just a pipe dream; it's becoming a reality, driven by Web3 corporate banking and B2B crypto payment platforms.
J.P. Morgan's commercial paper issuance on Solana is a landmark event that highlights the transformative potential of blockchain technology in finance. As institutions increasingly embrace digital assets, the future of blockchain in traditional finance looks promising. This transaction not only enhances operational efficiency but also paves the way for a new era of compliance and trust in the financial sector. As we move forward, the integration of blockchain into financial markets will continue to evolve, offering exciting opportunities for businesses and investors alike.
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Itaú Unibanco advocates for Bitcoin allocation strategies, reshaping investment approaches in Brazil's evolving digital asset market.
The BOJ's potential interest rate hike could significantly impact cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, as market dynamics and investor strategies evolve.
XRP's volatility poses challenges for SMEs. Discover how stablecoins can stabilize payroll solutions and enhance financial strategies in crypto.
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And it gets even trippier.
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
Have you ever had a dream in which you realized you were dreaming?
When you become conscious of the fact that you are dreaming, you can take advantage of that knowledge and manipulate the dream. If you want to do something that is physically impossible in the real world, such as flying, you can leap into the air and take flight. Someone who realizes they are trapped in a nightmare can convince themselves to wake up.
The state known as lucid dreaming is an unquestionably surreal one, and it just got even more so. A team of researchers—led by Çağatay Demirel from the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging at Radboud University Medical Center, the Netherlands—has discovered that lucid dreaming has now been found to be a state of consciousness separate from both wakefulness and REM sleep (the state usually associated with dreams), and is in fact associated with its own unique type of brain activity. They published a study on their findings in the Journal of Neuroscience.
“This research opens the door to a deeper understanding of lucid dreaming as an intricate state of consciousness by pointing to the possibility that conscious experience can arise from within sleep itself,” Demirel said in a press release.
To identify what sets lucid dreaming apart from the rest of sleep, he and his team pulled previous studies—in which brain activity was measured with EEG sensors—together into what is now the most extensive dataset in this field of sleep research. The researchers then compared brain activity patterns for wakefulness, REM sleep, and lucid dreaming to find that that the eerie self-awareness experienced in lucid dreams has a connection to the electrical rhythms in neurons known as brain waves.
Perception and memory processing in the lucid dreaming state were found to be different from non-lucid REM sleep. The consciousness of existing in a dream was associated with with beta waves in the right temporal lobe (which controls spatial awareness and nonverbal memory) and parietal lobe (which controls the sense of touch and self-perception). Beta waves are a type of high-frequency electromagnetic activity in the brain involved in conscious thought processes like solving problems or making decisions. Our consciousness is dominated by beta waves when we are awake.
This might explain why there is so much cognitive control in lucid dreams. Dreamers deep in REM sleep have no sense of control over factors like thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but those in lucid dreaming states do.
Demirel also linked gamma waves with lucid dreaming. These are the fastest brain waves, which become visible on an EEG at times when the brain is especially alert and focusing on something. When lucid dreaming begins, gamma waves increase in the right precuneus, which is involved in self-referential thinking—thoughts about ourselves and our lives. When we are awake, we often drift into this type of thinking when our minds wander.
Maybe the most mind-bending thing about lucid dreams is that they are, according to the study, similar in the brain to the effects of psychedelic drugs such as LSD and ayahuasca. These types of psychedelic experiences are also associated with the precuneus, whose activity is modified when waking imagery is seen despite having closed eyes (something usually only experienced with psychedelics).
Interestingly, however, lucid dreams may even go a few experiential steps past psychedelics. “While psychedelics often lead to a dissolution of ego and decreased self-referential processing […] lucid dreams may actually harness elements of self-awareness and control,” Demirel and his team said in the study.
So if you're capable of lucid dreaming, you're in for an awesome trip.
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A GDDR killer from the HBM camp? Not quite.
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JEDEC, the organization responsible for defining the specifications of industry-standard memory types, is close to finalizing SPHBM4, a new memory standard designed to deliver full HBM4-class bandwidth with a 'narrow' 512-bit interface, higher capacities, and lower integration costs by leveraging compatibility with conventional organic substrates. If the technology takes off, it will address many gaps in the markets HBM could serve, but as we'll explain below, it isn't likely to be a GDDR memory killer.
Although high-bandwidth memory (HBM) 1024-bit or 2048-bit interfaces enable unbeatable performance and energy efficiency, such interfaces take a lot of precious silicon real estate inside high-end processors, which limits the number of HBM stacks per chip and therefore memory capacity supported by AI accelerators, impacting both the performance of individual accelerators as well as the capabilities of large clusters that use them.
The Standard Package High Bandwidth Memory (SPHBM4) addresses this issue by reducing the HBM4 memory interface width from 2048 bits to 512 bits with 4:1 serialization to maintain the same bandwidth. JEDEC doesn't specify whether '4:1 serialization' means quadrupling the data transfer rate from 8 GT/s in HBM4, or introducing a new encoding scheme with higher clocks. Still, the goal is obvious: preserve aggregate HBM4 bandwidth with a 512-bit interface.
Inside, SPHBM4 packages will use an industry-standard base die (probably made by a foundry using a logic fabrication process and therefore not cheaper as routing 'wide' DRAM ICs into a 'narrow' base die will probably get nasty here in terms of density and there will be clocking challenges due to slow wires from DRAMs and fast wires from the base die itself). It will also use standard HBM4 DRAM dies, which simplifies controller development (at least at the logical level) and ensures that capacity per stack remains on par with HBM4 and HBM4E, up to 64 GB per HBM4E stack.
On paper, this means quadrupling SPHBM4 memory capacity compared to HBM4, but in practice, AI chip developers will likely balance memory capacity with higher compute capability and the versatility they can pack into their chips, as silicon real estate becomes more expensive with each new process technology.
An avid reader will likely ask why not use SPHBM4 memory with gaming GPUs and graphics cards, which could enable higher bandwidth at a moderate cost increase compared to GDDR7 or a potential GDDR7X with PAM4 encoding.
Designed to deliver HBM4-class bandwidth, SPHBM4 is fundamentally engineered to prioritize performance and capacity over other considerations, such as power and cost.
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Although cheaper than HBM4 or HBM4E, SPHBM4 still requires stacked HBM DRAM dies that are physically larger and therefore more expensive than commodity DRAM ICs, an interface base die, TSV processing, known-good-die flows, and advanced in-package assembly. These steps dominate cost and scale poorly with volume compared to commodity GDDR7, which benefits from enormous consumer and gaming volumes, simple packages, and mature PCB assembly.
That said, replacing many GDDR7 chips with a single advanced SPHBM4 may not reduce costs; it may increase them.
While a 512-bit memory bus remains a complex interface, JEDEC says SPHBM4 enables 2.5D integration on conventional organic substrates and does not require expensive interposers, significantly lowering integration costs and potentially expanding design flexibility. Meanwhile, with an industry-standard 512-bit interface, SPHBM4 can offer lower costs (thanks to the volume enabled by standardization) compared to C-HBM4E solutions that rely on UCIe or proprietary interfaces.
Compared to silicon-based solutions, organic substrate routing enables longer electrical channel lengths between the SoC and the memory stacks, potentially easing layout constraints in large packages and accommodating more memory capacity near the package than is currently possible. Still, it is hard to imagine routing of a 3084-bit memory interface (alongside data and power wires) using conventional substrates, but we'll see about that.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the federal agency tasked with overseeing security at U.S. airports, is providing the names of domestic air travelers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a new report from the New York Times. Historically, TSA hasn't been involved in hunting down people for ICE, but that's apparently changed during the second Trump era.
TSA now sends ICE lists “multiple times a week” of people who will be traveling through U.S. airports, and those are compared to databases of travelers the Trump regime claims are subject to deportation, according to the Times. We say “claims” because ICE has deported people who are not subject to deportation, the most famous case being Kilmar Abrego Garcia who a judge ordered released on Friday.
The Times notes that it's unclear how many people have been arrested at airports under the new information-sharing program between TSA and ICE. But it appears that Any Lucía López Belloza, a 19-year-old abducted at Boston Logan Airport on Nov. 20 and deported to Honduras just a couple of days later, was napped using this system. Lopez Belloza, who had been in the U.S. since she was just 7 years old, was ferried out of the country despite the fact that a judge ruled she should not be deported on Nov. 21, according to a different report from the Times.
The new cooperation between TSA and ICE started in March, according to the Times. The Trump regime announced a couple of months ago that just 7,500 refugees will be admitted to the U.S. during the 2026 fiscal year, which started in October. Most of the refugees will be white South Africans, according to the Associated Press. Last year's ceiling was 125,000 refugees under President Joe Biden.
The new report from the Times notes that one reason ICE agents like arresting people at airports is that they've already been screened for weapons. Masked federal agents have invaded many cities with their terrorizing tactics and it's a common question among social media pundits who ask why there haven't been more shoot-outs in the streets. Given America's love for guns, it's fairly baffling, though Trump's federal agents have shot unarmed people while sweeping cities to harass anyone who isn't white.
President Trump is a racist who's said things that would've been considered unseemly for a president to say publicly even a hundred years ago. During an Oval Office appearance on Dec. 2, Trump said people from Somalia were “garbage.”
“They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you, okay?” Trump said. “Somebody said, ‘Oh, that's not politically correct.' I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country's no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don't want them in our country.”
On Tuesday, Trump called nations like Afghanistan, Haiti, and Somalia “shithole countries,” a term he's used before. And while Trump's defenders will often insist it's about crime, his more Nazi-adjacent supporters know the score. His efforts to expel immigrants is about race.
It's extremely unusual for TSA to be handing ICE lists of passengers so that they can run a deportation program. And Reuters reporter Brad Heath, whose beat is criminal justice, helped put it in perspective: “To give you a sense of how big a departure this year, the government doesn't do this for wanted criminals,” Heath wrote.
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Following reports that Nvidia has developed a data fleet management software that can track physical locations of its GPUs, Nvidia on Thursday detailed its GPU fleet monitoring software. The software indeed enables data center operators to monitor various aspects of an AI GPU fleet. Among other things, it allows for detecting the physical location of these processors, a possible deterrent against smuggling chips. However, there is a catch: the software is opt-in rather than mandatory, which may limit its effectiveness as a tool to thwart smugglers, whether nation-state or otherwise.
The software collects extensive telemetry, which is then aggregated into a central dashboard hosted on Nvidia's NGC platform. This interface lets customers visualize GPU status across their entire fleet, either globally or by compute zones representing specific physical or cloud locations, which means the software can detect the physical location of Nvidia hardware. Operators can view fleet-wide summaries, drill into individual clusters, and generate structured reports containing inventory data and system-wide health information.
Nvidia stresses that the software is strictly observational: it provides insight into GPU behavior but cannot act as a backdoor or a kill switch. As a result, even if Nvidia discovers via the NGC platform that some of its GPUs have been smuggled to China, it cannot switch them off. However, the company could probably use the data to figure out how the GPUs arrived at that location. Nvidia says the software is a customer-installed, open-source client agent that is transparent and auditable.
Nvidia's new fleet-management software gives data center operators a detailed, real-time view of how their GPU infrastructure behaves under load. It continuously collects telemetry on power behavior — including short-duration spikes — enabling operators to stay within power limits. In addition to power data, the system monitors utilization, memory bandwidth usage, and interconnection health across fleets, to enable operators to maximize utilization and performance per watt. These indicators help expose load imbalance, bandwidth saturation, and link-level issues that can quietly degrade performance across large AI clusters.
Another focus of the software is thermals and airflow conditions to avoid thermal throttling and premature component aging. By catching hotspots and insufficient airflow early, operators can avoid performance drops that typically accompany high-density compute environments and, in many cases, prevent premature aging of AI accelerators.
The system also verifies whether nodes share consistent software stacks and operational parameters, which is crucial for reproducible datasets and predictable training behavior. Any configuration divergence, such as mismatched drivers or settings, becomes visible in the platform.
It is important to note that Nvidia's new fleet-management service is not the company's only tool for remotely diagnosing and controlling GPU behavior, though it is the most advanced. For example, DCGM is a local diagnostic and monitoring toolkit that exposes raw GPU health data, but requires operators to build their own dashboards and aggregation pipelines, which greatly shrinks its usability, but enables operators to build the tools they need themselves. There is also Base Command, a workflow and orchestration environment designed for AI development, job scheduling, dataset management, and collaboration, not for in-depth hardware monitoring.
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Meanwhile, all three tools represent a formidable set of knobs for data center operators. DCGM provides node-level probes, Base Command handles workloads, and the new service integrates them into a fleet-wide visibility platform that scales to geographically distributed GPU deployments.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
When a derecho slammed into the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in 2020, Diana Lokenvitz had time for exactly one glance out her window.
A wall of clouds had poured in from the west, swallowing Palo, Iowa, in darkness. “It was like it was pitch black night,” the senior systems engineer at the plant recalled.
Then, the alarm began to sound.
Within seconds of the storm hitting the plant, 130-mile-per-hour winds had severed all six of its external power lines, triggering an automatic emergency shutdown.
Backup diesel generators roared to life, and large control rods slid into the reactor core to halt the fission reaction driving the plant's energy production.
With the reactor core still dangerously hot, safety systems kicked in to help stabilize the reactor and vent excess heat, a process that lasted for hours.
“It wasn't until we went outside afterwards that we realized that the cooling towers were gone,” Lokenvitz recalled.
Twelve water-cooling towers once watched over the plant like two rows of soldiers, releasing steam from water used to cool the nuclear reactor. The storm toppled them.
The derecho, a thunderstorm characterized by high wind gusts spanning several hundred miles, had swept across the Midwest, causing widespread power outages and catastrophic damage to buildings, trees and millions of acres of crops.
After 45 years of operation, the Duane Arnold Energy Center was shut down. The plant was already scheduled for decommissioning within months, leaving little time or financial incentive to repair the storm-damaged facility.
An initial analysis by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Division of Risk Analysis estimated there had been a 1-in-1,000 chance of damage to the nuclear core at Duane Arnold during the derecho. The incident was one of only two “important precursors” to a severe accident in the US between 2015 and 2024, the second-highest risk level that can be assigned to an event at a nuclear plant, the NRC told Inside Climate News. There were no “significant precursors,” the highest risk level event, during that period.
The final NRC analysis, published in March 2021, provided a slightly lower probability of core damage but noted that the risk of a station blackout during the derecho was “particularly high.”
Duane Arnold has sat dormant since 2020, but with a power-purchasing agreement between the Florida-based owner, NextEra Energy, and Google, which is expanding its fleet of data centers in Iowa, the plant is now slated for a 2029 reopening.
Early this year, NextEra Energy notified the NRC that it would begin the regulatory process to restart the power plant.
In the fall, NextEra unveiled a partnership with Google, which already operates several data center buildings in Council Bluffs and is currently building a data center campus outside Cedar Rapids, about 12 miles from Duane Arnold.
The tech giant has agreed to help cover recommissioning costs and to purchase the bulk of Duane Arnold's energy output for 25 years. The two companies “also signed an agreement to explore the development of new nuclear generation to be deployed in the US,” the October 27 press release announced.
“The plant will provide more than 600 MW of clean, safe, ‘always-on' nuclear energy to the regional grid,” Google wrote in a statement following the NextEra announcement.
The cooling towers at Google's data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Operators say that improvements to the original plant design, including additional backup diesel generators and cooling towers with greater wind resistance, will enhance its resilience to future severe weather events. That resilience is key, as the threat of extreme storms to nuclear power in Iowa is likely to grow.
The warming of the Gulf of Mexico has driven more moisture northward into Iowa's atmosphere, increasing the frequency and severity of weather events, including heavy rains, windstorms, tornadoes and hail.
In 2024 alone, Iowa experienced a record 155 tornadoes, topping the previous record of 146 tornadoes set just three years earlier, in 2021.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tracked weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion in the state from 1980 to 2024. In that time, the state saw slightly less than two storms a year where damage estimates were higher than $1 billion, after adjusting the numbers for inflation. The average for the most recent five-year period was 5.4 events per year. (President Donald Trump's cuts to the NOAA budget mean that the agency has stopped tracking billion-dollar disasters.)
Duane Arnold officials have stressed that none of the plant's critical nuclear components suffered damage during the 2020 derecho. “The plant was safe throughout the entire event,” Matt Ohloff, a spokesman for NextEra, said of the emergency shutdown.
However, NRC reports following the incident noted damage to both safety- and non-safety- related structures.
In addition to the collapsed cooling towers, the storm damaged Duane Arnold's reactor and turbine buildings, including the “secondary containment” system, which serves as a second line of protection against radioactive release in the event of a meltdown.
Ten hours into the emergency cooldown at Duane Arnold, the system responsible for cooling the two diesel generators began to show signs of wear. Storm debris had clogged the system, and not enough water was flowing to cool the generator. Operators bypassed the strainer, keeping the generator operable.
The most likely pathway to dangerous reactor core damage at Duane Arnold during the derecho would have been the failure of both backup generators, resulting in a station blackout, the NRC analysis concluded.
Even with heightened risk of damage to the nuclear core, a great deal more would have had to go wrong for Duane Arnold to reach meltdown or radiation release, said Adam Stein, director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation program at the Breakthrough Institute, a nonpartisan and nonprofit global research center.
“This was one of the most significant safety events in US nuclear history and yet it was not significantly dangerous to the public,” said Stein. “That speaks to the robustness of these plants.”
NRC licensing requires reactor buildings to be built to withstand “tornado missiles,” or large objects colliding at high speeds, Stein added. “They are literally designed to withstand these kinds of events safely,” he said.
Still, NextEra plans to increase weather-related safety measures at the reopened Duane Arnold plant.
“We do look at those events and try to garner lessons learned and ask, what could make the plant even safer than it is?” said NextEra consultant Michael Davis at a public information meeting held in Cedar Rapids by the Iowa Utilities Commission on Nov. 13.
The company is considering installing a third diesel generator to provide additional backup power, and will also design Duane Arnold's replacement water-cooling towers with a higher wind resistance threshold, said Davis.
Google representatives did not respond to questions about whether the damage incurred at Duane Arnold during the 2020 derecho raised any concerns for nuclear safety during severe weather events.
The NRC safety requirements mandate that applicants “consider the most severe meteorologic and seismic conditions known in the proposed area,” when selecting reactor sites, an NRC representative wrote in a statement to Inside Climate News.
“It's important to understand that nuclear plants are built to withstand extreme environmental hazards and that the NRC requires plants to maintain redundant systems, components and programs to be able to mitigate loss of off-site power events,” the NRC added.
Lokenvitz, the former Duane Arnold engineer, views the plant's reopening as a sort of resurrection. If the facility hadn't already been slated for decommissioning when the derecho struck, Duane Arnold would have been rebuilt and continued to produce power, she said.
“That plant operated exactly as designed. It was just the perfect storm.”
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Forget just calling 911; if you have an Android phone, you can now share live video directly with the dispatcher. It's a new feature Google announced this week called Android Emergency Live Video, and it's rolling out to folks in the US, along with select regions in Germany and Mexico, for phones running Android 8 and newer with Google Play Services.
This capability becomes available during an emergency call or text, as a dispatcher can send a request to your phone to share live video. You need to tap to accept the request, and your phone's camera will start streaming footage, whether that's to assess a fallen tree on the road or to guide you through CPR until an ambulance arrives. Google says the feature is encrypted, and you can stop sharing the live video feed at any time. There's nothing you need to do to set the feature up.
All the top gear news of the week in one place. Here's more you may have missed this week:
This is the bougiest thing about me, but I love being able to control my smartwatch or fitness tracker without having to poke or tap at the screen. Apple introduced Double Tap on the Apple Watch in 2023, which took learnings from Apple's accessibility software, called AssistiveTouch. It helped Apple Watch wearers with accessibility issues use gesture-based controls. This year, Apple introduced Wrist Flick to dismiss calls or silence timers with WatchOS 26.
Now Google is introducing gesture controls on the Pixel Watch 4. These features are named (with no apparent shame whatsoever) Double Pinch and Wrist Turn. Like Double Tap, you can use Double Pinch to answer or end calls or pause timers. The Pixel Watch will give you hints as to when Double Pinch might be helpful.
These features join Raise to Talk, which is a wrist-based gesture that Pixel Watch wearers can use to talk to Gemini. The smart replies on the watch have also been improved. Back when Wear OS was called Android Wear, Google had a few gestures that let you flick your wrist away or toward your body to scroll through notifications and tiles. What goes around comes around. —Adrienne So
Apple's Fitness+ is an unusual case. It's one of the company's weakest offerings financially, as reported by Bloomberg. Management of the division recently rolled over to Apple Health head Sumbul Desai after explosive allegations that Jay Blahnik, the vice president of fitness technologies, had created a toxic work environment. (Prior to the management shuffle, Apple had said it was launching an internal investigation into the alleged conduct.) Personally, I'm waiting for Fitness+ to get rolled into 2026's rumored new Health+ app. I'm getting tired of being so confused about where all my health data is on my iPhone!
But it doesn't look like Apple is shutting it down just yet, since this week Apple announced that Fitness+ has expanded to a whopping 28 new markets, including Chile, Hong Kong, and India. Hundreds of Fitness+ sessions will now be available in languages such as Spanish, German, and Japanese, and there's a new K-pop music genre available for workouts. These new features tally with other developments we've seen across Apple's lineup, like live translation and heart-rate monitoring in this year's AirPods Pro 3.
Fitness+ might not be more popular than Peloton just yet, but as an integrated part of a revitalized software and hardware lineup, it could get there. —Adrienne So
Steely Sound: The Braque speakers have a hefty price to match their metallic make-up.
If you have been yearning for a pair of cubist speakers for your glamorous living room, Sweden-based Nocs Design has you covered with its new Braque speakers. The ultimate rectangles are formed from a 50-pound base of Swedish steel, which, to give you some perspective, means that each Braque plinth weighs about the same as a 9-year-old child or a bag of concrete mix.
A wooden cabinet on top that lump of metal contains a UK-based Celestion coaxial driver and an Estonian wood cabinet. The effect is strikingly sculptural despite being an otherwise standard speaker shape, with the blend of materials making these look like they belong in the next Bond villain's lair. Dual Hypex amps power each speaker.
Don't plan to use them with your flatscreen (the speakers lack HDMI), but they do have RCA, XLR, optical, and coaxial inputs. They're not for the light of pocket, either—you can pick these up (or not) now a hefty $6,000. —Parker Hall
Aura is one of the biggest names in the digital photo frame game. Part of what makes it one of my favorites is how easy it is to upload photos and invite family members and friends to the frame to share pics (unlimited photo storage is no small feature, either). Now it's even easier for your loved ones to add their shots, thanks to the new text-to-frame feature.
Frame owners will still need the Aura app, but the owner can go into the app and choose Text to Frame from the settings menu to invite whoever they want to start a text message chain with Aura. You'll add their phone number, then they'll get a text message inviting them to start texting back with photos, which will automatically be added to the digital frames.
If you have more than one frame on your account, as I do, it'll show them a list of all the frames available so they can choose which one to text. The whole process can be done within a few minutes. It's a nice, easy way to involve family members without everyone needing an app and an account. —Nena Farrell
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Apple's official store keeps the MacBook Air with M4 chip locked at its full $999 price without budging an inch, following the company's legendary resistance to discounting its own products. Amazon just shattered that pricing wall by dropping this ultraportable 256GB laptop to $749 which marks an all-time low that actually beats the Black Friday deals we saw just weeks ago.
This 13-inch model packs the new M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory, and 256GB of SSD storage and offers professional-grade performance in a package that weighs just 2.7 pounds. The $250 savings makes this the moment to finally upgrade from that aging Intel MacBook or switch from Windows to macOS without paying the usual Apple premium.
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The M4 chip is Apple's newest silicon technology and speeds up the MacBook Air so that it can handle tasks that would have needed a Pro model just a generation ago. With 16GB of unified memory, you can run multiple applications at once without any problems and you can also switch between them right away. This memory architecture lets the CPU and GPU use the same pool of RAM which gets rid of the slowdowns that happen when traditional computers move data between different memory banks.
With a single charge, the battery lasts for 18 hours which is enough for a full workday and your evening entertainment without having to look for outlets. The M4 chip's efficiency means that the laptop can run for a long time, whether you're editing spreadsheets or streaming 4K video – and it is not the case with Intel-based systems, which quickly run out of power when they're under load. The fanless design makes it completely quiet even when it's working hard which makes it perfect for libraries, coffee shops, or quiet offices where loud cooling systems would draw too much attention.
The 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display can show one billion colors and reproduces them accurately, so photos and videos look bright without being too bright. The high pixel density makes text rendering look very clear, which makes it easier on the eyes when you have to write for a long time or review code. The screen can get up to 500 nits of brightness which makes it easy to see even in sunny outdoor settings or brightly lit offices where glossy screens usually become unusable mirrors.
Apple Intelligence is built into the whole system, so you can use natural language to write emails, summarize long documents, and organize your thoughts. The personal intelligence system runs entirely on your device, not on cloud servers which means that your data never leaves your laptop and is completely private, even from Apple. This local processing also makes sure that responses are instant, without the delay that cloud-based AI assistants cause which makes the experience feel more natural and conversational.
There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports that can transfer data, display output, and charge through a single cable. There is also a separate MagSafe charging port that frees up those Thunderbolt connections for other devices. Wi-Fi 6E gives you super fast wireless speeds on networks that support it, and Bluetooth 5.3 keeps your connections to mice, keyboards, and headphones stable. The laptop can connect to up to two external displays, turning it into a multi-monitor workstation when you're at your desk. Four speakers with Spatial Audio create an immersive soundstage that makes movies and music sound surprisingly full for such a thin device, and three microphones pick up clear sound during calls without picking up too much background noise.
Getting this M4 MacBook Air 256GB for $749 instead of $999 is a great deal for a laptop that competes directly with laptops from other companies that cost $1,500 or more.
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Fibrosis, resulting from excess extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition, is a feature of adipose tissue (AT) dysfunction and obesity-related insulin resistance. Emerging evidence indicates that adipogenic stem and precursor cells (ASPCs) are a crucial origin of ECM proteins and possess the potential to induce AT fibrosis. Here, we employed single-cell RNA-seq and identified a unique subset of ASPCs that closely associated with ECM function.
Within this subset, we discerned a notable upregulation in the expression of Fibulin-7 (FBLN7), a secreted glycoprotein, in obese mice. Similarly, in humans, FBLN7 levels exhibited an increase in visceral fat among obese individuals and demonstrated a correlation with clinical metabolic traits. Functional studies further revealed that, in response to caloric excess, ASPCs-specific FBLN7 knockout mice display a diminished state of AT fibrosis-inflammation, along with improved systemic metabolic health. Notably, the depletion of FBLN7 in ASPCs suppressed TGF-β-induced fibrogenic responses, whereas its overexpression amplified such responses.
Mechanistically, FBLN7 interacted with thrombospondin-1 (TSP1) via its EGF-like calcium-binding domain, thereby enhancing the stability of the TSP1 protein. This, in turn, facilitated the conversion of latent TGF-β to its bio-active form, subsequently promoting TGFBR1/Smad signaling pathways. Furthermore, we developed an anti-FBLN7 neutralizing antibody, which could dramatically alleviate diet-induced AT fibrosis. These results suggest that FBLN7, produced by ASPCs, exerts a major influence in the development of AT fibrosis and may represent a potential target for therapeutic intervention.
Higher Education Press
Yu, H., et al. (2025). Fibulin-7 in progenitor cells promotes adipose tissue fibrosis and disrupts metabolic homeostasis in obesity. Protein & Cell. DOI:10.1093/procel/pwaf084. https://academic.oup.com/proteincell/advance-article/doi/10.1093/procel/pwaf084/8300200?login=false.
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SereNeuro Therapeutics, a preclinical biotechnology company developing non-opioid pain therapies, unveiled new data today on a novel approach to chronic pain management and joint tissue preservation. The data highlights SN101, a first-in-class induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived therapy.
SN101 utilizes mature iPSC-derived peripheral pain-sensing neurons (nociceptors) to treat chronic osteoarthritis joint pain. The data highlights a scientific approach that challenges traditional pain management logic.
"Our approach utilizes high-purity, iPSC-derived nociceptors (SN101) that effectively function as a sponge for pain factors. By injecting SN101 cells, we counterintuitively relieve pain and halt cartilage degradation," said Gabsang Lee, scientific co-founder of SereNeuro and a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University.
SN101 neurons function as a therapeutic sponge by sequestering inflammatory pain factors without transmitting pain signals to the brain. Additionally, the cells secrete mechanistically-confirmed regenerative factors, positioning SN101 as a disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug (DMOAD).
The presentation distinguishes SN101 from emerging single-target therapies, such as Nav 1.8 inhibitors. While ion channel inhibitors are designed to block a solitary pathway, SN101 cells express all canonical pain receptors and ion channels. This biological complexity allows SN101 therapy to inherently operate on all channels simultaneously to downregulate pain and inflammation.
Furthermore, the data contrasts SN101 with current standards, such as corticosteroids.
"Current standard-of-care treatments, particularly corticosteroids, provide temporary relief but are known to accelerate cartilage degradation over time, ultimately worsening the disease," said Dr. Daniël Saris, a member of SereNeuro's Clinical Advisory Board and a professor of orthopedics and regenerative medicine at Mayo Clinic.
In contrast to those degenerative effects, SN101 creates an environment that preserves joint tissues and relieves chronic pain, without the risk of addiction.
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Tanning bed users are known to have a higher risk of skin cancer, but for the first time researchers have found that young indoor tanners undergo genetic changes that can lead to more mutations in their skin cells than people twice their age.
The study, which was led by UC San Francisco and Northwestern University, appears Dec. 12 in Science Advances.
"We found that tanning bed users in their 30s and 40s had even more mutations than people in the general population who were in their 70s and 80s," said Bishal Tandukar, PhD, a UCSF postdoctoral scholar in Dermatology who is the co-first author of the study. "In other words, the skin of tanning bed users appeared decades older at the genetic level."
Such mutations can lead to skin cancer, which is the most common cancer in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. Among those skin cancers is melanoma, which accounts for only about 1% of skin cancers but causes most of the deaths. About 11,000 Americans die annually from melanoma, primarily from exposure to ultraviolet radiation.
UV radiation occurs naturally in sunlight, as well as in artificial light sources like tanning beds. Rates of melanoma have risen along with the use of tanning beds in recent years, disproportionately affecting young women, who are the main clients of the tanning industry.
Numerous countries effectively ban tanning beds, and the World Health Organization classifies them as a group 1 carcinogen, the same category as tobacco smoke and asbestos, but tanning beds remain legal and popular in the U.S.
In their study, the authors looked at the medical records of more than 32,000 dermatology patients including their tanning bed usage, history of sunburn, and family history of melanoma. They also obtained skin samples from 26 donors and sequenced 182 cells.
The young tanning bed users had more skin mutations than people twice their age, especially in their lower backs, an area that does not get much damage from sunlight but has a great deal of exposure from tanning beds.
"The skin of tanning bed users was riddled with the seeds of cancer - cells with mutations known to lead to melanoma," said senior author A. Hunter Shain, PhD, associate professor in the UCSF Department of Dermatology.
"We cannot reverse a mutation once it occurs, so it is essential to limit how many mutations accumulate in the first place," said Shain, whose laboratory focuses on the biology of skin cancer. "One of the simplest ways to do that is to avoid exposure to artificial UV radiation."
UC San Francisco
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ady4878
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News
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Helen Bernie, DO, MPH, assistant professor of urology at Indiana University School of Medicine, will participate in an expert panel on testosterone replacement therapy and men's health to be held Wednesday, Dec. 10, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bernie's role on the panel is that of a clinical expert on men's reproductive health, which is the focus of both her practice and academic research. She is available to comment on the panel and related men's health topics.
"This panel represents a critically important step forward for men's health," Bernie said. "Testosterone is not a lifestyle drug - it is a biomarker and therapeutic tool with significant implications for mortality, cardiometabolic health, mobility, cognition, and overall well-being."
Bernie said she was honored to serve on such a consequential panel.
"I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this national discussion and to advocate for evidence-based, patient-centered recommendations that will shape the future of care for millions of men," she said.
Indiana University School of Medicine
Posted in: Men's Health News | Medical Science News
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Though an estimated 60 million people around the world have atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, a type of irregular and often fast heartbeat, it's been at least 30 years since any new treatments have been developed. This is because researchers haven't had accurate models of the human heart to study. Thanks to new developments from Michigan State University scientists, that is no longer the case.
In 2020, MSU researcher Aitor Aguirre and his team started creating and perfecting tiny working models of the human heart known as organoids. Now, these organoids can be modified to replicate atrial fibrillation, or A-fib.
Roughly the size of a lentil, the three-dimensional heart organoids are so accurate that researchers can study heart development, diseases and drug responses in ways that were previously impossible. The organoids' rhythmic beating is so strong that it can be seen without a microscope.
Led by Aguirre, associate professor of biomedical engineering and chief of the division of developmental and stem cell biology in MSU's Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, the team uses donated human stem cells, which can develop into many different types of cells and are crucial for growth and tissue repair throughout life, to develop the heart organoids. These organoids are truly mini hearts, complete with chamber-like structures and vascular networks including arteries, veins and capillaries.
The latest milestone from the Aguirre lab comes from MSU osteopathic medicine physician-scientist student Colin O'Hern, who added immune cells to the organoids. In developing human hearts, these immune cells, or macrophages, help ensure proper growth and formation.
The researchers were able to initiate inflammation in the organoids to cause an irregular heartbeat, which mimics A-fib. The findings are published in Cell Stem Cell.
"Our new model allows us to study living human heart tissue directly, something that hasn't been possible before," O'Hern said. "When we added inflammatory molecules, the heart cells began beating irregularly. Then we introduced an anti-inflammatory drug, and the rhythm partially normalized. It was incredible to see that happen."
No new drugs have been developed for A-fib in more than 30 years. This condition remains poorly treated because current therapies tend to target symptoms rather than underlying mechanisms. Therapeutic drug development for A-fib has struggled because there are no reliable animal models that resemble the disease.
"This new model can replicate a condition that is at the core of many people's medical problems," Aguirre added. "It's going to enable a lot of medical advances so patients can expect to see accelerated therapeutic developments, more drugs moving into the market, safer drugs and cheaper drugs, too, because companies are going to be able to develop more options."
In the study, O'Hern and his fellow researchers showed that long-lived, innate immune cells that reside in specific organs help guide the heart's development and rhythm. This information also helps researchers understand the origins of congenital heart disorders, the most common birth defects in humans.
The researchers then took things one step further. They developed a system to age the organoids to resemble adult hearts by exposing them to the kind of inflammation that leads to A-fib.
To demonstrate how the new model can be used to test therapies for inflammation-driven heart conditions, the team introduced an anti-inflammatory drug that, based on the team's findings, was predicted to treat A-fib. This restored the heart's normal rhythm.
Aguirre explained that the addition of immune cells makes the models more physiologically accurate than ever before.
"We're now seeing how the heart's own immune system contributes to both health and disease," he said. "This gives us an unprecedented view of how inflammation can drive arrhythmias and how drugs might stop that process."
The lack of physiologically accurate human models and the inability to test on human hearts have limited the discovery of new therapies and drugs to treat arrhythmias like A-fib.
"Our new human heart organoid model is poised to end this 30-year drought without any new drugs or therapies," said Aguirre.
Aguirre's human-based organoid technologies directly support the National Institutes of Health's New Approach Methodologies mission to modernize translational research and improve the predictivity of preclinical testing in the U.S.
MSU researchers now are collaborating with pharmaceutical and biotech partners to screen compounds to ensure they don't lead to heart damage while preventing arrhythmia.
Aguirre's team has published multiple studies, establishing Michigan State University as a global leader in human heart organoid research, and Aguirre says more advancements are coming soon.
"Our longer-term vision is to develop personalized heart models derived from patient cells for precision medicine and to generate transplant-ready heart tissues one day," Aguirre said.
Other significant contributors to this research include Christopher Contag, Nureddin Ashammakhi and Sangbum Park from the MSU Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering; Nagib Chalfoun from Corewell Health; and Chao Zhou from Washington University.
Research in the Aguirre lab is supported by MSU, the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the Corewell Heath-MSU Alliance Foundation, Corewell Health, Alternatives Research and Development Foundation, the Saving tiny Hearts Society and the American Heart Association.
Michigan State University
DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2025.09.011
Posted in: Cell Biology | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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When the unthinkable happens and a child is left critically ill or injured, the miracle workers in pediatric intensive care units around the country work tirelessly to save their lives.
Yet, after discharge from the hospital, many of these children could be missing out on vital follow up care, finds a study from Michigan Medicine.
"There aren't specific guidelines in terms of whether or when a child should follow up with their primary care physician or pediatrician after a stay in the PICU," said Erin Carlton, M.D., clinical associate professor in pediatric critical care at U-M Health.
It was this lack of guidance that drove her and her collaborators to look more closely at what happens with this group of patients after hospitalization.
Using data from both private insurance and Medicaid claims, they examined rates of follow up care within the one week of ICU discharge for patients aged 0-18.
They discovered that just under 25% of patients with public insurance and just under 30% of patients with private insurance had primary care follow up within one week of PICU hospitalization.
About 9% with public insurance and about 10% with private insurance were seen by a sub-specialist.
Kids who were younger and who did not have existing complex chronic conditions were more likely to receive timely follow up care from a primary care clinician.
"While many of us assumed that the majority of kids would be seen by their pediatrician within a week of discharge, that doesn't seem to be the case," said Carlton.
Her team has an ongoing follow up study to look at the impact of having that early follow up with subsequent outcomes, including emergency department use and hospital readmissions, she notes.
"Within critical care, we're starting to more completely understand the long-term impact of critical illness. It's important to determine how we can partner with clinicians throughout the spectrum of healthcare, from the inpatient provider in the ICU to the child's pediatrician to try to ensure the best outcomes for children and their families," she added.
Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan
DOi: 10.1016/j.chest.2025.08.036
Posted in: Child Health News | Medical Research News | Healthcare News
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Researchers led by investigators at Mass General Brigham have published valuable information about a rare but serious complication of anti-cancer immunotherapy, providing the first large-scale description of its risk factors and clinical course, and underscoring the importance of early diagnosis and treatment. The findings are published in Blood and simultaneously presented at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer treatment, but they can trigger autoimmune side effects. Among these immune-related adverse events, ICI-associated immune thrombocytopenia (ICI-ITP)-a condition in which platelet counts drop dangerously low-is rare and poorly understood.
"We worked with colleagues at Mass General Brigham and with collaborators from six other major academic cancer centers across the U.S. to query the records of over 86,000 patients who received ICI therapy between 2016 and 2023, ultimately identifying 214 patients-or 0.25%–who developed ICI-ITP," said lead author Rebecca Karp Leaf, MD, a hematologist with the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute.
The team found that patients who developed ICI-ITP tended to have lower platelet counts at the start of ICI treatment, received therapy that included multiple ICI drug classes, had stage 4 cancer, and experienced additional immune-related adverse events.
ICI-ITP occurred at a median of eight weeks after ICI initiation. Medications used to treat patients with ICI-ITP included glucocorticoids, immune globulin, and thrombopoietin receptor agonists. Recovery occurred in 161 patients (75.2%) at a median of 2.3 weeks. Of 76 patients who were started back on ICIs after being treated for ICI-ITP, 23 (30.3%) developed recurrent ICI-ITP.
"We found that nearly 70% of patients who were rechallenged with ICIs after an initial episode of ICI-ITP did not develop of this immune-related adverse event, which provides reassuring evidence that, with careful monitoring, ICI rechallenge is feasible for most patients," said senior author David Leaf, MD, MMSc, FASN, Director of Clinical and Translational Research in Acute Kidney Injury in the Division of Renal Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine.
The investigators also found evidence that ICI-ITP and its severity were independently linked with a higher risk of death. Those with severe ICI-ITP had a nearly 3-fold higher risk of dying compared with those without ICI-ITP, underscoring the importance of prompt recognition and treatment.
Mass General Brigham
DOI: 10.1182/blood.2025031449
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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Adolescent and young adult nicotine vaping has become an urgent public health concern, as 2024 marked the first year that nicotine vaping was the most initiated drug. Though vaping is the most common way young people use nicotine, few treatments exist to help those trying to quit. What's more, a 2022 Drug Alcohol Dependence study reported around half of young people who vape nicotine also use cannabis, though the impact of this dual substance use on treatment outcomes remains unclear. A new clinical trial by investigators from Mass General Brigham found varenicline-a medication used to help patients quit nicotine-was effective for vaping cessation regardless of cannabis use in a study of 261 participants aged 16 to 25 years. Their results are published in JAMA Network Open.
"We need to increase use of nicotine vaping cessation treatment by young people, and we know that cannabis use is widespread in this population," said first author Jodi Gilman, PhD, Director of Neuroscience for the Center for Addiction Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Psychiatry. "It's fantastic news that cannabis use doesn't appear to be a barrier to successful vaping cessation with varenicline treatment, and we can use our findings to inform screening, treatment, planning, and public health messaging moving forward."
In a previously conducted randomized clinical trial, participants who regularly vaped nicotine received varenicline, placebo, or usual care for the full 12-week trial. All participants also had access to a nicotine cessation support text app.
In the new study, researchers split the participants by cannabis use, with 28% reporting no use in the past month, 38% reporting use one-to-three days per week, and 30% reporting use four-to-seven days per week. Contrary to the authors' hypothesis, cannabis use did not hinder adolescents and young adults from achieving nicotine vaping abstinence. Rather, they found that odds of being able to quit were similar across all levels of cannabis use and that varenicline was associated with higher rates of nicotine vaping abstinence than behavioral support interventions alone. Varenicline did not affect rates of cannabis use.
Future studies could explore the effects of integrated interventions that target cannabis and nicotine co-use may yield additional benefit.
Mass General Brigham
Gilman JM et al. "Cannabis Use and Nicotine Vaping Cessation Outcomes" JAMA Network Open. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.47799
Posted in: Drug Trial News | Medical Condition News | Healthcare News
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A recent review published in Current Molecular Pharmacology explores the therapeutic potential of melatonin in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), a complex autoimmune disease affecting multiple organs. The study, led by researchers from Iran University of Medical Sciences and UT Health San Antonio, suggests that melatonin-primarily known for regulating sleep-may also play a significant role in managing SLE and its severe complication, lupus nephritis.
Melatonin, produced by the pineal gland and other tissues, exhibits strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The review highlights that SLE patients often have lower serum melatonin levels, which may correlate with increased disease activity. "Our findings suggest that melatonin could serve as both a diagnostic marker and a therapeutic agent," said co-author Azam Hosseinzadeh.
Preclinical studies show melatonin can reduce renal inflammation and oxidative stress in lupus models. Clinical trials, including a randomized double-blind study, reported decreased oxidative stress markers like malondialdehyde (MDA) in SLE patients taking melatonin supplements. However, its impact on overall disease activity remains inconclusive.
Despite promising lab results, the authors caution that more robust, long-term clinical trials are needed. "Melatonin's safety profile and multifaceted effects make it a compelling candidate for adjunctive therapy, but we need to understand optimal dosing and timing," noted co-author Mohammad Sheibani.
The review also emphasizes the importance of standardized sampling protocols, as melatonin levels fluctuate with circadian rhythms. Future research should explore melatonin's role in preventing organ damage and improving quality of life in lupus patients.
FAR Publishing Limited
DOI: 10.1016/j.cmp.2025.11.001
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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A new research paper was published in Volume 17, Issue 11 of Aging-US on November 14, 2025, titled "Methylglyoxal-induced glycation stress promotes aortic stiffening: putative mechanistic roles of oxidative stress and cellular senescence."
The study was led by first authors Parminder Singh of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and Ravinandan Venkatasubramanian of the University of Colorado Boulder, with senior contributions from corresponding authors Pankaj Kapahi (Buck Institute for Research on Aging) and Zachary S. Clayton (University of Colorado Boulder and University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus). The researchers investigated how methylglyoxal (MGO), a toxic byproduct that builds up in blood vessels with age or metabolic dysfunction like diabetes, contributes to artery stiffening. Their findings are especially important to aging and diabetes-related cardiovascular risk.
Aortic stiffening, which reduces the flexibility of the body's largest artery, is a key predictor of cardiovascular disease in older adults. The research team used young and aged mice to study how MGO affects vascular health. In young mice, chronic exposure to MGO increased aortic stiffness by 21%. However, when treated with Gly-Low, a supplement containing natural compounds such as nicotinamide and alpha-lipoic acid, this stiffening was completely prevented. Gly-Low also reduced the buildup of MGO and its harmful byproducts, particularly MGH-1, in both blood and tissue.
"Aortic stiffness was assessed in vivo via pulse wave velocity (PWV) and ex vivo through elastic modulus."
The research showed that MGO's damage goes beyond structural changes. It also caused the endothelial cells that line blood vessels to enter senescence, a state in which cells stop dividing and begin releasing inflammatory signals. This led to lower levels of nitric oxide, a molecule essential for blood vessel relaxation. In human vascular cells in lab culture, Gly-Low reversed these aging-like changes and restored nitric oxide production.
In older mice, which naturally develop stiffer arteries, Gly-Low treatment during four months significantly reduced stiffness and lowered MGO and MGH-1 levels. This suggests that Gly-Low may help slow or even reverse vascular aging by reducing glycation stress.
The study also identified the glyoxalase-1 pathway as a critical mechanism. This is a natural detox system that helps clear harmful molecules like MGO. Gly-Low appeared to boost this pathway. When the pathway was chemically blocked, Gly-Low's protective effects disappeared, confirming its role in the process.
Overall, the findings highlight glycation stress as a modifiable contributor to vascular aging. The results suggest that natural compound-based therapies, like Gly-Low, may offer a potential strategy to protect arteries from age- and diabetes-related damage.
Aging-US
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206335
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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A pioneering study led by researchers from Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and Naval Medical University has unveiled a novel nanomedicine, mPEG@ELA-11, which demonstrates significant potential in treating atherosclerosis (AS), a leading cause of cardiovascular diseases globally. The research, published in BME Frontiers, introduces a pH-responsive nanocarrier designed to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the peptide ELA-11.
Atherosclerosis is characterized by lipid accumulation and inflammation in arterial walls. The study found that the APELA gene, encoding ELA-11, is significantly downregulated in human carotid atherosclerotic plaques, particularly in unstable lesions. ELA-11 was shown to suppress macrophage foam cell formation, M1 polarization, and apoptosis by inhibiting the AKT-mediated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress pathway, as confirmed through in vitro experiments.
To address limitations of ELA-11, such as short half-life and poor bioavailability, researchers developed mPEG@ELA-11, a nanocarrier with optimal size (~35 nm) and pH-dependent release properties. In vivo experiments using ApoE-/- mice revealed that mPEG@ELA-11 significantly reduced atherosclerotic plaque area and necrotic core size compared to free ELA-11, attributed to its targeted release mechanism. Ex vivo fluorescence imaging showed preferential accumulation in the liver and aorta, with minimal uptake in other organs.
The study highlights the therapeutic potential of mPEG@ELA-11, offering a promising strategy for managing atherosclerosis. Future research will focus on long-term safety, immunogenicity, and regulatory compliance to advance clinical translation.
BMEF (BME Frontiers)
DOI: 10.34133/bmef.0203
Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
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Dr. Raj Singh
Learn how digital connectivity and the PathoVerse are improving pathology workflows and accelerating access to expert diagnostics.
Yavuz Çelik
Discover how real-time cell density monitoring boosts yield, lowers media costs, and improves viability in bioprocessing.
Rhea Stringer
Discover how electron microscopy advances plant and microbial research with expert insights from the John Innes Centre's bioimaging facility.
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Insilico Medicine has developed a new class of small molecule inhibitors targeting diacylglycerol kinase alpha (DGKα) designed to restore T cell function and overcome resistance to immune checkpoint blockades in solid cancers. The latest results from this program have just been published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, describing the discovery and comprehensive preclinical evaluation of Compound 10, a novel, potent, selective and orally administered DGKα inhibitor. The compound exhibits a differentiated pharmacokinetic and safety profile and strong combination activity with anti–PD-1 and anti–CTLA-4 therapies in multiple syngeneic tumor models.
The paper, titled "Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel, Potent, Selective and Orally Available DGKα Inhibitors for the Treatment of Tumors," details how Insilico combined AI-guided target validation and generative chemistry to move from a highly lipophilic reference molecule, which showed suboptimal solubility and oral pharmacokinetics, to a series of more drug-like DGKα inhibitors, culminating in Compound 10. In preclinical studies, Compound 10 showed sub-nanomolar enzymatic potency, robust T cell activation in human and mouse systems, improved solubility and oral exposure versus the starting scaffold, and the ability to synergistically boost the antitumor efficacy of PD-1 and CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibitors, while maintaining good tolerability.
When trying to tackle the longstanding problem of checkpoint inhibitor resistance in highly refractory cancers, Insilico first turned to its AI-powered target discovery platform, PandaOmics, to search for fresh angles on responder versus non-responder biology. The team analyzed multiomics datasets from patients with melanoma and clear cell renal cell carcinoma, focusing on cohorts with documented responses to checkpoint inhibition. Using a combination of disease relevance scores and disease-agnostic filters for druggability, novelty, and predicted safety, PandaOmics highlighted DGKα as one of the top immune-oncology targets associated with checkpoint resistance. Although DGKα was already a known and mechanistically compelling node, previous efforts to drug it have not yielded substantial clinical or commercial success, which only sharpened the team's resolve to apply Insilico's structure-based design and generative chemistry tools to overcome these challenges to create a new generation of DGKα inhibitors.
DGKα is a lipid kinase that converts diacylglycerol (DAG) into phosphatidic acid (PA), shifting DAG-dependent signaling such as Ras/ERK and PKC pathways that drive tumor cell proliferation and survival, and dampening T cell receptor signaling in the tumor microenvironment to promote immune evasion. Overexpression of DGKα has been reported in tumors such as glioblastoma and melanoma and is associated with chemotherapy resistance and an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, where T cell activation and effector cytokine production are blunted. In T cells, DGKα acts as a brake on T cell receptor signaling, promoting an anergic, low-function state that is increasingly recognized as a key contributor to primary and acquired resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 therapy. Inhibiting DGKα can shift this balance back toward effective antitumor immunity by both reactivating intratumoral T cells and disrupting pro-survival signaling in tumor cells, offering a dual-mechanism strategy to reverse immune anergy and deepen responses to checkpoint blockades.
Historically, DGKα has been challenging to drug. First-generation inhibitors achieved nanomolar potency but failed to translate due to poor selectivity, off-target kinase activity, short half-lives and low oral bioavailability. More recently developed DGKα inhibitors have advanced into early clinical testing in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, but patent data indicating relatively high lipophilicity and limited disclosure of structural and pharmacokinetic data raise potential developability concerns. Together, these factors underscored the need for a new generation of DGKα inhibitors with improved selectivity, pharmacokinetics, and overall drug-likeness.
Because no experimental DGKα co-crystal structures were available to use as a basis for novel drug design, the team turned to AlphaFold-predicted DGKα models and homology modeling to build structure-based hypotheses. Insilico's generative chemistry platform Chemistry42, together with molecular modeling, explored modifications around scaffolds that would reduce lipophilicity (cLogP) while preserving structural pieces critical to its interactions with the DGKα binding pocket. Guided by these models, the medicinal chemistry team carried out systematic structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies to reduce lipophilicity, introduce targeted hydrophilic substituents, and fine-tune the drug's hydrophobic tail, all while maintaining enzymatic potency and T cell activation. This iterative process yielded a series of DGKα inhibitors with reduced cLogP and sub-nanomolar IC₅₀ values. Among these, Compound 10, emerged as the optimal balance between potency, T cell activation, and developability.
The paper further reports that Compound 10 displays improved in vivo pharmacokinetics in mice relative to the reference molecule, with less than one-eighth the clearance rate, a half-life more than 2.5-times longer, and markedly higher oral exposure. In vitro ADME profiling showed enhanced solubility in biorelevant media, acceptable cell permeability, low to moderate microsomal clearance, good plasma stability, no meaningful inhibition of major CYP isoforms, and an hERG safety margin consistent with further development. Compound 10 enhanced stimulation of human and mouse immune cells in vitro, including increased secretion of activating cytokines such as IL-2 and IFN-γ, greater T cell proliferation, and stronger T cell activation. These data support its role as a potent immunomodulatory agent with the potential to boost antitumor immune responses.
Given this immune-activating profile, the team evaluated orally administered Compound 10 in MC38 and CT26 syngeneic mouse tumor models in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Adding Compound 10 to anti–PD-1 and anti–CTLA4 therapy produced a clear, dose-dependent boost in antitumor activity, with tumor growth inhibition (TGI) up to 93% at doses up to 3 mg/kg, with a confirmed synergistic effect with both checkpoint inhibitors. All regimens were well tolerated with no significant body weight loss and low brain penetrance, mitigating concerns about DGKβ-related CNS effects, together supporting its potential as a backbone agent for combination immunotherapy.
Harnessing state-of-the-art AI and automation technologies, Insilico has significantly improved the efficiency of preclinical drug development. While traditional early-stage drug discovery typically requires 3 to 6 years, from 2021 to 2024 Insilico nominated 20 preclinical candidates, achieving an average turnaround - from project initiation to preclinical candidate (PCC) nomination - of just 12 to 18 months per program, with only 60 to 200 molecules synthesized and tested in each program.
InSilico Medicine
Lu, H. et al. "Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel, Potent, Selective and Orally Available DGKα Inhibitors for the Treatment of Tumors." Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2025). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.5c01943
Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Medical Science News | Medical Condition News
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Dr. Raj Singh
Learn how digital connectivity and the PathoVerse are improving pathology workflows and accelerating access to expert diagnostics.
Yavuz Çelik
Discover how real-time cell density monitoring boosts yield, lowers media costs, and improves viability in bioprocessing.
Rhea Stringer
Discover how electron microscopy advances plant and microbial research with expert insights from the John Innes Centre's bioimaging facility.
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Please note that medical information found
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Last Updated: Saturday 13 Dec 2025
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Amid an injury crisis and a slump in form, Real Madrid face Alavés on Sunday evening with Xabi Alonso's job as manager hanging in the balance.
The 15-time Champions League winners were booed at the Bernabéu on Wednesday night after falling 2–1 to Manchester City, fueling talk of a crisis inside the Spanish capital. Los Blancos have managed just two wins in their last eight matches, dropping points against Liverpool, Rayo Vallecano, Elche, Girona, Celta Vigo and most recently, the Cityzens.
The team is in desperate need of three points if they want to remain in the La Liga title race with Barcelona, who sit atop the standings with a comfortable four-point gap. Alonso also needs to deliver a statement result or he risks losing his place on the touchline at the biggest club in the world.
HENRY WINTER. Winter Alonso. Xabi Alonso Discovering Real Madrid Is the Impossible Job. dark
Beating Alavés will be anything but easy for Real Madrid, though. The club will be without the injured Éder Militão, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dani Carvajal, Ferland Mendy, David Alaba and Eduardo Camavinga, while Kylian Mbappé and Antonio Rüdiger remain as doubts. Fran García, Álvaro Carreras and Endrick are also unavailable due to suspension.
Here's how Real Madrid could line up for the La Liga clash.
GK: Thibaut Courtois—The Belgian has kept just two clean sheets in his last seven appearances through no fault of his own.
RB: Federico Valverde—It might not be his desired position, but Valverde is Real Madrid's best—and only—option to get the nod at right back. The only way the midfielder can avoid it is if Alonso deploys a back three.
CB: Aurélien Tchouaméni—With Rüdiger not fully fit, Tchouaméni will say goodbye to the midfield and return to his emergency center back duties.
CB: Raúl Asencio—After a pitiful Club World Cup campaign, the Real Madrid Castilla product has done well to regain the trust of Alonso. Asencio's physicality could be the key to locking down Lucas Boyé.
LB: Dean Huijsen—The Spaniard is in line to make his first appearance in three weeks, but it might come at left back due to the club's defensive crisis.
CM: Dani Ceballos—As long as Camavinga remains out and Tchouaméni is needed in defense, Ceballos starts in the midfield. The ex-Arsenal man will hope to put in a better performance than his efforts against Man City.
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CM: Arda Güler—The 20-year-old must put his recent struggles behind him and prove to Alonso he can excel in a deeper role.
AM: Jude Bellingham—The No. 10 would love nothing more than to erase his second-half blunder against the Cityzens with a goal on Sunday.
RW: Rodrygo—It would be harsh to overlook Rodrygo after his scintillating midweek performance. The Brazil international is coming off scoring his first club since March.
ST: Gonzalo García—Opportunities to lead Alonso's line do not come often, and Gonzalo needs to unlock his brilliant Club World Cup form to make a statement in what could be his second consecutive start.
LW: Vinicius Junior—The pressure is on Vinicius Jr to carry Mbappé's goalscoring load, but the winger has not found the back of the net in his last 12 appearances for Real Madrid.
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Amanda Langell is a Sports Illustrated FC freelance writer covering the European game and international competitions.
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Hugo Ekitike scored twice as Liverpool beat Brighton 2-0 at Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday. Mohamed Salah also made an impact after coming off the bench to replace the injured Joe Gomez. The Egypt international, who is facing an uncertain future at the club, bagged an assist for Arne Slot's side in what was his final game for the club before he joins up with his country's AFCON squad.
Salah was back in the squad but only on the bench at kick-off and could only watch and admire as Ekitike opened the scoring with the fastest Premier League goal of the season so far. Yankuba Minteh made a mess of a cross-field ball which was headed by Gomez to Ekitike. The Frenchman promptly took a touch and then smashed a powerful volley past goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen to hand the Reds the lead after just 46 seconds.
There was more Anfield applause on 25 minutes as the Salah saga took yet another twist. An injury to Gomez saw Arne Slot send on his talisman and watch him tee up Alexis Mac Allister for a chance with virtually his first touch. Florian Wirtz and Ryan Gravenberch also had opportunities for the Reds but could not convert as the hosts took a slender 1-0 lead into the half-time break.
Brighton came close to equalising at the start of the second half. Gomez, who escaped a red card just before half-time for a high challenge on Wirtz, slid in at the far post to connect with a low cross but saw his effort hit the woodwork. Liverpool responded quickly and doubled their lead through Ekitike on the hour. Salah sent in a curling corner for the France international to head home and give the hosts some breathing space.
The game was all set for Salah to apply the finishing touch before he departs for international duty and he was presented with a gilt-edged opportunity in stoppage time. However, Salah could only blast high over the bar as Liverpool had to settle for just two goals but a first home Premier League win since November 1st.
GOAL rates Liverpool's players from Anfield...
Alisson (7/10):
Made a crucial save in the first half when he came off his line to block Diego Gomez and saved well from Karou Mitoma in the second half.
Joe Gomez (8/10):
Won the header to tee up Ekitike for the opener and set up another chance for the Frenchman before being forced off with yet another injury after 25 minutes. Real blow for the defender.
Ibrahima Konate (7/10):
A few scares at the back but looked far more assured than in recent weeks. Did well to block from Minteh and Gomez.
Virgil van Dijk (8/10):
Got the better of Rutter in a confident showing and will be happy to keep a clean sheet for the second match in a row.
Milos Kerkez (7/10):
Another Liverpool defender who put in a vastly improved performance. Had a tough task up against Minteh but handled it well.
Ryan Gravenberch (7/10):
Along with Curtis Jones, helped Liverpool take control of the game and see off Brighton. A very assured showing.
Curtis Jones (8/10):
Played a big role in Liverpool's win with an excellent showing in the middle of the park for Slot's side. Impressive stuff on his 200th appearance for the Reds.
Alexis Mac Allister (6/10):
Not quite his day. Had a few chances to score in the first half but couldn't convert.
Dominik Szoboszlai (6/10):
Played all over the position as he was forced to right-back after Gomez went off and Salah come on. Looked to be struggling with an ankle problem and had to be be taken off late on.
Hugo Ekitike (9/10):
Scored a brilliant first goal to give Liverpool the perfect start to the match and then headed home a second when Brighton were threatening an equaliser. That's now four goals in his last two Premier League outings for the Reds.
Florian Wirtz (8/10):
Seemed to pop up everywhere in a free-flowing performance. Found pockets of space all over the place and really enjoyed himself.
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Mo Salah (8/10):
Started on the bench but came on after 25 minutes due to Gomez's injury and was given a big ovation by the Anfield faithful. Looked lively, grabbed an assist for Ekitike's second but probably should have scored late on.
Alexander Isak (6/10):
Started on the bench due to a minor knock and didn't make much impact when he came on.
Andy Robertson (6/10):
Helped Liverpool see it out.
Federico Chiesa (N/A):
Late sub.
Arne Slot (7/10)
Left Salah out once again but didn't hesitate to turn to his talisman after losing Gomez. Will be relieved to see his team pick up three points and a clean sheet after a tough week.
Manchester United urged to snub Adam Wharton & Elliot Anderson in favour of signing USMNT star Tyler Adams to end their transfer search for a new midfielder. Ruben Amorim is desperate to make a quality signing in his engine room, and the club is expected to back him in the winter market to get on board a midfielder.
The Red Devils are expected to back Amorim in the winter market as he looks to stamp his authority on a squad still searching for coherence. United have not been shy in the transfer market over the past decade, investing more than £800 million ($1070m) between 2020 and 2025 and adding a further £219m ($293m) this summer alone. Yet for all that spending, the search for a reliable midfield anchor continues. Casemiro was brought in from midfield, but his future hangs in the balance with his contract set to expire in the summer.
Brighton's Carlos Baleba remains a long-term priority, but the south coast club have shut the door on any January negotiations. Nottingham Forest's Elliot Anderson is admired Adam Wharton, meanwhile, has impressed at Crystal Palace and harbours ambitions of Champions League football, yet he recently committed his future with a new contract and has not pressed for a move. Each target brings quality, but also complications. Against that backdrop, The Telegraph has suggested United could find a more immediate and tactically suitable solution in Tyler Adams.
Adams' numbers this season are striking. Among Premier League midfielders, only Moisés Caicedo has made more interceptions, while the American has also racked up 35 tackles. At Bournemouth, his presence has freed Alex Scott to play higher up the pitch, knowing there is security behind him.
Adams has increasingly been described as a natural fit for the so-called Makelele role, the deep-lying shield perfected by Claude Makelele and later embodied by players such as Casemiro and Rodri. Rodri's Ballon d'Or triumph in 2024 was widely seen as overdue recognition of that role's importance. Similarly, when Luka Modric broke the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly in 2018, he did so with Casemiro working to protect the defence behind him. And Adams understands that responsibility.
"My role in football is not the prettiest role," Adams explained. "I'm not the one going out every weekend like Antoine Semenyo scoring goals and dribbling past players. I want to win and know how to win and know that my role in any team can be invaluable if played right. I'm selfless and want to do the work that other guys want me to do to make them look good."
After arriving at Bournemouth from Leeds in 2023, injury curtailed his first season, limiting him to just one start. Adams had come close to joining Chelsea before that move, with the London club hunting for a No.6 before eventually landing Moises Caicedo. Last season marked a turning point. Under Andoni Iraola, Adams became a regular fixture, and that upward trajectory has continued into the current campaign as Bournemouth's win percentage improves noticeably when the American is in the side. And the midfielder credited Iraola for that resurgence.
"I can't repay Bournemouth enough for the trust they had in me," he said. "They were signing a player that was injured and didn't expect when I would be back. I played two or three games in my first season so to get a run of games, I'm just eager to grow and show what I'm capable of doing.
"The manager. The way that he plays, the way he sets up his team every week and the belief he instils in each of us and their role and job in the team. The players really believe it. All the little details we are really focused on. We had a very strong pre-season, it was good having the group healthy going into the pre-season compared to last season where we had injuries and couldn't find the cohesiveness for a few games. Now you can see the chemistry between the players."
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On Monday night, Adams will walk out at Old Trafford as Bournemouth visit United in the Premier League. It is an opportunity for the United hierarchy to assess, at close quarters, what the USMNT captain brings to the table. With Baleba unavailable, Wharton settled, and Anderson hesitant, the case for Adams is gaining momentum. He may not arrive with the hype of a marquee signing, but could do the job for Amorim.
Neymar's contract renewal with boyhood club Santos is set to be delayed, according to reports, as the Brazil superstar prepares for knee surgery. The 33-year-old is set to hold off on signing his extension until after the surgery has been completed, with the procedure expected to take place before Christmas. Neymar played through pain to ensure Santos avoided relegation from Brazil's Serie A, but will complete the knee procedure to keep his World Cup hopes alive.
Neymar remains on course to pen an extension with Santos, whom he rejoined in January after nearly 12 years away from the club where he started his storied career. His current deal runs out on December 31 this year and, as things stand, he will be free to move elsewhere if an extension is not agreed.
According to journalist Lucas Musetti, as reported by Planeta do Futebol in Brazil on X, the renewal was initially expected to be finalised this week but plans for Neymar's surgery have slowed down this process on the advice of Neymar Sr, the player's father and agent.
Neymar Sr. reportedly said that ‘there is no need to rush' and suggested waiting for the surgery, to which the club agreed as the decided plan of action. The contract renewal is still expected to be signed, and is touted to be agreed until mid-2026.
This type of delay is said to be the ‘modus operandi' of both Neymars, who tend to seek not to devalue the player and make it appear as though Santos are the only option. But the club are 'very confident' the contract will be signed, confirming recently that talks were underway.
Santos reporter Musetti said on his YouTube channel: “I want to tell you that it is best to be patient about Neymar's contract renewal. Santos hoped that it would be resolved this week but that's not going to happen.
“Santos will wait for Neymar's surgery. Neymar is on vacation in the United States, he went from Miami to New York and will return next week, when he is expected to schedule the surgery. The surgery will happen before Christmas, maybe even in the next few days.
“Santos already wanted to renew the contract but heard from Neymar's father, there's no need to rush, let's wait for the surgery. Santos was content with that, particularly as it's good to wait for the surgery to be successful. The surgery is likely to be very simple, a video arthroscopy to correct the problem, but what if it opens up and there is a bigger problem than was imagined? Which does require a month of recovery. So, how can you renew if you haven't had the surgery?
“So, Santos decided to wait, understands that it's a good path, and won't renew this week, they will certainly only renew after Neymar undergoes this meniscus surgery. The agreement is advanced renewal until the middle of the year, but we will have to be patient.
“Also understand that this delay is ‘natural', it is the modus operandi of especially Neymar's father. This has happened two other times. When Neymar first came, he hadn't signed the contract until the day of his presentation.”
Musetti also spoke of a mental health element to the delays, as Neymar recently spoke publicly of having a psychological ‘collapse' and needing some time off before having his surgery.
Neymar scored five goals in four games to ensure Santos avoided relegation from Brazil's Serie A at the first time of asking since promotion from the second tier and has since opted to go on holiday, to have some rest before the operation. This has in turn also delayed his contract renewal.
"I came for this [to keep Santos up], to try to help in the best way I can," said Neymar. "These have been tough weeks for me. I thank those who were with me to lift me up. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have played these matches because of this knee problem."
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The likelihood remains that Neymar will renew at Santos and remain with the Brazilian outfit until at least the World Cup, as he is believed to feel that finding his top form in Brazil will help his chances of being selected for Carlo Ancelotti's World Cup squad next summer - though public perception has been divided on the matter.
The 33-year-old has not featured for the Selecao since 2023 and will hope to make a high-profile return in time for the tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The former Barcelona and Paris-Saint-Germain star was named in a provisional squad for the March international break but ultimately did not feature, and his pending surgery is viewed as the ticket to turning things around on the international stage.
Alessia Russo marked her 100th Women's Super League appearance in style with a goal and an impressive showing as Arsenal ran out 3-1 winners over Everton on Saturday at Goodison Park. Katie McCabe and Olivia Smith were also on target in a dominant win for the Gunners, who received another boost as Lionesses star Leah Williamson made her long-awaited return from injury late on in the game.
A dramatic start to the match brought plenty of chances for both sides and three goals inside the opening 15 minutes. McCabe opened the scoring in glorious fashion with a brilliant shot from the edge of the box that flew across goal and past the dive of goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan.
Arsenal's celebrations didn't last long, though, as Everton levelled almost immediately. Some careless play from Mariona Caldentey as the north Londoners tried to play out from the back gifted Everton possession in a dangerous area. The ball was played through to Honoka Hayashi who had all the time in the world to curl a sensational strike home to make it 1-1.
Yet minutes later, Arsenal were ahead once again. A wayward Kim Little shot was bounced goalwards by Russo and clawed away by Brosnan with a desperate dive. Caitlin Foord fired the rebound into the back of the net, but the goal was subsequently given to Russo after it was confirmed the ball had previously crossed the line.
Arsenal went on to dominate possession but struggled to create more clear-cut chances, with Ruby Mace putting in an impressive showing for the hosts. Renee Slegers sent on Olivia Smith and Stina Blackstenius in the second half in a bid to find that all-important third goal and it was the former Liverpool star who sealed the win late on. A hopeful punt forward saw Smith control the ball with her first touch and then smash a strike past Brosnan to complete the victory.
GOAL rates Arsenal's players from Goodison Park...
Aneke Borbe (7/10):
Could do nothing about Hayashi's stunner but otherwise untroubled in the Arsenal goal.
Emily Fox (7/10):
Calm and composed throughout and put some quality balls into the box for Arsenal, particularly for the second goal.
Lotte Wubben-Moy (7/10):
A commanding performance in the backline and was great in possession.
Steph Catley (7/10):
Used the ball well and was defensively untroubled.
Katie McCabe (8/10):
Opened the scoring with a brilliant effort from the edge of the box for her first WSL goal of the season and provided a threat down the left.
Kyra Cooney-Cross (7/10):
Came really close to scoring her first-ever WSL goal but saw a great effort just deflected wide of the post. Tidy throughout and put in some important tackles.
Kim Little (8/10):
Only given an hour but a great performance in midfield by the captain against Everton. Inadvertently set up the second goal and regularly put quality balls into the box.
Mariona Caldentey (6/10):
A sloppy moment helped Everton equalise and she was guilty of a few more careless passes but her movement caused Everton all sorts of headaches.
Beth Mead (6/10):
Worked hard but not her day in front of goal. Had several chances to score but couldn't come up with the required finish.
Alessio Russo (8/10):
Marked her 100th WSL appearance with a goal and was lively throughout. Should probably have had a second but was denied by Brosnan after a great turn and shot and hit the woodwork in stoppage time.
Caitlin Foord (7/10):
A little unfortunate not to be on the scoresheet. Smashed the ball home for Arsenal's second but saw the goal given to Russo instead.
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Stina Blackstenius (6/10):
Sent on as Arsenal tried to make their dominance count but had few sights of goal.
Olivia Smith (8/10):
Made it goals in back-to-back games with a brilliant effort to seal the win.
Leah Williamson (6/10):
Given the last 10 minutes and received a huge reception as she made her first appearance since the Euros final.
Victoria Pelova (6/10):
Another late sub.
Taylor Hinds (N/A):
Only arrived in the 89th minute.
Renee Slegers (7/10):
Made three changes to her side and saw Arsenal enjoy a dominant win. Will be thrilled to see Smith score again and Williamson back in action.
FIFA
Fans can explore official events to plan their World Cup experience
by
Dennis Spellman
Dec. 13, 2025
7:29 a.m.
SUGAR LAND, Texas — Soccer fans planning to attend World Cup matches in Houston next summer can now access a central resource for Sugar Land events and activities through a new planning portal launched Thursday by Visit Sugar Land.
The website, SugarLand26.com, will serve as a hub for information about watch parties, cultural events and community experiences in Sugar Land during the tournament. As an official host city supporter for Houston, Sugar Land will host numerous events throughout summer 2026.
Sugar Land Town Square, First Colony Mall to host World Cup events
Sugar Land Town Square and First Colony Mall will serve as the primary centers of activity, hosting match-day experiences, live entertainment, art installations, international food and beverage stations, local merchant markets and cultural showcases celebrating the global spirit of the tournament.
Sugar Land Social District expands for World Cup 2026 celebrations
With the newly designated Sugar Land Social District, fans can gather, dine and celebrate in expanded outdoor spaces throughout the tournament. Visit Sugar Land will also debut pop-up stores offering Sugar Land-themed apparel and souvenirs.
Youth soccer camps, cultural events planned for World Cup visitors
Throughout the tournament, visitors can enjoy community activations, including Space Cowboys soccer week and youth soccer camps at Constellation Field in June, outdoor movie nights, cultural performances and pop-up experiences highlighting Sugar Land's diversity and local talent.
"Launching SugarLand26.com is a big step in welcoming the world to the city. As fans from around the globe travel to Houston, this site gives them one place to easily discover our watch parties, cultural events, and community experiences so they can plan their World Cup journey with us," said Jordan Cutler, senior marketing manager. "Our community embodies the international spirit of the game, and we're excited to showcase the energy, hospitality, and spirit that make Sugar Land unforgettable."
How to get World Cup 2026 updates for Sugar Land events
Additional details on events, entertainment lineups and participating businesses will be announced in early 2026.
by
Dennis Spellman
Dec. 13, 2025
7:29 a.m.
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With women's soccer on track to become one of the world's top five sports, U.S. Soccer is committing a $30 million donation from billionaire Michele Kang to researching some of the major issues facing female athletes.
The national federation announced earlier this month the launch of the Kang Institute, a platform focused on addressing disparities that “has left generations of female soccer players training under models built for male physiology.”
It's an underfunded area of research that leaves women in sport more susceptible to different injuries as well as keeping young girls from pursuing the sport, Georgie Brunvels, female health and research innovation lead with U.S. Soccer, told NBC News.
“Football is a global game,” Brunvels said. “By people seeing what is happening in football —or soccer — I think it will trickle on a global level to making people stand up and pay attention and listen.”
Kang's donation will advance work that was already taking place at the Soccer Forward Foundation, which focused on community-level work aimed on inclusion and expanding access to the sport. It will take on three forms: dedicated research, a creation of best practices based on that research, and education from the youth level all the way to the national team.
And that may not just be in the United States. There are already discussions on initiatives to make it more accessible globally before the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil and when the U.S. hosts the tournament in 2031.
“The [Women's National Team] is an absolute icon and pioneer and leader in the space of soccer,” Soccer Forward Foundation Executive Director Lex Chalat said. “And we want to support other countries in developing their best practices and developing and understanding how to raise the bar in their country as well.”
The institute's first study will focus on the needs of players by targeting research around injury prevention, mental health, workload management, menstrual health, and the transition from youth to elite competition.
Injury prevention and recovery is an area that's been a hot topic in women's soccer, as research shows female players are two to eight times more likely to tear their ACLs than men. These are devastating injuries that can require surgery and nearly a year of recovery time. USWNT defender Tierna Davidson tore her ACL in March during a National Women's Soccer League game and missed the rest of the season.
It was her second ACL tear in three years.
A number of factors have been correlated to the issue including the difference in women having looser knee ligament, their menstrual cycle, and wearing cleats designed around men's physiology.
“We don't have access to big data pools to really understand more,” Brunvels said. “Someone tears their ACL and the moment that happens, someone will say, ‘Were you on your period?' It's like the no-brainer question, but no one's pulling that data together.”
But while these knee injuries often get the most coverage, and now investment, they are just one of the many injuries female athletes suffer at a higher rate than men, according to Brunvels. Concussions and ankle injuries are prevalent, too, she said.
Brunvels also cited pregnancy, another physical condition that poses challenges for women, as an underfunded area of research. USWNT stars Sophia Wilson and Mallory Swanson, two thirds of the “Triple Espresso” goal-scoring sensation during the gold-medal winning run at the Olympics, both gave birth this year.
“We've got seven players within our Women's National Team ecosystem who are either pregnant or returning to play postpartum,” Brunvels said. “That's an injury. It's a planned injury we don't talk about that doesn't get enough air time.”
Mental health is another area being targeted by the Kang Institute in its first study. Chalat says it's an “absolute priority” for the federation, especially when it comes to the next generation of female athletes.
“There are two kinds of major research projects … (the first is a) foundational research piece connecting health and performance,” Chalat said. “The other project is really focusing on girls soccer dropout rates, particularly at that middle school age.”
According to a study by the Aspen Institute, one in three girls participates in a sport from age 6-12, but nearly one in two quit during puberty.
Chalat says the Soccer Forward Foundation's work has shown that girls drop out because they feel like they don't belong or have negative experiences with their coaches.
“We know that a lot of young people's first point of contact around sharing that they feel that they might have a mental health issue and not even know it is their coach,” Chalat said. “And as a result, we're working across the board on a variety of issues that focuses on mental health — one of them being really focused on coaching, education and coaching in communities.”
Research has suggested that 60% of female athletes have experienced some form of body shaming and are two times more likely to experience depressive symptoms and eating disorders when compared to their male counterparts.
Angel City FC forward Sydney Leroux, who has had more than 70 appearances with the national team, posted on Instagram last month that she'd been diagnosed with anorexia. The revelation came more than eight months after she announced she was taking a break from her NWSL team to focus on her mental health.
Leroux said it's not a coping skill but an important issue that she wanted to open a discussion on.
“I have been living with that for as long as I could remember,” Leroux told followers. “I didn't think it was a problem. I just thought that that was the way my body reacted to the pressure I put on it, or being anxious or not being able to do it all.”
For Brunvels, allowing girls and women to understand their bodies better creates empowerment through the arc of their lives both on and off the pitch. But they have to be “supported and trained as females, not as small males.”
“They can understand more about their bodies, what they can do to help themselves,” Brunvels said. “And as a part of that, we want to keep girls in sport for longer. We want to keep girls in soccer.”
Doha Madani is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. Pronouns: she/her.
© 2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC
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Chelsea have reportedly moved ahead of Newcastle in the transfer race for AZ Alkmaar's 'Dutch Pedri' Kees Smit. The 19-year-old, valued at around £25 million ($33m), has attracted attention from across the Premier League, with Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United also tracking his progress in the Netherlands. However, it is the Blues who are said to be in pole position as it stands.
According to iNews, Chelsea have already opened lines of communication with Smit's representatives, even if a formal approach is yet to materialise. While Stamford Bridge is not expected to be especially active in January following an extensive summer rebuild, the groundwork is being laid for a move that could accelerate quickly should market conditions shift. Newcastle remain admirers of Smit and have monitored him closely since his breakout campaign in the Eredivisie last season. Eddie Howe is understood to view the Dutchman as an ideal long-term addition to his midfield options, particularly given the club's desire to refresh and lower the age profile of the squad.
However, confidence at St James' Park has waned in recent weeks. There is a growing belief that waiting until the summer could prove costly, with AZ potentially engineering a bidding war that pushes the price beyond Newcastle's comfort zone. Despite the financial freedom created by Alexander Isak's £125 million ($167m) departure, Newcastle's recruitment team remains disciplined, unwilling to overpay unless a deal aligns perfectly with their strategic vision.
Smit's reputation continues to soar in the Netherlands, where he has been the creative heartbeat of an AZ side enjoying another strong domestic campaign. The Alkmaar outfit currently sit fifth in the Eredivisie and remain one of Europe's most respected talent incubators. This week's Conference League victory over FC Drita offered another glimpse of Smit's influence, with the midfielder dictating tempo and consistently unlocking defences with his vision. Within recruitment circles, there is a growing consensus that Smit represents a step above AZ's usual graduates. Holding firm until the summer could maximise value, especially with interest from Barcelona and Real Madrid also lingering. Yet offers north of £30m ($40.3m) from England may prove difficult to resist.
Perhaps the strongest endorsement of Smit's potential has come from Ronald Koeman. The Netherlands head coach, who previously worked with Pedri at Barcelona, has drawn parallels between the two midfielders.
"I have to be careful what I say, but I coached Pedri at Barcelona and I see things in Kees Smit that remind me of him," Koeman said in November. "The changes of direction, the use of both feet, the vision of the game, these are things I noticed in Pedri at the time."
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The pursuit of Smit fits into Chelsea's broader recruitment philosophy under their multi-club ownership structure. The club continues to prioritise high-upside talent, often moving earlier and more decisively than rivals. Chelsea's ownership group recently beat Manchester United and Manchester City to the signature of Mohamed Zongo, one of Africa's brightest emerging prospects. The Burkina Faso midfielder, who starred at the Under-17 World Cup in Qatar, will officially join Strasbourg in 2027 upon turning 18. Zongo was among the tournament's standout performers, contributing two goals and three assists as Burkina Faso reached the quarter-finals. His performances against Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as a dominant display despite elimination against Italy, marked him out as a player of rare maturity.
Upcoming youth signings include Sporting CP winger Geovany Quenda and striker Emanuel Emegha. Further down the line, FC Kairat wide man Dastan Satpayev and Corinthians full-back Denner Evangelista are expected to join once they reach eligibility, while Ecuadorian defender Deinner Ordonez is scheduled for a 2028 switch.
For Smit, Chelsea's appeal extends beyond finances. The club's recent track record of integrating young midfielders, coupled with clear development pathways, offers a compelling case. However, since competition for places is fierce under Enzo Maresca, it remains to be seen if Smit takes the risk of being a bench-warmer or decides to pursue a different challenge elsewhere, where he can earn sufficient minutes to continue his development.
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The organisation of World Cup 2026 continues to be controversial. Several associations, including Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and the Football Supporters' Association (FSA) in England and Wales, have asked FIFA to immediately stop tickets sales due to the "disgraceful" prices.
For the first time in the World Cup, prices are not consistent and vary depending on demand and attractiveness, that are pushing fans away from the competition. It is the same system that was used for the FIFA Club World Cup, held last year in the United States, too.
The association says that prices for tickets allocated to Participating Member Associations (PMA), which are typically distributed via official supporters' clubs or loyalty schemes, have reached "astronomical" levels. A supporter that would like to watch their team from the first group stage match to the final (eight games in total, as this edition has round of 32) would have to pay $6,900, almost five times the equivalent from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. A ticket to the final can rise to $4,000.
"You need fans, you need the life in the stands, you need the colour, you need the atmosphere. With these prices, none of this will happen", FSE Executive Director Ronan Evain said. (via Reuters).
"We back Football Supporters Europe in calling for a halt in ticket sales and we are calling on the FA to work with fellow FAs to directly challenge these disgraceful prices", added the English football association.
The recently elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, campaigned against FIFA for the exorbitant prices of the World Cup. World Cup 2026 takes place in the US, Mexico and Canada, and the current FIFA's leadership, headed by Gianni Infantino, is aligned with Donald Trump, to the point that they broke their own rules of neutrailty, according to some organisations, when they awarded the FIFA Peace Price to the US President.
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Cristiano Ronaldo could soon become a part of one of the biggest film franchises of the modern era, as Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel confirmed on social media that a role has been written for CR7 in the next instalment of the American movie series. Portugal and Al-Nassr superstar Ronaldo, 40, is nearing the end of his playing career and previously announced in April of this year that he was launching his own film studio alongside Matthew Vaughn.
Vin Diesel took to Instagram to upload a photo taken alongside sporting icon Ronaldo, while fuelling speculation of a potential collaboration between the pair as he confirmed that the filmmakers had “written a role for him” to appear in the next Fast & Furious movie.
The next instalment in the series will be Fast & Furious 11, believed to be called Fast Forever, and is billed as the finale to the iconic saga which has been running since 2001. The street racing phenomenon may bring its final offering to screens in 2026 despite recent delays, meaning that time is running out for Ronaldo to become a part of the film in time for its release.
The 40-year-old Al-Nassr striker has been expanding his off-field empire in preparation for life after football, as one of the biggest and most well-known celebrities on the planet. A pivot into the acting industry as one facet of his future career would come as no surprise, particularly as Ronaldo already announced the launch of his own film studio, UR•MARV, alongside director and producer Vaughn, in April 2025.
Vin Diesel, who plays Dominic Toretto in the Fast & Furious saga, said on Instagram of a possible Ronaldo appearance in the movie franchise: "Everyone asked, would he be in the Fast mythology… I gotta tell you he is a real one. We wrote a role for him… @cristiano."
As mentioned, Ronaldo hit headlines in April 2025 after launching his very own film studio, which was said to be a collaboration between film and sport and involved a leading mind in each field in Ronaldo and well-known British film producer and director Vaughn. The launch also revealed that Ronaldo and Vaughn had already created two films together and were working on a third, with the promise of 'Hollywood stars' to feature in the venture.
A statement on Ronaldo's X page read: “Cristiano Ronaldo loves movies; Matthew Vaughn loves sport - and they both love a good story.
“Both have been disruptive champions at their game and will now combine the world of sport and storytelling through the launch of UR•MARV, an independent joint venture film studio embracing innovative technology, with a nod to tradition.
“Through UR•MARV, Ronaldo and Vaughn have financed and produced two action films together and are about to start a third in the same series. They look forward to announcing the first release soon.”
Ronaldo said on the venture: “This is an exciting chapter for me, as I look ahead to new ventures in business.”
Vaughn, famed for his work on the Kingsman franchise and the X-Men, added: “Cristiano has created stories on the pitch that I could never have written, and I look forward to creating inspiring movies with him - he's a real-life superhero.”
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Though Ronaldo's playing career is by no means over, with the 2026 World Cup around the corner and 11 goals in 12 games under his belt for Al-Nassr already this season, a sensational cameo from the great Portuguese in the final Fast & Furious movie could soon become a reality.
Whether CR7 will have the opportunity to attend shooting for the film in time for its release is another matter, but there is no doubt that a venture into Fast & Furious would be another step in expanding his unmatched global profile yet further.
It will also make for intriguing viewing whether Ronaldo and Vaughn's collaborative film series hits screens in the coming years, and what role Ronaldo might play within the films if that is the case. But the launch of Cristiano the movie star could well be underway.
FIFA is facing growing criticism after confirming that tickets for the 2026 World Cup final will start at around £3,000 for supporter groups, sparking anger from those who say the game is once again putting profit before its people.
The pricing was revealed through information shared with official supporter groups this week, showing steep rises across the board for national-association allocations. Football Supporters Europe has called the costs “extortionate” and urged FIFA to pause sales immediately.
Members of the England Supporters' Travel club now know they'll be paying between $4,185 (£3,120) and $8,680 (£6,471) to attend the final, should the Three Lions reach that stage.
Even group-stage and knockout tickets show significant increases on previous tournaments, with England fans looking like to pay at least £6,000 to attend all fixtures from the first game to the final, more than five times the cost of doing so in Qatar.
Dynamic pricing has added more fuel to the fire within tickets that have been sold so far, introducing uncertainty and pushing costs even higher for the most in-demand games. FIFA maintains that lower-priced tickets still exist within certain categories, but this has done little to ease the backlash.
The 2026 pricing is a sign of a tournament drifting further away from the people who give it the noise and meaning that makes it the biggest sporting event on the planet. FIFA clearly know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Sticker shock for soccer. The World Cup is months away, but some fans this weekend say they're unsure if they'll be able to afford tickets as FIFA moves to a “dynamic pricing” model. NBC 5's David Goins digs deeper into the issue.
One day after fans around soccer lamented the pricing structure implemented for the 2026 World Cup, which places a premium on marquee games and venues. FIFA said five million ticket requests were submitted within the first 24 hours of the latest lottery window.
FIFA said the highest in-demand games so far are in Miami, New York and Guadalajara, Mexico, for group stage contests involving Portugal, Brazil, Colombia, Morocco, Scotland and Germany.
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On Thursday, soccer fans accused FIFA of "monumental betrayal" over the use of dynamic pricing for the first time.
Fan organization Football Supporters Europe (FSE) described the current prices as “extortionate.”
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“This is a monumental betrayal of the tradition of the World Cup, ignoring the contribution of supporters to the spectacle it is,” it said in a statement.
Erick Vales, a Fort Worth-based self-described soccer super fan, said Friday seeing prices at AT&T Stadium at $700 per ticket for the best Category 1 seats, was a shock.
Vales has attended the three previous World Cup tournaments in Brazil (2014), Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022).
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His Category 1 tickets from those events are now souvenirs adorning his dining room wall in three distinct shadow-box style frames.
"Here's $175 in Brazil, $210, for Category 1 (in Russia), and then Qatar at $220, so that was an increase of less than 10% in some cases," Vales said.
"Going from $220 to $700 dollars, that's a 300% increase."
Tickets for group stage games at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, listed as "Dallas Stadium" for the World Cup, range from $700 for Category 1 seats for games involving Argentina and England.
Tickets for the Netherlands vs Japan are listed at $600 for Category 1, while a Japan match later in the group stage comes in at $500 for Category 1.
By contrast, the Category 1 pricing for matches involving the host nations of the U.S., Mexico and Canada exceeds $2,000 per ticket.
Vales said he's budgeted over the last three years since Qatar and is prepared to spend upwards of $5,000 on tickets, but given the nearly $2,400 price for a Mexico match, his plans may pivot.
"Maybe I'll just limit myself to staying here (North Texas) because then that can give me a budget to go to three to four games," Vales said.
Across the ATP Tour, players have enhanced their professional legacies in 2025 by pairing competitive achievements with off-court contributions to charity.
Jannik Sinner, No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings, launched the Jannik Sinner Foundation in April. The Italian is dedicated to empowering children through education and sports. “The idea behind [this] is very simple: I want to give back,” Sinner said in a video announcement. “Kids are our future and everything we do in the foundation is rooted to help them. We are focussing on two main areas: sports development and childhood education.”
Sinner's fellow ATP Tour star Andrey Rublev is also involved in charity work. The Andrey Rublev Foundation partnered with Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital in Rome, one of the leading paediatric hospitals in the world, to support medical care for underprivileged children.
Rublev visited the hospital ahead of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in May and spent time with members of the medical staff and the patients who are undergoing treatment. The 17-time tour-level titlist also provided presents to the children.
Andrey Rublev at the Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital. Credit: Andrey Rublev Foundation
Holger Rune continued his involvement with Danish organisation Børns vilkår, which models as a helpline for children in need. Alongside monetary donations, Rune auctioned a match-used racquet and a private lesson, he revealed in an Instagram post in April.
The Novak Djokovic Foundation and Lacoste partnered to inaugurate the ‘Novak Djokovic tennis court' in Belgrade, the hometown of the 101-time tour-level titlist. Located in the heart of Djokovic's native city, the court features a one-of-a-kind design that pays tribute to his career and offers young people the opportunity to discover tennis while also taking part in educational, cultural and creative activities.
The tennis community in Acapulco, Mexico, including the Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC, rallied in rebuilding efforts following the devastating impact of Hurricane Otis in October 2023. Mextenis, the organisers of the ATP 500, are supporting partners of the Mexican non-profit organisation Construyendo, which at the time of this year's tournament had delivered 73 newly built homes to families affected.
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Carlos Alcaraz and his team took home three honours in the 2025 ATP Awards, capping a standout season in which the Spaniard secured ATP Year-End No. 1 presented by PIF for the second time.
The 22-year-old claimed the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award, while his team Juan Carlos Ferrero and Samuel Lopez are voted Coach of the Year, guiding him to a Tour-leading eight titles in 2025, including two majors.
Jannik Sinner was voted Fans' Favourite for a third time, adding to a growing list of honours, including Newcomer of the Year (2019) and Most Improved Player (2024). In doubles, Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori also repeated as Fans' Favourite, the first back-to-back winners of the doubles award since Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan (2005-17).
The ATP Awards also recognised Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool as ATP Doubles No. 1 presented by PIF, achieving the feat in their first full season as a team.
Valentin Vacherot captures Breakthrough of the Year after a historic title run in Shanghai, where he defeated his cousin Arthur Rinderknech in the final to become the lowest-ranked ATP Masters 1000 champion in history.
Andrey Rublev received the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award in recognition of his mental health advocacy and ongoing work through the Andrey Rublev Foundation, launched in 2024 to support children struggling with critical illness.
Tournament award winners included the Cincinnati Open (ATP Masters 1000), Qatar Exxonmobil Open in Doha (ATP 500), and Nordea Open in Bastad (ATP 250).
Six more tournaments — the Rolex Shanghai Masters (ATP Masters 1000), Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell (ATP 500), Generali Open in Kitzbühel, Almaty Open and BNP Paribas Nordic Open in Stockholm (ATP 250) — were recognised for their performance in player surveys as Standards of Excellence winners.
On the ATP Challenger Tour, honours went to the BNP Paribas Primrose Bordeaux (ATP Challenger 175), Bahrain Ministry of Interior Tennis Challenger in Manama (ATP Challenger 125), Cranbrook Tennis Classic in Bloomfield Hills (ATP Challenger 100), Copa Internacional de Tenis in Curitiba (ATP Challenger 75), and Bolivia Open in Santa Cruz (ATP Challenger 50).
For the first time, members of the exclusive ATP No. 1 Club – current and former World No. 1 players – voted to decide two award categories: the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award and Breakthrough of the Year, a new award introduced this year to recognise milestone wins, significant jumps in the PIF ATP Rankings and first ATP Tour titles.
2025 ATP Awards Winners
ATP No. 1 presented by PIF
Determined by PIF ATP Rankings
Carlos Alcaraz
At 22 years old, Alcaraz has now held the World No. 1 spot for 49 weeks – more than 15 members of the ATP No. 1 Club. He reclaimed the position from Sinner after winning the US Open and has held it for all but one week since. Alcaraz showed great consistency across the season, emerging victorious at two majors (Roland Garros and the US Open), three ATP Masters 1000s (Monte-Carlo, Rome and Cincinnati) and three ATP 500s (Rotterdam, Queen's Club and Tokyo).
ATP Doubles No. 1 presented by PIF
Determined by PIF ATP Rankings
Julian Cash/Lloyd Glasspool
In their first full season together, Cash and Glasspool made history as the first all-British team to finish as Year-End ATP Doubles No. 1 presented by PIF. They claimed a tour-leading seven titles in 2025, including five consecutive trophies between June and August in a run of 22 matches unbeaten.
Fans' Favourite (Singles)
Voted by fans
Jannik Sinner
Fans' Favourite for a third consecutive year, the Italian opened the year by successfully defending his Australian Open title. Of the 12 tour-level events he competed in, Sinner reached the final in all but two (Halle, Shanghai). He closed the season on a 15-match winning streak with titles in Vienna, Paris, and at the Nitto ATP Finals, finishing as World No. 2 with a 58-6 season record.
Fans' Favourite (Doubles)
Voted by fans
Simone Bolelli / Andrea Vavassori
The Italians repeated as Fans' Favourite after claiming four tour-level titles this year and returning to the Nitto ATP Finals on home soil in Turin.
Breakthrough of the Year
Voted by ATP No. 1 Club
Valentin Vacherot
Entering Shanghai qualifying ranked World No. 204, Vacherot went on to capture the title, earning 1,020 PIF ATP Rankings points and surging to World No. 40. The Monegasque built on his momentum with a quarter-final run at the Rolex Paris Masters to reach a career-high World No. 30.
Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award
Voted by ATP No. 1 Club
Carlos Alcaraz
The Spaniard claimed the honour for the second time. One of his standout sportsmanship moments came at Roland Garros this year, where he called a foul on himself in his fourth-round clash against Ben Shelton. From 2004-21, only Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal received the award, with Federer winning 13 times and Nadal five.
Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award
Awarded by ATP
Andrey Rublev
After launching the Andrey Rublev Foundation in 2024 to support children facing critical illness, Rublev expanded his efforts throughout the 2025 season. Earlier this year, the foundation announced a partnership with Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital in Rome. Rublev visited the hospital ahead of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament to spend time with medical staff and patients. He has also spoken candidly about mental health and the importance of seeking help, featuring in an ATP Originals documentary, ‘Breaking Back', to discuss his personal struggles.
Past winners of the award include Roger Federer, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
Coach of the Year
Voted by ATP coaches
Juan Carlos Ferrero & Samuel Lopez (Carlos Alcaraz)
Ferrero and Lopez guided Alcaraz to ATP Year-End No. 1 presented by PIF, and a Tour-leading 71 wins and eight titles, including two majors and three ATP Masters 1000 trophies. Ferrero is the first coach to win the award twice (also in 2022).
ATP Masters 1000 Tournament of the Year
Voted by ATP players
Cincinnati Open (Cincinnati)
Named the ATP Masters 1000 Tournament of the Year after completing a $260 million transformation at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, doubling its footprint to more than 40 acres.
ATP 500 Tournament of the Year
Voted by ATP players
Qatar Exxonmobil Open (Doha)
A six-time winner of the award in the ATP 250 category, Doha raised its exceptional standards in tournament organisation, player services and hospitality to mark its elevation to the ATP 500 level.
ATP 250 Tournament of the Year
Voted by ATP players
Nordea Open (Bastad)
One of the most scenic stops on the ATP Tour calendar, Bastad adds another accolade after winning the award for 11 consecutive years from 2002-12.
Standards of Excellence Winners
Voted by ATP players
ATP Masters 1000: Rolex Shanghai Masters
ATP 500: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell
ATP 250: Generali Open (Kitzbühel), Almaty Open and BNP Paribas Nordic Open (Stockholm)
ATP Challenger 175 Tournament of the Year
BNP Paribas Primrose Bordeaux (Bordeaux)
Held at the historic Villa Primrose Bordeaux, the event is celebrated for its first-class hospitality. This year, all eight seeded players were ranked inside the Top 80 of the PIF ATP Rankings, including champion Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.
ATP Challenger 125 Tournament of the Year
Bahrain Ministry of Interior Tennis Challenger (Manama)
Honoured for the second consecutive season, this year's event was won by Marton Fucsovics.
ATP Challenger 100 Tournament of the Year
Cranbook Tennis Classic (Bloomfield Hills)
The first American event to receive an ATP Challenger Tournament of the Year award. Estonia's Mark Lajal lifted the 2025 trophy.
ATP Challenger 75 Tournament of the Year
Copa Internacional de Tenis (Curitiba)
Praised for its atmosphere and organisation, Paraguay's Adolfo Daniel Vallejo claimed this year's title.
ATP Challenger 50 Tournament of the Year
Bolivia Open (Santa Cruz)
Recognised for a third consecutive year, the Bolivia Open continues to stand out among South America's Challenger Tour events. Argentine Alex Barrena lifted the trophy in June.
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McLaren's unstoppable season | 2025 FIA Awards
Lando Norris receives the Drivers' Championship trophy | 2025 FIA Awards
McLaren's Lando Norris received his Drivers' Championship trophy at the FIA Awards in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Lando Norris has reflected on his “incredible” Drivers' Championship win as he was presented with the trophy at the FIA Awards on Friday night in Uzbekistan, 11 years on after he appeared at the awards as karting world champion.
The McLaren driver came out on top in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix finale as the fight for the drivers' title went down to the final race of an epic 2025 season – Norris, team mate Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen all had a chance of winning at Yas Marina.
While four-time champion Verstappen won the race, Norris' third place result was enough to see him seal the title by just two points, which led to emotional post-race scenes as the Briton realised his childhood dream.
On Friday, in Tashkent, Norris collected his trophy on stage at the FIA Awards, while also looking back on a hard-fought year.
"Where do I start?” Norris said. “Congratulations and thank you to McLaren, the team I've been with for many, many years on giving both of us an incredible car that at times made our life very easy, and beautiful, and we could bring home many wins all the way to the end of the season.
"Of course, Mr Piastri, the incredible team mate that I've had, who has helped me improve so much over the last few seasons and made us the team that we are, allowed us to turn into the team winning two constructors' back-to-back.
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Norris collected his trophy on stage at the FIA Awards. Tap on the gallery to view more photos from the evening
"Of course, to Max as well, for challenging us the whole way, putting us under pressure, just doing what Max always does.
"It was incredible. Obviously this is a lot of people's dreams, a lot of racing drivers' dreams and I got to finally live it – live that one dream that I had when I was a little kid.”
Back in 2014, a young Norris was on stage at the FIA Awards to collect his trophy as karting world champion, and he also looked back on his journey through F1 from that moment 11 years ago.
He added: "It's been amazing to grow up here alongside a lot of you guys, deliver it with McLaren and to get to race all the World Champions that I've been racing against – Lewis [Hamilton], Max [Verstappen], Seb [Vettel], Fernando [Alonso].
"All the incredible drivers that I looked up to and watched when I was a little kid and get that chance to race against them, to try and beat them and to show what I can do against them all and we managed to do that this year.
"So [I'm] very proud, very happy of course. [I] got very emotional on Sunday after the race, then got extremely drunk and had an amazing time!"
There was also a moment of humour on stage as Norris dropped an expletive, saying: "I and we had our fair share of mistakes and **** ups. Can I say that here? I'm ok?"
He then continued: "Sorry, yeah. I got fined! I can pay it off now!"
McLaren CEO Zak Brown was also on stage to lift the Teams' Championship trophy alongside the Woking-based squad's Team Principal Andrea Stella – the pair having led McLaren back to the front of the grid in recent seasons.
"Fantastic season,” said Brown. "All the men and women at McLaren have done an unbelievable job led by our two awesome drivers, of course the job Andrea has done leading.
"To go into the final race with two drivers fighting for the World Championship when everyone said that couldn't be done, I'm just very proud of how McLaren went racing and that's exactly what we plan to do next year."
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McLaren's unstoppable season | 2025 FIA Awards
Lando Norris receives the Drivers' Championship trophy | 2025 FIA Awards
Despite missing out on this year's title, Oscar Piastri will achieve the feat one day according to McLaren team mate Lando Norris.
Lando Norris believes that Oscar Piastri "will be a world champion" one day, having denied his McLaren team mate this year's title in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Norris became only the 35th driver to win the Formula 1 Drivers' Championship, with third place in Sunday's race at the Yas Marina Circuit enough for him to claim the crown by two points from Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Piastri finished third in the standings, just 13 points behind Norris, despite having led for the majority of the season and recording the same number of wins as Norris with seven.
Piastri also held a 34-point lead at one stage after Norris' Dutch GP retirement, but a run of six Grands Prix without a podium in the final part of the season ultimately contributed to him missing out on a maiden title.
While Piastri admitted it was "not quite the ending I wished for", Norris was quick to praise his team mate and Verstappen amidst his own title celebrations, believing Piastri's time would come.
"I had two other guys who were pretty freaking fast and certainly made my life tough this year," said the 26-year-old.
"Oscar the whole way since round one, I knew he was probably going to be the toughest guy to beat and then you can never count out Max, he's Max.
"We certainly never counted him out and for anyone who might have done, he proved you wrong. I'm glad we kept ourselves on our toes and we were ready for such a thing, but a pleasure to fight Max, four-time world champion.
"For me to have those fights against him and enjoy those moments, maybe not always enjoy them but some of them, but just to share the track and fight against another world champion like him and certainly Oscar as well, who will be a world champion.
"I really enjoyed this season because of that. As much as they made my life hell a lot of the time, those moments I almost enjoyed the most."
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Actor Peter Greene was reportedly discovered lying “face down” on the floor with a strange note when police found him dead on Friday.
“Peter was lying on the floor, facedown, facial injury, blood everywhere…” a neighbor described of the gruesome scene to New York Daily News.
The outlet additionally reported that a strange handwritten note was found on the scene along with the actor's body.
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“I'm still a Westie,” it read, referring to the 1970s Irish-American gang that operated out of Hell's Kitchen.
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A rep for Greene did not immediately respond to Page Six's request for comment.
Greene was pronounced dead on Friday after he was found unresponsive in his Lower East Side apartment on Clinton Street around 3:25 p.m. He was 60.
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Police told The Post that no foul play was suspected, but that a cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner.
The “Pulp Fiction” star's death was confirmed by his longtime manager, Gregg Edwards, who remembered the late actor as a “terrific guy” in a statement to the outlet.
“Truly one of the great actors of our generation. His heart was as big as there was. I'm going to miss him. He was a great friend,” he said.
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It appears Greene's death came as a surprise to Edwards and others around him as he was originally scheduled to film with Mickey Rourke on an independent thriller called “Mascots.”
Upon learning of the actor's passing, Edwards said the film's writer-director, Kerry Mondragón, was “very upset.”
“He worked with so many amazing actors and directors,” Edwards added, citing Greene's performance as mobster Dorian Tyrell opposite Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz in “The Mask” as “arguably his best role.”
His additional credits include “Laws of Gravity,” “Clean, Shaven,” “Blue Streak” and “Training Day.”
Follow Taylor Swift live updates from Page Six for peeks into her relationship with fiancé Travis Kelce, the latest on her upcoming docuseries, “The End of an Era,” and new album, “The Life of a Showgirl” — plus news, fan theories and more.
By Glenn Garner
Associate Editor
Lindsay Lohan is taking over an iconic character as she guest stars on The Simpsons this weekend.
The actress took to social media on Friday to tease her voice appearance as Future Maggie on the Fox animated series' Season 37 episode ‘Parahormonal Activity', which airs Sunday at 8/7c.
“Catch me on #TheSimpsons this Sunday on FOX! What a dream come true to be part of this iconic family,” Lohan wrote on Instagram, also posting a clip of herself voicing a slightly older version of the perpetual baby.
As some fans noted, the casting comes with a meta parallel after Elizabeth Taylor voiced Baby Maggie in the 1992 episode ‘Lisa's First Word', 20 years before Lohan portrayed Taylor in the Lifetime biopic Liz & Dick (2012).
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Lohan's latest voice role comes amid her onscreen comeback in recent years, most recently reprising her role as Anna Coleman in the Disney sequel Freakier Friday, now available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
Meanwhile, The Simpsons is preparing for its milestone 800th episode in February, as Disney+ gives the show its own dedicated channel, in addition to a new movie debuting in theaters on July 23, 2027.
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Jacob Elordi had a tense exchange with a photographer in Paris on Wednesday.
The “Frankenstein” star tried to keep a low profile while inside the Gare du Nord train station when a paparazzo approached him.
“Jacob, we love you,” the photographer could be heard saying to the 28-year-old who was flanked by security guards, according to a video shared on social media.
Elordi then removed one of his headphones and said, “You make it really hard for me to live.”
After the photographer repeated, “We love you,” the “Euphoria” actor replied, “I don't love you,” adding — yet again, “You make it really hard for me to live.”
Reps for Elordi didn't immediately respond to Page Six's request for comment.
Fans were quick to defend the “Saltburn” star after watching his tense exchange with the photographer.
“This is honestly heartbreaking 💔,” one person wrote in the comments section.
“Not friendly at all….,” another wrote.
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“You can love someone's work without making their life harder to live. Jacob deserves the same basic humanity and space as anyone else,” a third added, while another supporter wrote, “I would have been annoyed from the first second if someone followed me like this 🤨.”
Elordi's exchange with the paparazzo comes three months after he shared a tense moment with a Venice Film Festival official.
At the world premiere of “Frankenstein,” Elordi was seen speaking to a man who appeared to be a “bodyguard.”
“I'm going to take a picture right here,” Elordi told the festival staff member in a clip shared on TikTok.
After posing for several photos with attendees, Elordi turned back toward the official and said, “Don't ever tell me what to do.”
Despite the awkward exchange on the red carpet, the user who posted the video said the actor “was so nice” and “took photo[s] with everyone he can.” They added, “He is so sexy and nice.”
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Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie dish on that episode four turmoil and why it needed to happen.
By
Nicole Fell
Assistant Editor
[This story contains major spoilers from episode four of Heated Rivalry. ]
As streams of t.A.T.u.'s “All The Things She Said” likely jump after Heated Rivalry's fourth episode, fans of the series are anxiously waiting to see just where the show's protagonists Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya (Connor Storrie) stand.
After years of casual hookups whenever the other hockey player is in town or the All Star weekend finds them together, Shane and Ilya are confronted with the reality that things just might be getting real. When the pair spend what feels more like a domesticated day at Ilya's house rather than the quick affairs they're used to, Shane bolts.
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The Canadian hockey player finds himself in a relationship with actress Rose Landry (Sophie Nélisse), and Shane and Ilya's not-quite-relationship becomes even more complicated. The show's big moment takes place at a Montreal night club, set to “All The Things She Said,” where the pair leave without saying a word.
Below, Williams and Storrie speak with The Hollywood Reporter about the reaction of the series, why their characters needed that devastating ending and what they hope viewers take away from the show.
I'm not sure if either of you saw the reaction to the show coming, but how are you setting boundaries for yourself in this new reality?
STORRIE Personally, I just limit my amount of time online. Luckily, we've been super busy with press and all sorts of meetings and talks and this and that, so I haven't had too much time to really delve into the online response. It's super enticing and super easy to fall into a trap of wanting to know what everyone's saying about you.
WILLIAMS I used to tell people when it was sort of addicting and I would want to kind of scroll, that it's like people are having a conversation about you in the living room. Someone tells you that, and you're in your bedroom. You can go listen, but you don't have to. Most people are going to be like, “What the hell are they saying?” And go around the corner.
STORRIE I want to know what situation this is where someone's, like, talking about you in the living room. (Laughs.)
WILLIAMS (Laughs.) It's a very hypothetical situation, but then again [it's] that situation [but] they don't even know you. If you turn your phone off, it all disappears and then you're just home alone drinking a coffee, tired, bad hair, acne.
STORRIE Not in the living room where they are.
WILLIAMS None of it really exists unless you're on it.
In terms of where the show is at in episode four, it's a big turning point in the story. One thing Jacob [Tierney, showrunner] has emphasized is that sex is how these two people communicate. But I think this is where they're starting to realize they have to learn how to communicate outside of that. Where do you see that shift in them, and how did you tackle that?
STORRIE The shift I think happens between them and then we see the ricochet effect of how that fragments and affects them both differently. I don't know about you [Hudson], but I didn't pre-plan a lot of stuff. I just remember doing the tuna melt scene after that. All I have to do is look at him and feed into his reality and what happens after the tuna melt scene. Be present and affected by that and then it just kind of leads into everything else.
WILLIAMS You can read an arc, but you can't really play one, so you can't really manipulate one too much. We read the script, I read the book, I reread the script multiple times. I just had to trust that sort of imbued in the performance. Being in that moment, I remember the tuna melt scene and where that goes. I do remember that it was a disgusting feeling every time I'd leave, I just felt gross in my stomach. I just want to cry.
STORRIE You can't plan for it. You just have to be so prepped in your person and the story as a whole that when it's at go time for that, you're ready for it.
It seems you guys have gotten quite close with each other, how do you then shift out of that when you're leaving the day?
STORRIE You don't. I feel heartbroken forever.
WILLIAMS Then we don't speak.
STORRIE We're always heartbroken.
WILLIAMS I think we had a bit of levity. [Connor] had the accent that [he] could kind of drop, and then I'm like, oh, I'm with Connor now. Shane feels like quite a departure even though it's not an accent. It feels like I can kind of leave that. But then when you revisit it, it feels like it's all there. It's almost like a children's game when you play dress up. It's like as soon as you come back to this imaginary world, it's just as alive.
It's a beat that every romance story has — things have to get bad a bit before they can get good. As the two people who are portraying these characters, why do you think that needs to happen?
STORRIE Yearning. We love to yearn.
WILLIAMS There's this sellable aspect [where] you're more connected to it when there's the yearning. But also it feels real. I don't know too many stories where there's not a push and pull.
STORRIE Totally.
WILLIAMS It feels reminiscent of my friends who have romances, stories I hear of parents who have fallen in love. It's a lot of bad happens. It's not just that we liked each other. We started having sex. Then we just boom, boom, boom, now we're happily married.
STORRIE This story specifically, I think it just solidifies [Shane]. Being genuinely connected to one person like Rose, I think solidifies [Shane] contextually. Sometimes finding out what you do want is finding out what you don't want. Maybe that's why that's a plot point in a lot of these types of stories.
WILLIAMS Especially in a queer story where Rose sort of represents the image, the standards.
In the book, there was always this idea that Ilya was the one who fell first. I think from your portrayal of Shane, Hudson, that kind of shifted. There's been a very large debate on the internet.
WILLIAMS Right, I've seen this. I feel that if Ilya fell [because of] those freckles in the first meeting… It's the locker room, I think, when Shane falls. He's already falling before he says [his room number]. He's already kind of there. I think when he goes up to Ilya and walks — we cut it in the [show] — but he walks quite a ways just to go see Ilya, to go up to him.
STORRIE That first meeting you mean?
WILLIAMS The first meeting. There's an attraction there, and shortly after it turns into more.
STORRIE The part that always stuck out to me [as when] Ilya really saw Shane for the first time and really liked him was actually — and the way that Jacob [Tierney] did it was so fricking good — when they're texting in the locker room. I think this is in episode one or two. [Ilya asks,] “How many times can you come in an hour?” Then Shane earnestly responds, “I don't know, twice maybe.” I think that is just plain and simple the reason why Ilya likes Shane. [It's] because that's so the opposite of Ilya. He would never be straightforward and honest. He would never be vulnerable in that almost ignorant way. That's the moment for me. I think it also comes down to a cultural difference of Eastern Europeans or cultures outside of the West. They may not be as nice to you upfront, but when you're their friend, you're their family for life. They'll die for you. I think that's a difference of their love at the beginning. When I'm in, I'm in. Whereas Shane is in, kind of, sort of.
WILLIAMS Terrified by it. But I will say, whether it's a departure from the book or not, with all due respect to Rachel [Reid]'s book as well, I think I play Shane [as] he's sort of in love right away and then never stops being in love. He makes other choices that might not look like that, but I think they're all kind of driven through how much intense love he feels for Ilya, and I stand by that.
What're you hoping people take away from the series?
WILLIAMS Love.
STORRIE I just hope that people — no matter what you think you need to be in life or what is expected of you — just be yourself. Even if that breaks some sort of boundary, even if there's not a word for it, even if there's not space for that in whatever realm you live in. Just be that.
WILLIAMS Fight for yourself like your best friend, and don't be ashamed of anything that exists within yourself.
STORRIE Even your family [or] your friends, even if it goes against what they want and think of you —
WILLIAMS Own it.
Heated Rivalry is currently streaming on HBO Max in the U.S., airing new episodes every Friday.
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Actor Peter Greene, who is best known for his roles in “Pulp Fiction” and “The Mask,” has died. He was 60 years old.
Greene was found dead in his New York City apartment on Friday, his longtime manager, Gregg Edwards, confirmed to The Post.
The actor was found unresponsive inside his Lower East Side apartment on Clinton Street around 3:25 p.m., and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police and Edwards.
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Police told The Post no foul play was suspected, but that a cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner.
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“He was a terrific guy,” Edwards said.
“Truly one of the great actors of our generation. His heart was as big as there was. I'm going to miss him. He was a great friend.”
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In January 2026, Greene was supposed to start working with Mickey Rourke on an independent thriller called “Mascots,” Edwards revealed before adding that he notified the film's writer-director, Kerry Mondragón, of the actor's death.
“They were very upset,” he said.
“He worked with so many amazing actors and directors,” Edwards continued, adding that Greene's performance as mobster Dorian Tyrell opposite Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz in “The Mask” was “arguably his best role.”
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Greene, ran away from his Montclair, New Jersey, home at 15 and lived on the streets of New York City, where he turned to drugs and dealing, he told Premier magazine in 1996.
After attempting suicide in March 1996, he sought treatment for his addictions.
Aside from “Pulp Fiction” and “The Mask,” Greene also starred in “Laws of Gravity,” “Clean, Shaven,” “Blue Streak” and “Training Day.”
When she asked if the situation was dangerous, she said the officer responded simply: "Sí."
By
Jessica Lynch
Jewel is revisiting one of the most surreal and dangerous chapters of her early career — a real-life encounter with Mexican police during a drug bust that would later inspire one of her most enduring songs.
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Speaking during her Not Alone Summit at Wynn Las Vegas in November, the singer, who has reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200 with six albums, reflected on the experience in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, which first reported the story exclusively.
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According to Jewel, the incident took place in the summer of 1994, when she was 20 years old and traveling through Mexico with longtime collaborator Steve Poltz during a break from writing music.
What began as a quiet songwriting retreat quickly escalated into something far more perilous. While spending time on a remote beach in Baja California, Jewel and Poltz were approached by armed men in uniform identifying themselves as Mexican federal police.
After casually asking if the officers knew where they could go whale watching, the pair were invited onto a small boat — only to learn mid-trip that the officers were in the middle of an active drug bust.
“They said, ‘We're on a drug bust,'” Jewel recalled. When she asked if the situation was dangerous, she said the officer responded simply: “Sí.”
The singer later realized that the wooden bench she was sitting on doubled as storage for automatic weapons. As the boat chased a fleeing vessel that refused to identify itself, Jewel said she watched officers pursue suspects, uncovering large quantities of marijuana hidden under rocks along the shoreline.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Jewel recalled moments of disbelief and dark humor, including fears that she and Poltz could be framed or imprisoned.
“I was really paranoid we were gonna end up in a Tijuana prison,” she said.
Photographs from the incident — including one showing Jewel holding a rifle alongside officers — later circulated online, becoming a piece of '90s music lore.
In the aftermath, Jewel and Poltz remained in Mexico briefly, continuing to write music. One of the songs born from that period would become “You Were Meant for Me,” released in 1995 on her debut album Pieces of You.
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"I was like, 'No, no, no, wait, you must be confused. I don't do this! I'm gonna f--- this up!'" Welch recalled.
By
Jessica Lynch
Florence Welch might be used to commanding festival stages alongside her band Florence + The Machine, but even she wasn't ready for the finely tuned machinery that is Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour.
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Florence Welch
Taylor Swift
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The Florence + the Machine leader appears in Taylor Swift's new Disney+ docuseries Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – The End of an Era, where she recounts her surprise duet performance of “Florida!!!” during Swift's final night at London's Wembley Stadium in August 2024.
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The moment marked a rare onstage link-up between the two artists — and, as Welch admits, came with a heavy dose of pressure.
“I have performed on big stages, but I thought I'd just run around because that's what I do at my own shows,” Welch recalls in the doc.
“When I got there, they were like, ‘This is your choreography.' I was like, ‘No, no, no, wait, you must be confused. I don't do this! I'm gonna f— this up!'”
Of course, she didn't — Welch nailed her cues, hit the emotional high note, and helped close out one of Swift's five Wembley nights without a hitch. But even a seasoned performer can get a little starstruck when faced with the sheer scale of Swift's universe.
“The feeling of coming up for the first time in that lift, it was kind of like landing on Mars, ‘cause I'd never seen the stage lit up before,” Welch continues. “It's like, you see this cultural moment from the outside, and I suddenly was inside of it. It was wild, but it was really fun and completely terrifying.”
Welch also admitted that seeing Swift as the pop deity at the center of a global phenomenon — rather than as her “cozy” friend — briefly scrambled her brain.
“Taylor is my friend, and I know her as this very cozy person, and I came out of that lift and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it's f—ing Taylor Swift!'”
The docuseries, which dropped its first two episodes this week on Disney+, pulls the curtain back on the tour's unseen moments — from backstage rehearsal hangouts with Ed Sheeran to personal calls with Travis Kelce that Swift likens to a “vitamin drip.”
“I want to overserve the fans,” Swift says in the series. “That was my main goal.”
You can stream The End of an Era on Disney+ now.
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“I Love LA” star Jordan Firstman is taking shots at “Heated Rivalry” for its portrayal of gay sex scenes.
While the HBO Max-acquired series, which follows two closeted hockey pros hiding a passionate romance, has been winning over viewers and critics, Firstman isn't a fan.
In a new interview with Vulture, the 34-year-old actor discussed a “casual” scene from his HBO Original series, in which his character — Charlie — is seen watching a sex tape he made. The reporter noted how it was a stark contrast from the intimate scenes between the characters on “Heated Rivalry,” which seem “posed.”
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“Yeah, we're going for it. It's gay. I'm sorry, I watched those first two episodes of ‘Heated Rivalry‘, and it's just not gay,” Firstman said.
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“It's not how gay people f–k. There's so few things that actually show gay sex. In the first sex scene, when we both say ‘that part' after cumming, that's one of my favorite moments. That is a real thing that is from my life.”
He continued, “Me and this guy were obsessed with saying ‘that part' for a moment and we both came and just instinctively said it and then laughed a lot. That's gay to me. A straight guy could not write that. They don't know what the camaraderie of gay sex is. So, yeah, I think I definitely led the charge with that.”
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Later in the interview, Firstman spoke about “Heated Rivalry” again, saying, “A lot of people just want entertainment or to see two straight hockey players pretending to be gay and f–king” — a reference to all the online chatter about the “Heated Rivalry” actors' sexuality.
“I am one of those bitches who says, ‘Then say it.' A gay guy would say it,” Firstman, who previously appeared in the now-canceled series “English Teacher,” said.
“I don't respect you because you care too much about your career and what's going to happen if people think you're gay.”
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“Heated Rivalry” actors Connor Storrie, 25, and Hudson Williams, 24, recently addressed fan speculation about their sexuality, telling Deadline they prefer to keep that part of themselves private.
Williams said, “I think there's never a question for me, when I would dream of becoming in the public eye, that I would want just a level of privacy. But of course, I agree. I want queer people telling queer stories, but also, there's the element of Connor [Storrie] and I — we're best friends, and we love expressing that physically.”
Storrie added, “It's important for me to have a little bit of separation from the character in the show.”
“Heated Rivalry,” which will conclude its six-episode first season on Dec. 26, will return for Season 2 in 2026.
By Glenn Garner
Associate Editor
What happens in Vegas… gets a LaKeith Stanfield-starring movie, if you're Dennis Rodman.
Nearly two years after Jonathan Majors was dropped from the role and Lionsgate exited the project, the studio is back on board with Stanfield set to play the former Chicago Bulls forward in the Rick Famuyiwa-helmed film, which Jordan VanDina co-wrote with the director.
Inspired by the untold story of Rodman's legendary trip to Las Vegas during the 1998 NBA Finals, 48 Hours in Vegas will take audiences through two whirlwind days in Sin City and Rodman's madcap (possibly true) adventures.
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“I'm genuinely excited to help create an exhilarating, joyful work that both honors and thoughtfully examines the legacy of Rodman and fellow trailblazers,” said Stanfield in a statement. “Those who moved to the beat of their own drum, undeterred by the obstacles placed before them, then and now.”
Erin Westerman, president of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said, “Dennis Rodman is more than a basketball player, more than a personality—he's an entire cultural phenomenon. His bold style and physical presence, combined with an iconic persona, created a larger-than-life impact on and off the court. There'll never be another like him. LaKeith and the incredibly talented team on this film will bring the legend to life in this most extraordinarily unbelievable story.”
Produced by Lord Miller's Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Aditya Sood, executive producers include Ari Lubet, Dennis Rodman and Lucy Kitada will executive produce. Nikki Baida will co-produce.
Meredith Wieck and Pavan Kalidindi will oversee for Lionsgate. Robert Melnik negotiated the deals on behalf of the studio.
Stanfield is represented by CAA, Stark Management and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis. Famuyiwa is repped by WME, Oasis Media Group and Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang.
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This guy made Play Dirty more tolerable.
Always up for a LaKeith movie even though I think, perhaps , Majors would've been better suited to this role.
Both of them brilliant actors. I can Stanfield here as much as, but I will foever wonder what Majors wouldve done with it. Magazine Dreams was just really incredible, immersive acting, that made me go Wow we lost the chance to the rise of an all time great. What a tragedy.
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Stanfield will portray the Chicago Bulls forward in Rick Famuyiwa's forthcoming feature centered around Rodman's trip to Las Vegas during the 1998 NBA Finals.
By
McKinley Franklin
Almost two years after Jonathan Majors was dropped from Lionsgate's 48 Hours in Vegas, LaKeith Stanfield has replaced him in the film to star as Dennis Rodman.
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed Stanfield will portray the Chicago Bulls forward in Rick Famuyiwa‘s forthcoming feature centered around Rodman's trip to Las Vegas during the 1998 NBA Finals.
Majors was initially attached to the role in 2022, though he was let go from the project after he was convicted of assault and harassment following an incident involving his ex-partner Grace Jabbari. He was later sentenced to a 52-week in-person domestic violence intervention program.
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Amid the controversy, the Creed III actor was also dropped by Disney and Marvel Studios, where he played Kang the Conqueror, who was originally slated to be the MCU's next leading villain.
“Dennis Rodman is more than a basketball player, more than a personality — he's an entire cultural phenomenon,” said president of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Erin Westerman. “His bold style and physical presence, combined with an iconic persona, created a larger-than-life impact on and off the court. There'll never be another like him. LaKeith and the incredibly talented team on this film will bring the legend to life in this most extraordinarily unbelievable story.”
Stanfield starred in all four seasons of the Emmy Award-winning series Atlanta; Jordan Peele's Get Out; Haunted Mansion; The Book of Clarence; and Judas and the Black Messiah, which earned him an Oscar nomination.
48 Hours in Vegas will be produced by Lord Miller's Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Aditya Sood. Famuyiwa will direct and write the next draft of the screenplay, which was written by Jordan VanDina.
Ari Lubet, Dennis Rodman and Lucy Kitada will serve as executive producers, while Nikki Baida co-produces.
The InSneider was first to report on Stanfeild's casting.
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By Nellie Andreeva
Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV
Brad Luff, former executive at Original Film, Morgan Creek, Sony, Dimension Films, Universal and Warner Bros., passed away this afternoon, Friday, Dec. 12, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center due to complications from cancer and a stroke he had suffered this summer. He was 60.
After graduating from UCLA in 1985, Luff began his career as a banker at Wells Fargo doing entertainment deals before segueing to a Hollywood career.
Early on, he did a six-year stint as EVP of production at Neal Moritz's Sony-based Original Film, working on movies such as Urban Legend and Saving Silverman, which he executive produced.
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In 2003, Luff was named President of Production at Morgan Creek Prods. From 2005-2008, he was President of Production for The Mayhem Project, a production and financing entity backed by UK-based hedge funds.
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Luff went on to serve as SVP of production at Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group where he managed the development slate, including such movies as Faster (co-financed with CBS Films), Soul Surfer, Quarantine 2, and Stomp The Yard 2.
In 2010, Luff was named President of Production for Dimension Films. His producing credits also include the 2013 feature Parker starring Jason Statham and the 2018 series Siren.
Luff spent the last 10 years of his career creating a niche business for big studios of making smaller-scaled, direct-to-streaming sequels to some of their biggest hits at a price.
As a VP at Universal, he developed sequels for dozens of movies, including Daddy Day Care, Cop and a Half and Woody Woodpecker. As VP of Warner Bros, he did the same for such titles as The Nut Job, Eraser and Deep Blue Sea. While not as glamorous as the theatrical business, Luff was proud of the franchise extensions he made at the fraction of the cost, many of which performed well.
The Daddy Day Care sequel, the 2019 Grand-Daddy Day Care, was co-written by screenwriter Robbie Fox, a longtime friend of Luff's.
“Brad will be very missed, by his family and friends of course, but also by writers everywhere,” Fox told Deadline. “Writers loved working for Brad; he was both creative and smart. He was passionate about film and comedy and telling stories. He gave you ideas when you needed them, and he gave you space when you needed that. And also because he was quite possibly the nicest guy in Hollywood and everyone felt that way, myself included.”
Luff most recently was making original movies for Fox's Tubi. He is survived by his children, Isabella (20) and Jack 18, his wife of 25 years Natalia, his sister Cindy and mom Ellen.
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A great guy, a true loss. He was one of the first producers I ever met in this business and I was lucky to have had such a friendly introduction to this world. He championed a script of mine back in the day and gave me a career. Brad will be missed.
I feel heartbroken. Echoing the comments below; such a good human being. One of the hardest working guys I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was driven by a love for story and the craft. Brad, you deserved better than this. RIP my friend.
First met Brad at Original and continued a working friendship for over twenty years.
Always enthusiastic-the exec you looked forward to speaking with.
Truly one of the good guys in a business populated by so very few.
He will be missed.
I worked with Brad in Soul Surfer. He was a great executive and a better person. Always optimistic and upbeat. His contribution to the film is evident in every frame. Enjoy every day people. It's all we have.
RIP
An incredibly nice guy. I'm sorry to hear this. Much love to his family.
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By
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
There's one big secret your favorite celebrities aren't telling you (okay, there are probably a few, but this one really matters): where they get their sneakers. And no, we're not talking about the usual hype-heavy names clogging your timeline or the trainers everyone suddenly owns at the exact same time. We're talking about ECCO — a quietly powerful footwear brand tucked away in a small town in Denmark, and one we're dubbing: the shoe brand of the coming years.
Worn by everyone from Zendaya to Suki Waterhouse and Chloë Sevigny, ECCO has been crafting some of the most distinctive footwear in the industry — and perfecting the art for decades. To understand what's really behind the brand (and why so many people in-the-know swear by it), I traveled to their European headquarters to see firsthand why ECCO has such a devoted (and well-deserved) following.
Founded in 1963 by Karl Toosbuy in Denmark, ECCO has spent over six decades doing something remarkably rare: improving without losing its soul (or sole). While the technology has evolved and the machinery has modernized, the philosophy remains unchanged. The brand still relies on processes rooted in its earliest days, staying obsessively loyal to quality, craftsmanship, and values over trends.
If we're defining what makes a brand truly “good,” it's hard to find a stronger case than ECCO. Many employees are second- and third-generation team members — parents, grandparents, and relatives who all worked there before them. And here's the wild part: They genuinely seem happy. Walking through the facilities, you're met with people who look like they actually enjoy what they do. The smiles aren't performative, the pride isn't forced, and the care for the product runs deep. It feels less like a corporate office and more like a close-knit community.
Maybe it's the core values the company was built on. Maybe it's the town itself (which, true story, helped me track down my lost passport during the trip — not a Hallmark movie, just genuinely good people). Whatever it is, the sense of integrity is impossible to miss. Every step of the process, from sourcing leather to final quality checks, has a human touch that you rarely see in global brands.
ECCO also takes sustainability seriously — and not in a buzzword, PR way. There's no fast fashion here. The brand puts real resources into ensuring its production does more good than harm, even hiring dedicated specialists whose sole focus is on minimizing environmental impact. Thoughtfulness isn't an afterthought; it's built into every movement. They carefully select materials, use innovative production methods, and constantly improve their processes to minimize environmental footprints. It's a brand that considers its legacy not just in style and comfort, but in its responsibility to the planet.
ECCO is best known for its shoes, and the range is expansive. Think sneakers that are as comfortable as they are cool, ballet flats that reinvent both design and durability (a major reason Chloë Sevigny is a fan), and boots that are for everything — from hiking trails to city streets. Every style feels intentional, versatile, and meticulously crafted.
Beyond everyday footwear, ECCO also produces accessories like leather gloves, wallets, card holders, and even golf shoes — one of their newest innovations and, in my opinion, one of their strongest. Each accessory is infused with the same attention to detail as the shoes, showing that ECCO is a brand where quality is consistent across all products.
Price-wise, ECCO lands in a sweet spot. Many styles start around $100 and top out around $300 — impressive when you consider the quality rivals luxury footwear that often costs several times more. Somehow, ECCO cracked the code on producing designer-level products without the designer-level sticker shock. In a world where luxury often means inflated price tags and quick trends, ECCO offers timeless quality and real value.
The brand also runs regular promotions, occasionally offering up to 30% off bestsellers.
One of the reasons ECCO shoes last so long comes down to how they're made. The brand uses a special process that fuses the sole and top together, creating shoes that are exceptionally durable and reliable. These are the kind of shoes you wear for years — maybe even decades — without worrying about them falling apart. With ECCO, you're not buying something that disappears after one season. And the longevity doesn't compromise comfort; every design feels like it's been perfected for real-life wear.
In an oversaturated fashion market, it's fair to wonder why one brand deserves your attention over another. When it comes to ECCO, the answer is simple: they're doing something different. They're creating shoes that stand the test of time — not just structurally, but also aesthetically.
ECCO designs feel timeless while still being fashion-forward. They don't scream trend, yet they never feel dated. These are pieces you can wear now and years from now without questioning the choice. If you're going to invest in fashion you can genuinely feel good about, ECCO is a smart place to start.
As someone who shops for a living, I can confidently say the brand is worth every cent. Whether you're looking for an everyday sneaker or a piece that elevates your weekend wardrobe, ECCO delivers.
The brand is also entering the designer space with special collaborations, which they call Ekko Kollektive. This has allowed the company to partner with incredible fashion entrepreneurs, encouraging them to think outside the box (or more like a shoe box) and create products that feel fresh. They're also notoriously selective about who they choose to collaborate with, as each partnership has to stay true to what the brand represents.
Yes, ECCO shows up on the feet of the rich and famous — but it's also worn by people like you and me. That's what makes it special. It's cool when A-listers love a brand, but it's even cooler when it's a brand you've trusted for years that the rest of the world is finally catching on to.
ECCO isn't just having a moment — it's building one. And if what they're doing now is any indication, the future looks incredibly strong.
Below, I've listed some of my personal favorite ECCO styles for both men and women. But don't stop there. Take a look through their site, and you'll quickly see there's truly something for everyone. I have a feeling you'll become a lifelong customer — I know I have.
$250.00
Available in sizes 4 to 11.
$160.00
Available in sizes 5 to 11.
$295.00
Available in sizes 6 to 12.
$157.50
Available in sizes 4 to 11.
$165.00
Available in sizes 5 to 11.
$136.50
Available in sizes 5 to 12.
$78.00
$130.00
40% off
Available in sizes 5 to 7.
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Fresh off the band's 60th anniversary, Grateful Dead fans have even more to celebrate this holiday
By
Tim Chan
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Few things bring people together like the holidays and music, and there are few musical fan bases as loyal as Deadheads.
2025 was a big year for Deadheads, as Grateful Dead celebrated its 60th anniversary, with a series of concerts under the Dead & Company offshoot. Now, Grateful Dead fans have something else to celebrate this Christmas season with the release of this Dead-inspired rubber ducky. The legendary jam band has now spawned a bath-time toy (though it also makes for a great collector's item or gag gift).
Yes, you can now take the jam band to the bathtub with this floating rubber ducky that's seemingly inspired by Jerry Garcia.
Made in the USA, the yellow rubber ducky is re-imagined as a bearded, tie-dye and sunglasses-wearing guitarist. While this isn't an official Grateful Dead release per se, it's become a bestseller on Amazon, with hundreds of duckies purchased in the last few weeks alone, according to the site.
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The rubber ducky measures 4.5 x 4 x 5.5 inches and doesn't have to stay in the water — it also makes a great display piece for collectors to keep on their desks or shelves, and it's a great stocking stuffer idea for the holidays. Don't just take our word for it: happy shoppers give this Dead-inspired ducky a 4.8-star rating (out of five) from more than 4,000 verified reviews.
Looking for other last-minute Grateful Dead holiday gift ideas? Here's a look at other Grateful Dead-inspired collectibles, accessories and Christmas ornaments that you can buy online right now.
This officially-licensed Grateful Dead ornament features a mini guitar and guitar case adorned with all the familiar Dead motifs. This measures approximately 5.5 inches in size.
This official Grateful Dead Christmas ornament features the colorful dancing bars riding in an old-school van, adorned with a peace symbol and the band's lightning bolt logo.
Hang this Grateful Dead stocking by the chimney with care and fill it with one or more of the stocking stuffers on this list. This officially-licensed stocking, from Kurt S. Adler, measures 19 inches tall.
Amazon has this official Grateful Dead T-shirt, commemorating the band's 60th anniversary. Choose from sizes small to 6XL online.
This Jerry Garcia-inspired card offers a simple message for the holidays, birthdays or just because: “I am grateful for you.”
This giftable set features four 16 oz. pint glasses that each commemorates one of the band's legendary concert tours. Each glass features artwork inspired by the original concert tour posters. The glasses themselves measure about six inches in height.
What's better than finding a fun sweater to wear to your holiday party? Finding a Grateful Dead-themed kit, like this one from Liquid Blue. Made in the USA, the lightweight, long-sleeve sweater features a blue and white print that's ideal for Christmas, Hanukkah and other winter celebrations.
Get an eight-pack of Grateful Dead “dancing” air fresheners, great for your rearview mirror, closets and pantries alike. These cardstock designs feature a minty “cool ice” scent and reviewers say the smell lasts up to two weeks. When it fades, you can also spritz your favorite fragrance or perfume on the cardstock to extend their lifespan.
One of our favorite Grateful Dead gifts to give is this official “Spring Training” baseball tee, which features the band's legendary mascots stepping up to the plate. The colorful, tie-dye tee is sure to be — yes — a home run for the holidays and beyond.
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Chelley revealed the split on Friday (Dec. 12), but says it was a "mutual" decision to part ways.
By
Michael Saponara
Chellace is no more. Love Island USA stars Ace Green and Chelley Bissainthe have split. Chelley revealed that she and Ace ended their relationship during an appearance on SiriusXM's Page Six Radio on Friday (Dec. 12).
“Ace and I actually decided to part ways,” Chelley said, to the shock of the co-hosts. “It really was a tough decision for the both of us and very hard to decide. When you love someone, loving someone means letting go.”
“A mutual level of respect and understanding,” she continued. “We wanted this to work, but sometimes things don't work. Couples go through things that are very challenging. And sometimes the best thing to do is make a decision that needs to be made.”
Chelley explained that “this was a mutual agreement” between herself and Ace and at this point in their lives and careers, it's “for the best.”
Chelley and Ace met on season 7 of Love Island USA, which aired from June through August, and the couple left the island on day 30.
In Chellace's final public appearance as a couple — barring a reunion — they joined the Billboard 2025 No. 1s Livestream on Tuesday (Dec. 9). Chelley showed off her pop music chops, as she gushed about an array of top-charting artists including Alex Warren, Rosé and Chappell Roan.
“If I'm not mistaken, he came from TikTok,” Chelley said of Alex Warren and “Ordinary.” “It's such a beautiful song. It's like an ode to his wife. I like it, it's beautiful.”
Watch the full livestream below.
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The actress/singer shared the news in a 29th-birthday newsletter.
By
Katie Atkinson
Executive Digital Director, West Coast
To ring in her 29th birthday this week, Hailee Steinfeld is sharing her 29 favorite things about the past year — including a sweet home video of husband Josh Allen cradling her growing baby bump, revealing that the couple are expecting their first child.
In her Beau Society newsletter titled “This is 29!!,” Steinfeld shared “29 moments I loved this year… in no particular order,” including her first college football game and “jumping into a recording studio again — and realizing how much I'd missed it.” Her final favorite moment? “This video,” she wrote, posting a clip of her Buffalo Bills quarterback husband kissing her belly in a snowy field. At the end of the video, they adorably reveal a tiny snowman representing their soon-to-be first child.
Steinfeld and Allen later shared the video to Instagram too. Watch below:
The actress/singer and NFL star were married in June in a Southern California ceremony after getting engaged last year.
Steinfeld and Allen were first linked romantically in spring 2023, after being spotted dining together in New York City. Months later, Allen confirmed the relationship but asked The Associated Press not to mention Steinfeld by name in an attempt to maintain privacy.
When Steinfeld mentioned getting back into the recording studio this year, she was likely referring to the music she recorded for April's Sinners, the Ryan Coogler-directed film in which she co-starred alongside Michael B. Jordan. “We were all so tuned into the vision, and because I was both inside the story as an actor, and helping shape it through music, it created this really fluid creative loop,” Steinfeld exclusively told Billboard about her song “Dangerous” from the Sinners soundtrack, which she co-wrote with Sarah Aarons and Sinners composer Ludwig Göransson (who just picked up a best score Golden Globe nomination this week).
In addition to her acting career, Steinfeld has also released music over the years, including five Billboard Hot 100 hits between 2015 and 2017, led by the No. 12-peaking “Starving” with Grey and featuring Zedd in 2016.
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By Nellie Andreeva
Co-Editor-in-Chief, TV
Disney+ is not proceeding with its pilot Holes, a reimagining of Louis Sachar's 1998 novel and the 2003 Disney movie adaptation with a female lead.
Shay Rudolph (The Baby-Sitters Club) led the cast of the pilot, which also included Greg Kinnear and Aidy Bryant.
Expectations were high for the project, from Disney Branded Entertainment, with a writers room commissioned and one of the tax credits awarded to Disney in August earmarked for the potential series. (The credits are not title-specific and can be reassigned.) But also high was the bar for the reboot, and a decision was ultimately made not to go forward with it.
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The new Holes was to follow Hayley (Rudolph), a teenage girl sent to a detention camp where the ruthless Warden (Kinnear) forces the campers to dig holes for a mysterious purpose.
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Flor Delis Alicea, Anire Kim Amoda, Noah Cottrell, Iesha Daniels, Sophie Dieterlen, Alexandra Doke and Maeve Press also starred in the pilot, written by Alina Mankin, with Liz Phang set as showrunner,
Phang and Mankin executive produced with Drew Goddard and Sarah Esberg of Goddard Textiles; the movie's producer Mike Medavoy; Walden Media, which was behind the 2003 feature; as well as rights holder Shamrock. 20th Television was the studio.
On Disney+, Disney Branded Television and 20th Television are behind the popular fantasy-adventure series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which just debuted its second season and has already been renewed for a third.
Earlier this fall, Disney Branded Television gave a pilot green light to Eerie Prep, based on the Eerie Elementary children's books, for Disney+ and Disney Channel.
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More than once in a meeting I heard people reference a female holes and then look ill so maybe this is for the best
Yeah a domineering man supervising a work camp full of teen girls hits different than the reverse.
Kids in 2025 aren't interested in holes. They have Fortnite and TikTok and endless other digital distractions. Shovels aren't even on their radar. This was the right move.
“Perfect for our political climate – a story about teenage girls in a work camp type prison, called ‘Holes'”…
“Yeah, let's go ahead and cancel that…”
Good. There was no reason to gender-swap this for the sake of gender-swapping.
Exactly this. The whole gender/race/sexuality swapping is just so lazy. It doesn't have to be bad, look at the Battlestar Galactica remake which did it well but the reason that worked is they came naturally while breaking the story and happened because by doing so enhanced the story but most make the decision before anything is conceived and they just think trying to pander to the group the swap is about is all that's needed.
The reality is in general even the group that's targeted end up hating it because without more thought and valid justification it's souless and all anyone ultimately wants is to be entertained
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Guillermo del Toro has never met a Q&A he doesn't like. More than most, he enjoys sharing his enthusiasm with moviegoers and smart interlocutors like poet-musician-author Patti Smith (her latest memoir, “Bread of Angels,” is in bookstores). Oscar Isaac joined them for a lively conversation about the awards contender “Frankenstein,” which is currently streaming on Netflix. Watch the video exclusively above.
Here's the December 2 New York Q&A, edited for brevity and clarity.
Patti Smith: In the early 50s, when I was a child, I saw, as we all did, James Whale's “Frankenstein” and “The Bride of Frankenstein” and was greatly beguiled and saddened. But when I read, as you did, “The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley, I saw that there was a whole world of imagination and thought processes and the evolution of the creature. And [I] wish that James Whale was still alive and would do another one. But we didn't need him, because you came along and you gave us really something so much more akin that merged your sensibilities with Mary Shelley's. Give us a little bit of you as a child. What world of books? I know how it happened to me. I want to hear about you.
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Guillermo del Toro: I was weird. I was extremely thin. I'm not joking. I used to button my shirt all the way up, and had a bowl haircut. I was like a Rutger Hauer son. almost albino, very pale. And in 1969, my father won the National Lottery, and he became a millionaire, and he bought a house, and somebody told him that he needed a library, because he was now a cultured gentleman. So he bought a huge library, which he never visited, and I read everything in there.
I read an encyclopedia of art that made me know as much about painting or sculpture as I would have a comic book artist: Jack Kirby or Monet or Manet or Renoir, they were all mixing in my imagination. I read an encyclopedia of health that made me the youngest hypochondriac in history. I stayed and read. And that was part of the disappointment. “This child is not well.” They sent me to a psychologist, and he gave me clay and said, “Could you do something with this?” And I did a skeleton. It didn't go well.
Patti Smith: I've seen this movie now three times, on a little screen, on the airplane, on a bigger screen… One thing that always intrigues me is Victor Frankenstein's body language. It's almost like an artless choreography that becomes art. You're always in motion. You make everything seem almost like a dance. It gives the film almost an operatic sensibility. I wanted to ask you about your body language, if that was a choice.
Oscar Isaac: It was very much in the conversation with Guillermo. The camera never stops moving. It's always moving, and so often I'm moving in counterpoint to the camera. It always felt very musical. The whole thing, that first scene, when he's in the medical conference, it feels very much like an aria. There were times when I was filming it where I was expecting people to start singing; the sets were so operatic as well. And a lot of the movement came from Kate Hawley's incredible costumes.
Patti Smith: You can see the fabric, like in your shirts, and the threads.
Oscar Isaac: There was a lot of pleasure in wearing those little black high-heeled boots and running up and down the stairs in those plaid pants and the things that she would put me in, that crazy robe. It also came a lot from Guillermo. He's a fucking superhero of pain (laughs) and darkness and hilarity and absurdity. And so, we became completely linked and synchronized, for better or worse.
Guillermo del Toro: We're still trying to shake it off.
Oscar Isaac: The movement was like a symbiosis that happens.
Patti Smith: The creature, like you and Jacob — that's like ballet movement. Then, when you're giving the exhibition to the courtroom, it's a different sweeping, and then you take Elizabeth in your arms and a different kind of sweeping, the whole thing, your body language is fantastic.
Guillermo del Toro: We actually designed the wardrobe to look like '60s London, like he would be coming out with The Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix. We wanted him to feel like a rock star.
Oscar Isaac: Yeah, you talked about, especially that scene, that you wanted that swagger, to command that, the flowing shirts. But even using that cape is almost like a matador, yeah, it's expressive, heightened.
Guillermo del Toro: And a lot of hips.
Patti Smith: You're right about the sets. They're so majestic. You should do [the opera] “Parsifal,” the holy fool. Just throw out Wagner's “Parsifal,” do some of it!
Guillermo del Toro: Like a Mexican “Parsifal.” Well, we tried to design as if it was an opera, the big Medusa, the minimal elements that are around everything. I always say there's no eye candy in my movies. There's high protein, because we're telling the story. I can take you through the shapes and the colors, precisely why we designed them like that, but we wanted to make it as a novel, as epistolary. And one of the things that Gothic romance does is have a story within a story within a story. So I wanted to have self-contained color and camera language and shape language in each of the points of view, and if I made the fabric of the main characters, we wove. We didn't buy it. We made it. We hand-embroidered it, we printed it, we dyed it, everything. We created rolls of fabric because all the language and the clothes is from nature, like Elizabeth has natural patterns from minerals, from butterfly wings. Her shawls are X-rays. Victor has the embroidered circulatory system. The vest had that. And we wanted to create this world of natural anatomical fields, and we repeat the patterns of the sets on the clothes, etc.
It's impossibly rich, all those things. And even with the movement, again, to talk about it, starting in this vital place, alive with movement. And slowly calcifying as he gets more angry and more regret[ful]. And then he becomes more creature-like, even with those costumes and the prosthetic leg, as the creature becomes more human. So even those two are rising in opposite ways.
Patti Smith: I was so in love with that ship. I love all the Antarctic explorers and Shackleton.
Oscar Isaac: Imagine rolling up to the Netflix studio, and there's a fully-sized ship, like the huge, actual-size ship, on gimbals in the parking lot. That was one of the first things that I saw when I arrived.
Patti Smith: It looks like these glass pictures, found in Antarctica. It almost made me feel nauseous, in a good way.
Guillermo del Toro: My producing partner felt nauseous when I said, “We're building it for real,” but I was making a point that it should be a handcrafted movie by humans, for humans. There's something that happens when 90 percent of what you're seeing has a physical component. Yes, we built a ship. When he moves the ship, it's on motors, and he's moving the ship with all the sailors on top. When you see the ship, every shot you see is a real ship. We covered the parking lot with ice. We came up with a method to sandwich translucent solids on the icebergs. And we were inspired mainly by Caspar David Frederick, the glass plates from Shackleton, whatever has been found undocumented. We went to the places in Scotland, the UK. We shot in real locations. And we built full-size sets.
Patti Smith: How you worked is the same process as Victor, because when he's making the sinews of [the creature's] fingers and all the details of how he's putting them together and stripping the other bodies, it's all by hand. It's a metaphor for your work.
Oscar Isaac: What's beautiful is that, as opposed to it being this horror scene, it's lit so beautifully. There's this beautiful waltz playing, it's him at his most calm and peaceful.
Guillermo del Toro: He's happy.
Oscar Isaac: Yeah, that's what he knows how to do, make his creature…It's fast, it's passion, it's heightened. This isn't naturalism. We watched movies, different films, to find the tone of it. Oliver Reed was somebody that we watched; what a complicated, huge, magnetic, and scary person. And Pedro Infante, we watched these 1930s Mexican films. We spoke a lot in the words of telenovelas. [Guillermo] would say, “I need you to give me the Maria Cristina. Come on.” We spoke in Spanish the entire time to each other. For me, it is the mother tongue. My mother spoke to me only in Spanish, even though I grew up here since I was a year old. But there was something about speaking that way, that unlocked a mode of unconscious expression, and giving over to that kind of unbridled expression.
Patti Smith: Of the female characters, like Ofelia [“Pan's Labyrinth”], who I love so much, and Elisa [“The Shape of Water”], and now Elizabeth, and they all give themselves. They all feel empathy with something that everyone else would be frightened of or repelled by, they're all drawn. And I wrote my notes, “Who are you in all these films?” I think you're the little girls. You have that eternal young girl longing for a pure love, and they all find it even in death.
Guillermo del Toro: The Catholic part is to suffer. But there is a pristine way of looking at life in all its ups and downs. And if you don't look for perfection, if you look for imperfection, but necessarily, you can either accept or let go. That's about it. And both are in the lexicon of existing. Elizabeth is the only modern character [in “Frankenstein”] and the only character that is not alone. It's about loneliness so much, and then for a moment, a brief moment, [she and the creature] are together. The creature and Victor are always in the mirror together because they're part of one single soul, which is what fatherhood and being a child is. You don't realize it's a soul that has been split in two, but Elizabeth and the creature are an emptiness split in two, and they attract each other because they feel that they both were broken in the same way. The tone visually has to be of a piece with the tone of the actors. When you think of Jimmy Cagney or Oliver Reed, they're not naturalistic, but they're real.
I like the heightened sensation that you're in a movie, you're not in the real world. But all that goes to hell if Elizabeth looks at the creature and she sees makeup. She has to see it like a real soul. So, every time they were together, I would shoot them at 36 frames. So I would be able to slow down when she enters with the dress, it floats, and when she's looking at him, I speed it up to 18 frames so her face is vibrating. And when she's looking at him, all these little things that you learn through 30 years of craft are invisible, but her performance being real is the key, the performance of Victor and the creature has to be real. Their arc starts in opposites. Victor finishes his life's work the night the creature starts his life. And also, he's so heartbreaking; they're never going to see eye to eye. He basically becomes a mother in the first four weeks of postpartum. Those three characters form a single soul, Elizabeth, Victor, and the creature for me.
Patti Smith: He starts his sorrow the minute he achieves his goal, when he sits on those steps and thinks that there's no more, forget what he says about the horizon, it's done. He's finished his course, and now the debris of all his work is going to haunt him. But as a girl, I was attracted to the creature. Frankenstein, the monster as James Whale gave us, I was never attracted to him. I felt empathy for him always, even when he accidentally killed the little child; you still have pain for him, but the way that I felt about your creature was completely different. He gave me hope, the idea that he would achieve another level of intelligence or answers to immortality. How did you decide how his countenance would look?
Guillermo del Toro: The two main inspirations were a statue of Saint Bartholomew in Rome, which is made of alabaster, and the lines are anatomically incorrect, but they're beautiful. They're almost Art Deco, and the head was designed after the patterns of phrenology that were created as a pseudoscience in the 1800s. There are so many echoes of Christ in the movie with the creature, and we can go through them and raising him, the crown of thorns, the red mantle on his shoulders, the wound on the side when he resurrects after three days, but it's also Adam expelled, and finding a tree with red fruit, and getting to know pain through that. So all the biblical beauty, for me, tells you this is not a repair job, it's a newly minted soul. Therefore, the ruining of it is more painful. They're not ruining something they patched up. They're ruining something that he minted.
And the pursuit has to be the red of the mother. The color red of the mother pursues Victor through the film and comes back with Elizabeth, the scarf, the gloves, the batteries, the angel, blah, blah, blah. He says he's interested in life. He's interested in vanquishing death. The way he treats life is completely cavalier. So the creature needs to be on the same color palette as Elizabeth, and they achieve this sort of translucent alabaster, nicotine oyster grace. And they come together at the end on their wedding night, which I wanted to make the one moment they have together. And the creature becomes, first, a baby, and the reactions are completely clean. And it's very hard for an actor to do nothing, but he achieves it. Jacob, and then I give him three words: Victor, Elizabeth, friend, and the more he accumulates words, the more he knows pain. And with pain comes questions, and with questions comes the need for answers, and he finally achieves Grace at the end of the film.
He's brutal with those that are brutal with him, he's loving with those that are loving, and at the end, he is loving with those that were brutal with him, and accepts the grace of the son. So his performance tracking from Jacob was far from Victor's part from Oscar, because they have such a beautiful arc together. For that, forgiveness seemed to work. I was betting on one gesture, and that's the hand grabbing the hand. Oscar found it on the day. The first scene we shot together with the two guys was that scene.
Oscar helped me so beautifully. I wrote it for him, so I would send him pages before anyone, and we found the pentameter, so to speak, the rhythms of the language, so that 90 percent of the dialogue in the movie is completely new. It doesn't come from the book, but he needed to have the same poetic breath of the book, and we found that.
Patti Smith: When [Elizabeth] said, “Who hurt you?” I felt like that phrase hovered over the entire film. I felt like it was echoing over and over, even when the brother died, when the brother says, “You are the monster who hurt him.” He has this realization of how no one really hates the other, it's just human nature or animal nature…The world consciousness, everything.
Guillermo del Toro: Pain is basically inevitable, and because we are mammalian hunter-gatherers, we're going to necessarily get in the way, because your hope and my hope are never going to fully coincide all the time. And that's why I wanted to paraphrase the book in giving the creature its own voice and [making] it a fairy tale. And he learns from the animals, the ravens give birth to him. The deer teach him violence. Then the mice adopt him, and then the wolves are the world. The wolves don't care, but they're going to hurt you, and that's a fact. My father was kidnapped in 1998, kept for 72 days. And we had to go through it, and continue functioning, because you cannot stop functioning. You have to stay yourself. And the final image comes from that. When my father was kidnapped in the middle of the kidnapping, I resented the sun. I said, “Why does the sun rise, when I'm in pain?” And then the question became, “Why am I in pain when the sun rises?” You have to give yourself to that grace of a metronome that is much larger than your woes. And if you give in to that metronome, then you find release. So brutality is part of the language that structures reality. I don't say I'm in favor of it existing. I was so familiar with loss when I was a kid. The familiarity that I have with Mary Shelley, my mother had many miscarriages. I had two siblings younger than me, and whenever she went to the hospital, I thought s”he's gone, she's not coming back.” “Who hurt you?” comes from a fairy tale, Oscar Wilde's “The Selfish Giant.” When he raises the baby Jesus and he says, “Who hurt you?” I love that.
Horror, parable, and fairy tale are closely related. Horror articulates trauma in a way that no other genre does, except fairy tale and parable. And that's why we are so moved by things that are intangible. Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde are the masters of pain and beauty. Those are two guys that are as much in touch with the brutality as they are in touch with the beauty. Every other tale can be sadistic or not, and in a more Jungian way. But those two, they are turning to aesthetics, pain, horror, and beauty.
Patti Smith: Well, thank you for being the eternal child. Thank you, Oscar. You're both awesome.
“Frankenstein” is now streaming on Netflix.
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Criminal profiling promises certainty in the face of horror: this is what a killer looks like, this is how they think, this is how we stop them. But what if that promise is mostly an illusion?
In this episode, Michael Shermer is joined by journalist and author Rachel Corbett to dismantle the myths behind criminal profiling, from the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit to our obsession with serial killers, mindhunters, and “psychological fingerprints.”
Corbett explains why randomness is harder to accept than evil, and how our hunger for neat explanations can actually make us less safe.
Plus, the legacy of MKUltra and Ted Kaczynski, the seductive appeal of true crime, and the uncomfortable truth behind the “Jekyll and Hyde” problem: monsters rarely look like monsters.
Rachel Corbett is a features writer at New York magazine, and her writing has also appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, and Atlantic. She is the author of You Must Change Your Life, which won the Marfield Prize, the National Award for Arts Writing. Her new book is The Monsters We Make: Murder, Obsession, and the Rise of Criminal Profiling.
Did you enjoy this episode? Show your support with a tax-deductible donation and share the show with your friends and family. Together, we can make a meaningful difference.
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by Michael Levanduski
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There are endless numbers of UFO claims out there, most of which can be dismissed as coming from crazy people who don't know what they are talking about. Every once in a while, however, evidence comes out that can't simply be ignored.
Recently, someone anonymously leaked a video that showed the US military hitting an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) with a Hellfire missile, and the UAP was barely affected.
The term UAP is the military's term for UFOs.
The leak was sent to Missouri Republican and member of the House of Representatives' UAP Caucus, Eric Burlison. He then posted the video on X, which you can see below:
Below is the video I revealed in our @GOPoversight UAP hearing today, made available to the public for the first time.
October 30th, 2024: MQ-9 Reaper allegedly tracking orb off coast of Yemen.
Greenlight given to engage, missile appears to be ineffective against the target.… pic.twitter.com/jxJwl0e00S
— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) September 9, 2025
The video was recorded off the coast of Yemen in October of 2024. This was in the timeframe where the US Military was conducting strikes against Houthi rebels. It shows an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone tracking the object over the water, and then a second drone fires the precision Hellfire missile at the UAP.
Moments later, there was an explosion, and the UFO was pushed off its trajectory, but then almost immediately corrected its course and continued moving.
This should not be possible. The Hellfire missile packs a powerful punch that is capable of destroying even highly fortified tanks. When ABC News requested a comment from the Department of Defense, they got nothing helpful in return:
“I have nothing for you.”
George Knapp is a UAP Journalist, and in the same ABC report, said the following about the event, which he really could not explain:
“That's the Hellfire missile smacking into that UFO and just (bouncing) right off. And it kept going.”
To say this is shocking would be an understatement. There is no human system on Earth (known to the public at least) that could survive a Hellfire strike like this and keep flying, and certainly not do it with little to no apparent damage.
Shutterstock
Whether this video is evidence of an incredible human advancement, alien technology, or something else entirely, it is a major threat that is not currently understood.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about why we should be worried about the leak in the bottom of the ocean.
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I saw this while watching the "New Thinking Allowed" youtube channel featuring interviews with scientists and philosophers on metaphysical and paranormal topics by Jeffrey Mishlove.
White Crow appears to be a book publisher affiliated with these same authors/thinkers. Their logo looks a lot like that advertisement for Spielberg's Disclosure in Times Square this week! i wonder if they're related.
When it comes to UFO sightings, there are several cases that stand out for their credibility and the sheer volume of evidence and witness testimonies. Here are some of the most convincing UFO sightings ever recorded, as discussed by Redditors:
Location: Ruwa, Zimbabwe
Description: Over 60 schoolchildren witnessed a craft landing in their schoolyard and a few beings coming out. The incident was investigated by a well-known psychologist, and a documentary on YouTube provides more details.
Quotes: "The Ariel school incident in Africa is my favourite. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned. 60 plus children apparently witnessed a craft landing in the schoolyard and a few beings came out."
Location: Over Alaska
Description: A Japanese pilot and his crew encountered a massive UFO that was also tracked by ground radar. The pilot's career was significantly impacted by his decision to speak out about the incident.
Quotes: "JAL Flight 1628. This imo was just incredible. What the pilot and co-pilot saw that day was also being tracked by ground radar as well."
Location: Suffolk, England
Description: Military personnel reported seeing strange lights and a craft in Rendlesham Forest. The incident involved multiple witnesses and has been well-documented, including audio recordings from that night.
Quotes: "Rendelsham Forest or Shag Harbour. When it comes to Rendelsham, I am confident in thinking a crew of military men as they were would not have mistaken a light house for a UFO."
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Description: Thousands of people witnessed a series of lights in the sky over Arizona. The event was widely reported and even involved the governor at the time, who initially dismissed it but later admitted to seeing the craft.
Quotes: "I live in AZ, and saw the Phoenix Lights with my own eyes, (which actually happened twice). It was never given a reasonable explanation, and even our Governor at the time admits he was told to dismiss the story and make fun of it."
Location: Tehran, Iran
Description: Military pilots encountered a UFO that was tracked by radar. The incident involved multiple witnesses and equipment malfunctions when the pilots attempted to intercept the object.
Quotes: "1976 Tehran UFO incident: Nothing beats this one. Military personals, radars and civilian plane encountered the UFO."
Location: Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada
Description: Several witnesses reported seeing a large object crash into the water, which was investigated by the Canadian military.
Quotes: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shag_Harbour_UFO_incident"
Location: Off the coast of San Diego
Description: US Navy pilots, including David Fravor, encountered a UFO dubbed the "Tic Tac" due to its shape. The incident was captured on FLIR footage and has been confirmed by multiple military officials.
Quotes: "I think the Nimitz/tic tac sighting in 2004 is likely to have the most credence to a skeptic given the pilot testimony and FLIR footage."
Location: Varginha, Brazil
Description: Several residents reported seeing a malfunctioning craft and creatures, which led to a significant military presence in the area.
Quotes: "Finally in the 90's what appeared to be a malfunctioning ship was sighted near Varginha, MG. Over the next days the army showed up there in large numbers, several creatures were sighted around town."
These sightings are often cited as the most credible due to the number of witnesses, official investigations, and corroborating evidence such as radar tracking and video footage. For more discussions and information, consider visiting these subreddits:
r/UFOs
r/aliens
r/AskReddit
The new Paranormal Activity reboot movie has moved forward with a new director. This horror franchise was born by creative Oren Peli, who conceived of the original 2009 movie's story and screenplay, and also directed the film. After success, Paranormal Activity 2 came out just one year later in 2010.
The franchise got fairly back-to-back releases for the first six films and then went on a significant hiatus. The most recent movie in the franchise was Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, which came out in 2021. Now, another Paranormal Activity reboot film is on the books.
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed the director of the next Paranormal Activity film. The project has found its new director in filmmaker Ian Tuason. Tuason is reportedly in final negotiations for the job. Peli will still produce the movie.
Paranormal Activity 8 also has other notable activity going on with horror icon James Wan joining the team as a producer. While Wan is known for horror franchises such as The Conjuring and Insidious, this will be the first time he has touched the Paranormal Activity franchise.
The announcement of Tuason's role in the project arrives just under two weeks after forward progress on the project was announced. In that announcement, it was determined that Paramount Pictures would pair with Blumhouse-Atomic Monster in the upcoming reboot film.
This rapid forward progress is significant in the lifespan of the eighth Paranormal Activity film. In 2022, it was announced that another reboot, then titled Paranormal Activity: The Other Side, was in the works and would come out in 2023.
That project never came to fruition, leading to a longer gap between Paranormal Activity movies. While it is possible that the franchise could flounder again, the multiple updates this month are a good sign that this will move forward.
As for the selection of Tuason, this will give a big franchise opportunity for an up-and-coming horror director. Tuason only made his debut this year with The Undertone, which premiered at the 29th Fantastia International Film Festival. It received the audience award for Best Canadian Feature.
Undertone soon entered a bidding war, and was eventually purchased by A24. This excitement shows that Tuason has gotten a significant start in the horror industry, especially in the paranormal niche. Now, Paramount's work with Tuason on Paranormal Activity 8 can further cement the director as a horror talent to watch out for.
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Sehjal Gupta is a sports journalist covering US and international sports, with a specialization in the NFL. She has been writing about sports since 2025, reporting on leagues, tournaments, and athletes who shape the game. A Master's in Management adds depth to her analysis, while her love for Hollywood movies and pop culture sparks her storytelling voice, a flair that also shapes her entertainment writing, giving it the same energy and creativity she brings to sports.Read More
Jatadhara marks the Telugu debut of Sonakshi Sinha, who stars as the antagonist Dhanapisachini.
Jatadhara has an IMDb rating of 3.8 out of 10
Photo Credit: Amazon Prime Video
Jatadhara is a Telugu-language supernatural mystery thriller that mixes mythology, horror and mystery. It is directed by Venkat Kalyan and Abhishek Jaiswal and stars Sudheer Babu as the main lead, alongside Sonakshi Sihna. The movie is based on ancient temple lore. The film explores the themes of greediness behind rituals, the spiritual forces, and other elements related to it. These all connect with dark themes and many twists.
Jatadhara was released in theatres on November 7, 2025. After its theatrical run, the film is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video in Telugu and Hindi original languages. Viewers will require a subscription to the streaming service to watch it online.
Jatadhara's trailer was released on October 17, 2025 and showcases the dark world of black magic and ancient practices with supernatural energies. This story starts with the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. The mythical practices which are followed in the temples are being questioned and navigated by a few people and there is an ancient, forbidden dark ritual named Pisachi Bandhanam that includes deadly sealed spirits.
As the seal breaks, Dhanapisachini awakes and a battle takes place against the ghost hunter named Shiva -- a fight of faith, guarding evil, scepticism, and treasure.
The supernatural action-mythological thriller Jatadhara stars Sudheer Babu in an intense role as Shiva. Sonakshi Sinha makes her Telugu debut as the antagonist, Dhanapisachini (Demon of Greed). The ensemble cast also features Divya Khossla and Shilpa Shirodkar, among others. The film is produced by Zee Studios and Ess Kay Gee Entertainment.
Jatadhara has had a mixed reception from fans and critics. The film has an IMDb rating of 3.8 out of 10.
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At an appropriations hearing Friday, Wyoming Adjutant General Greg Porter fielded a question by Senate Committee Chair Tim Salazar about UFOs in Wyoming. Porter said he preferred not to discuss UFOs in open testimony.
December 13, 20257 min read
Halfway through a Wyoming legislative committee's four-week budget-planning marathon Friday, a top lawmaker asked the state's adjutant general about the prevalence of unidentified flying objects overhead, which the government now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
Wyoming Adjutant General Greg Porter's answer was that he couldn't field that question in public.
“I'm asking if you've had any incidents of UAPs over your airspace?” asked Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, during Friday's meeting of the committee at the state Capitol in Cheyenne.
“For our air space, no. I'm aware of some other ones — near some other federal facilities — that I don't think in open testimony here I could probably say much about that,” answered Porter.
Following a Cowboy State Daily request for clarification on either the UAP presence or the reasons Porter declined to discuss them publicly, the adjutant general gave “no additional clarification,” the Guard's spokesman said in a text message.
Salazar in a follow-up phone interview said he asked the question because news of UAPs frequenting U.S. military installations “has become more of a concern” following national media reports.
Salazar's question came during Porter's presentation about a bill passed this year that gives Gov. Mark Gordon the authority to call in the National Guard if drones encroach upon critical infrastructure.
That followed weeks of mystery drone or flying object sightings in New Jersey — and in Wyoming.
Eight Wyoming sheriffs confirmed receiving reports of strange drone-like sightings, or seeing the objects themselves, in a series of January interviews with Cowboy State Daily.
Citing concerns about conflicts with federal agencies and laws, Gordon vetoed the bill when it reached his desk in March.
The Legislature overrode that veto to enact the law.
Porter told the Appropriations Committee on Friday that the Guard doesn't have drone interdiction technology currently. If the department bought that equipment, it would likely be obsolete in 12-14 months, he said.
“Right now, none of the formations I have in Wyoming National Guard have a counter-UAS capability,” Porter said. “As we continue to look at that problem, it's pretty significant.”
In comments similar to those of Gordon's veto letter, Porter noted that the Federal Aviation Administration "really frowns on people taking out unmanned private drones, under any circumstances.”
It is a federal felony to destroy aircraft.
Wyoming's new law says the Wyoming Attorney General's office “shall” represent National Guard members or law enforcement officials caught in litigation over upholding the state's law by fighting drones.
Porter continued: “There are some significant authorities that are out there that we've not been able to overcome yet in terms of the ability to interdict drones.”
Ultimately, said Porter, his department agreed with the governor that “we're not going to pursue that (technology) at the moment.”
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, asked Porter if the Guard is at the “12-gauge shotgun” level of technology in this area.
“Yeah,” said Porter. “It is kinetic at that point, if we had to do it.”
The U.S. military is “talking every day about, ‘How do we deal with the drone threats?'” he added.
Among Wyoming sheriffs who saw strange objects in flight last winter, Niobrara County Sheriff Randy Starkey made headlines first.
He told Cowboy State Daily on Dec 13, 2024, that strange objects flew over his county in the Lance Creek area starting in late October 2024. They flew for about 45 minutes every night.
Starkey watched some of the flights himself.
Those continued into March or early spring, Starkey told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
“(Just as) they all of a sudden showed up — they all of a sudden disappeared,” he said. They only flew in the cold-weather months.
Starkey still has no answers about who sent them or what they were, he said.
“We never got anybody to come forward and say, ‘Yeah, that was us,” Starkey said.
“I'm just glad they're gone,” he said. “(I spent) a lot of late nights.”
Besides Starkey, four of the eight sheriffs who interviewed about object sightings in December and January also spoke to Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
Those four all said they don't know of any mysterious flight or mysterious drone reports placed after approximately late January.
Those sheriffs were:
• Johnson County Sheriff Rod Odenbach
• Weston County Sheriff Bryan Colvard
• Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny
• Washakie County Sheriff Austin Brookwell - who said "(the) last ones I think we found out were just agriculture drones."
Odenbach referenced a Thursday news report by the Buffalo Bulletin about a drone sighting over the town that had caused “concern.”
Buffalo Police Chief Sean Bissett, to whom Odenbach referred Cowboy State Daily, said that was just a recreational drone and officers spoke with its operator.
Three more sheriff's offices, those of KC Lehr (Sublette County), John Grossnickle (Sweetwater County) and John Harlin (Natrona County) did not return Friday afternoon requests for comment by publication.
Gordon's veto in March, however, left Grossnickle with both understanding and concern.
On the one hand, the governor's points over federal law conflicts were valid, the sheriff told Cowboy State Daily at the time.
On the other hand, he said, he still had flying objects and safety worries tied to them as of early March.
Sweetwater County residents and law enforcement both had seen strange objects flying in formation over critical infrastructure like the Jim Bridger power plant; and an air medical pilot saw one in the air that appeared to be surveying the ground below with a light, Grossnickle's office said at the time.
UFOs, or UAPs, have cleared lore status and entered multiple congressional hearings.
Congress heard what CBS News called “stunning testimony” of pilots' UAP sightings in September 2023.
The U.S. House Oversight Committee held a Sept. 9 hearing on protection for UAP whistleblowers.
Among other witnesses, the committee hosted a former geospatial intelligence specialist for the U.S. Air Force who told them he suffered retaliation after reporting a disturbing encroachment at the NASA hangar at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.
In the summer of 2012, at 1:30 a.m. one morning, “I saw an approximately 100-foot-long equilateral triangle fly from near the NASA hangar on base and come within 100 feet of where I was standing,” wrote the specialist, Dylan Borland, in his opening remarks to the committee.
“This craft interfered with my telephone, did not have any sound, and the material it was made of appeared fluid or dynamic,” Borland added. “I was under this triangular craft for a few minutes, and then it rapidly ascended to commercial jet level in seconds. It displayed zero kinetic disturbance, sound or wind displacement.”
Borland characterized himself as a “federal whistleblower, having testified … with direct firsthand knowledge of, and experience with, craft and technology that are not ours and are reportedly operating without congressional oversight.”
Borland was not alone.
Military veterans, a seasoned journalist, and a senior policy advisor for the Project on Government Oversight all pushed the committee to develop whistleblower protections in this area.
Most of those said they'd seen strange objects as well.
On Feb. 15, 2023, at about 7:15 p.m. off the Southern California Coast, U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins saw a self-luminous, Tic Tac-shaped object emerging from the ocean, according to his account to the committee.
The object linked with three similar objects. All four departed simultaneously, in a “highly synchronized, near-instantaneous manner. No sonic boom or conventional propulsion signatures were observed,” Wiggins wrote.
The radar and video on the vessel Wiggins was serving detected the objects.
“Location and time stamps are visible in the source video frames published by journalists,” he added.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
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At an appropriations hearing Friday, Wyoming Adjutant General Greg Porter fielded a question by Senate Committee Chair Tim Salazar about UFOs in Wyoming. Porter said he preferred not to discuss UFOs in open testimony.
December 13, 20257 min read
Halfway through a Wyoming legislative committee's four-week budget-planning marathon Friday, a top lawmaker asked the state's adjutant general about the prevalence of unidentified flying objects overhead, which the government now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
Wyoming Adjutant General Greg Porter's answer was that he couldn't field that question in public.
“I'm asking if you've had any incidents of UAPs over your airspace?” asked Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, during Friday's meeting of the committee at the state Capitol in Cheyenne.
“For our air space, no. I'm aware of some other ones — near some other federal facilities — that I don't think in open testimony here I could probably say much about that,” answered Porter.
Following a Cowboy State Daily request for clarification on either the UAP presence or the reasons Porter declined to discuss them publicly, the adjutant general gave “no additional clarification,” the Guard's spokesman said in a text message.
Salazar in a follow-up phone interview said he asked the question because news of UAPs frequenting U.S. military installations “has become more of a concern” following national media reports.
Salazar's question came during Porter's presentation about a bill passed this year that gives Gov. Mark Gordon the authority to call in the National Guard if drones encroach upon critical infrastructure.
That followed weeks of mystery drone or flying object sightings in New Jersey — and in Wyoming.
Eight Wyoming sheriffs confirmed receiving reports of strange drone-like sightings, or seeing the objects themselves, in a series of January interviews with Cowboy State Daily.
Citing concerns about conflicts with federal agencies and laws, Gordon vetoed the bill when it reached his desk in March.
The Legislature overrode that veto to enact the law.
Porter told the Appropriations Committee on Friday that the Guard doesn't have drone interdiction technology currently. If the department bought that equipment, it would likely be obsolete in 12-14 months, he said.
“Right now, none of the formations I have in Wyoming National Guard have a counter-UAS capability,” Porter said. “As we continue to look at that problem, it's pretty significant.”
In comments similar to those of Gordon's veto letter, Porter noted that the Federal Aviation Administration "really frowns on people taking out unmanned private drones, under any circumstances.”
It is a federal felony to destroy aircraft.
Wyoming's new law says the Wyoming Attorney General's office “shall” represent National Guard members or law enforcement officials caught in litigation over upholding the state's law by fighting drones.
Porter continued: “There are some significant authorities that are out there that we've not been able to overcome yet in terms of the ability to interdict drones.”
Ultimately, said Porter, his department agreed with the governor that “we're not going to pursue that (technology) at the moment.”
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, asked Porter if the Guard is at the “12-gauge shotgun” level of technology in this area.
“Yeah,” said Porter. “It is kinetic at that point, if we had to do it.”
The U.S. military is “talking every day about, ‘How do we deal with the drone threats?'” he added.
Among Wyoming sheriffs who saw strange objects in flight last winter, Niobrara County Sheriff Randy Starkey made headlines first.
He told Cowboy State Daily on Dec 13, 2024, that strange objects flew over his county in the Lance Creek area starting in late October 2024. They flew for about 45 minutes every night.
Starkey watched some of the flights himself.
Those continued into March or early spring, Starkey told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
“(Just as) they all of a sudden showed up — they all of a sudden disappeared,” he said. They only flew in the cold-weather months.
Starkey still has no answers about who sent them or what they were, he said.
“We never got anybody to come forward and say, ‘Yeah, that was us,” Starkey said.
“I'm just glad they're gone,” he said. “(I spent) a lot of late nights.”
Besides Starkey, four of the eight sheriffs who interviewed about object sightings in December and January also spoke to Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
Those four all said they don't know of any mysterious flight or mysterious drone reports placed after approximately late January.
Those sheriffs were:
• Johnson County Sheriff Rod Odenbach
• Weston County Sheriff Bryan Colvard
• Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny
• Washakie County Sheriff Austin Brookwell - who said "(the) last ones I think we found out were just agriculture drones."
Odenbach referenced a Thursday news report by the Buffalo Bulletin about a drone sighting over the town that had caused “concern.”
Buffalo Police Chief Sean Bissett, to whom Odenbach referred Cowboy State Daily, said that was just a recreational drone and officers spoke with its operator.
Three more sheriff's offices, those of KC Lehr (Sublette County), John Grossnickle (Sweetwater County) and John Harlin (Natrona County) did not return Friday afternoon requests for comment by publication.
Gordon's veto in March, however, left Grossnickle with both understanding and concern.
On the one hand, the governor's points over federal law conflicts were valid, the sheriff told Cowboy State Daily at the time.
On the other hand, he said, he still had flying objects and safety worries tied to them as of early March.
Sweetwater County residents and law enforcement both had seen strange objects flying in formation over critical infrastructure like the Jim Bridger power plant; and an air medical pilot saw one in the air that appeared to be surveying the ground below with a light, Grossnickle's office said at the time.
UFOs, or UAPs, have cleared lore status and entered multiple congressional hearings.
Congress heard what CBS News called “stunning testimony” of pilots' UAP sightings in September 2023.
The U.S. House Oversight Committee held a Sept. 9 hearing on protection for UAP whistleblowers.
Among other witnesses, the committee hosted a former geospatial intelligence specialist for the U.S. Air Force who told them he suffered retaliation after reporting a disturbing encroachment at the NASA hangar at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.
In the summer of 2012, at 1:30 a.m. one morning, “I saw an approximately 100-foot-long equilateral triangle fly from near the NASA hangar on base and come within 100 feet of where I was standing,” wrote the specialist, Dylan Borland, in his opening remarks to the committee.
“This craft interfered with my telephone, did not have any sound, and the material it was made of appeared fluid or dynamic,” Borland added. “I was under this triangular craft for a few minutes, and then it rapidly ascended to commercial jet level in seconds. It displayed zero kinetic disturbance, sound or wind displacement.”
Borland characterized himself as a “federal whistleblower, having testified … with direct firsthand knowledge of, and experience with, craft and technology that are not ours and are reportedly operating without congressional oversight.”
Borland was not alone.
Military veterans, a seasoned journalist, and a senior policy advisor for the Project on Government Oversight all pushed the committee to develop whistleblower protections in this area.
Most of those said they'd seen strange objects as well.
On Feb. 15, 2023, at about 7:15 p.m. off the Southern California Coast, U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins saw a self-luminous, Tic Tac-shaped object emerging from the ocean, according to his account to the committee.
The object linked with three similar objects. All four departed simultaneously, in a “highly synchronized, near-instantaneous manner. No sonic boom or conventional propulsion signatures were observed,” Wiggins wrote.
The radar and video on the vessel Wiggins was serving detected the objects.
“Location and time stamps are visible in the source video frames published by journalists,” he added.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
Clair McFarland5 min read
Scott Schwebke3 min read
Clair McFarlandDecember 12, 2025
Clair McFarlandDecember 12, 2025
Sean BarryDecember 11, 2025
Renée JeanDecember 10, 2025
Zakary SonntagDecember 13, 2025
December 13, 2025
December 13, 2025
Mark HeinzDecember 12, 2025
Dale KillingbeckDecember 12, 2025
As your #1 Wyoming News Source our mission is to provide you high quality statewide and local news for Wyoming. Wyoming News brought to you by locals for locals.
2025 © Cowboy State Daily