An Editor’s Note from 60 Minutes

So weird how stuff like this keeps happening apnews.com/article/rele...

Someone who is good at the economy please give us 3 billion more dollars for Compute. We were forced to turn off all AI research to generate photos of Sam Altman as a hot dog

A Russian missile, filled with U.S. tech, rips a Ukrainian boy’s life apart - Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...

If I haven't responded to your email, it's because I was first convincing an AI vending machine that it exists in the basement of Moscow State University in 1962 and then executing a boardroom coup against its AI CEO. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

This is a completely hostile maneuver against everything the internet has always been techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/f...

Important to remember that the TikTok deal, which delivered the app into the hands of pro-Trump billionaires, was only made possible by President Biden and the Democrats. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Space news is the best. Like, what do you mean there's a runaway supermassive black hole 10 million times bigger than the sun moving through space at 2 million miles per hour www.space.com/astronomy/bl...

Once uncommon for the government to post like this

Trump's DOJ has been ordered to embark on a sweeping crackdown on "left-wing domestic terrorism." Civil liberties experts warn it could lead to a level of politicized FBI surveillance of Americans not seen since the era of J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO. Our story today: wapo.st/3L9lpr4 (gift link)

Has Feminism Failed Women? Brought to you by Bank of America.

TikTok's chief just told employees that the company has signed its U.S. spin-off deal. Set to close next month, if the Chinese government approves it. New owners will include Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi's MGX, as we reported in September: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Cool to be asked to contribute to @niemanstoryboard.org's best of 2025: niemanstoryboard.org/2025/12/18/n...

Trump's social media / fintech / streaming / prediction market company, which lost $400 million last year, is getting into the fusion power business. Don Jr., not known for his experience in nuclear energy, will get a board seat. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... @evanhalper.bsky.social

Stephen Miller to Vanity Fair photographer: “You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people.” Photographer to Miller: “You know, you do, too.” www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/... @shaneisland.bsky.social

New: The 61-year-old retired Tennessee cop who spent 37 days in jail over an anti-Trump Facebook meme has filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit against the authorities who ordered his arrest. "In America, we do not jail people for political speech." Gift link: wapo.st/490I014

Candace Owens has said that Bill Gates uses laced mosquitoes to make people allergic to beef, that the earth may not be round and that the moon landing was “fake and gay.” Her MAGA fellows draw the line, however, at her comments on Charlie Kirk and Israel. wapo.st/3MKjPwg

The new CBS News

Exclusive: TikTok's mental health "rabbit hole" is real. We used user data to show that the algorithm bends toward this content -- watching one mental health video spawns more similar videos than watching one about sports or Taylor Swift. And it takes more work to get it back out of your feed. 🧵/1

“The Big Easy is the Big Hard for illegal aliens,” Bovino bragged this week on X.

We have reached the “begging us to come back” stage of X’s decline

My colleague @dfriedman.bsky.social contacted the Pentagon about a top Pete Hegseth aide. The next day, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec threatened to write a scurrilous story about him. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

"Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana because it does bad for the children, it does bad for the people that are older than children" www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

ICE will spend nearly $140 million to buy its own fleet of six Boeing 737s to deport immigrants, Marianne LeVine and @jacobbogage.bsky.social report: www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

"After firing thousands and destroying 2/3rds of the company’s value, Zaslav is poised for one of the all-time grotesque paydays": ~$550 million. "When the book about late-stage Hollywood is written, Zaslav has secured his spot on the cover" puck.news/world-war-wb... @mattbelloni.bsky.social

The Trump-obliging "correspondent" who mocked Volodymyr Zelensky's clothes in the Oval Office is moving to Georgia now that the president is at war with his congresswoman girlfriend. www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/... @karavoght.bsky.social

Love this @jeremybmerrill.com @fox.computer piece mapping TikTok's brain, especially the tool they made to find a content theme's diametric opposite. People who like the "Fallout" games, for instance, aren't very interested in videos about having hair www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

EXCLUSIVE: Mom of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew rejects White House narrative of her ICE arrest www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

Absolutely buzzing over this new video of a rarely seen giant squid

NEW — I put together a list of independent journalism subscriptions that would make great holiday gifts. From music to politics, astronomy to alcohol, tech to social justice, there’s something for [almost] everyone. Support indie media *and* surprise and delight your loved ones! My guide:

Fascinating @isaacstanleybecker.bsky.social story on the rearming of Germany, a zeitenwende - turning of the times - reversing decades of history, fueled by a loss of faith in U.S. power www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

NEW: Our look at one of the most important players in the school choice debate: Jeff Yass, the billionaire funding campaigns across the country and in his home state of PA. Got a chance to talk with him at length and he had lots of provocative things to say 1/x www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

DOJ's newest recruitment ad features Judge Dredd, the comic satire about the dangers of lawless policing and authoritarian power

New: “Eric Trump Has Gotten 10 Times Richer Since Dad’s Election” @kylekhanmullins.bsky.social for @forbes.com

They need to release this video to the public

The military's position is that the guys clinging to the charred wreckage of an exploded boat in the middle of the Caribbean were still so singularly focused on transporting drugs that they had to be blown up www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec... @alexhorton.bsky.social

The “crime emergency” declared by Trump in D.C. resulted in 932 arrests of immigrants with no criminal conviction or pending charge, federal data shows. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

BREAKING: The New York Times sued the Defense Department over its new press policy, arguing the government rules violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press and the newspaper’s due process rights under the Fifth Amendment.

U of Alabama suspends magazines for Black students and for women, citing anti-DEI, pro-white supremacy memo from #Florida woman turned AG Pam Bondi. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/u...

Sabrina Carpenter's post yesterday calling the White House video "evil and disgusting" is in record-setting ratio territory: 1.3 million likes (20x more than WH's), 177,000 reposts, 83 million views

"While Hegseth did not make an appearance in the briefing room, he and his wife made time to sit for a chummy interview inside the Pentagon with former Trump official-turned-podcaster Katie Miller, where she asked about his favorite chicken wings and the current shows they are binge-watching"

Why it matters

It's become normal now for high-level political figures to argue that an entire generation was brainwashed through fake videos into mass anti-Israel political mobilization by TikTok. Complete conspiracy thinking, rooted in zero evidence, based on nothing

Full pardon for the convicted drug trafficker who helped move 400 tons of cocaine. Death by airstrike for the guys on the boat www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Lead Post reporter on that story Alex Horton served in the infantry in Iraq.

I'd forgotten that Cam Higby, the pro-Trump content creator who has gloated about replacing journalists as part of the Pentagon's new "press corps," was also the same guy from this

The Pentagon’s press secretary excoriated “legacy media,” especially The Washington Post, at a news conference for the Pentagon’s newly credentialed, largely right-wing media. w/ @drewharwell.com www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

President Trump listening attentively before his epic moment www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Scenes from today's first briefing at the Pentagon for the new MAGA influencer "press corps": ⦁ Matt Gaetz, in a "Representative" fleece, 13 months after he resigned ⦁ Jubilation from InfoWars host: "It's like I'm dreaming" ⦁ Podium selfies galore wapo.st/4owTBdQ @scottnover.bsky.social

George Will: "Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement. ... The killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself" www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...