NASA’s Largest Library Is Closing Amid Staff and Lab Cuts; The New York Times, December 31, 2025

Eric Niiler, The New York Times; NASA’s Largest Library Is Closing Amid Staff and Lab Cuts

[Kip Currier: As a life-long space aficionado (as just one example, I fondly recall as a boy my Dad waking me up so I could watch the 1972 Apollo 17 launch that occurred at 12:33 AM) and long-time proponent of libraries, archives, and museums as essential societal institutions and trusted keepers of our history and cultures, seeing this story today was truly stomach-turning.

How shameful and short-sighted for the Trump administration to unilaterally decide to close NASA's largest library. The items within that library's singular collections represent the collective space-faring history and legacy of every person, not just one transitory administration.]

[Excerpt]

"The Trump administration is closing NASA’s largest research library on Friday, a facility that houses tens of thousands of books, documents and journals — many of them not digitized or available anywhere else.

Jacob Richmond, a NASA spokesman, said the agency would review the library holdings over the next 60 days and some material would be stored in a government warehouse while the rest would be tossed away."

Elon Musk’s 2025 recap: how the world’s richest person became its most chaotic; The Guardian, December 31, 3025

 Nick Robins-Early and Dara Kerr, The Guardian; Elon Musk’s 2025 recap: how the world’s richest person became its most chaotic

"One of Musk’s final feuds of the year came from a more unusual source – famed 87-year-old author Joyce Carol Oates, whose cutting observation about him on X received more than 5.6m views.

“So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates – scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history,” Oates posted in November.

A day later, after Musk made a show of enthusiastically replying to several clips of movies on X, he responded to Oates’s critique.

“Oates is a liar and delights in being mean,” Musk posted. “Not a good human.”"

The New Billionaires of the A.I. Boom; The New York Times, December 30, 2025

 Natallie Rocha, The New York Times; The New Billionaires of the A.I. Boom

 "Most are men.

The A.I. boom has elevated mostly male founders to billionaire status, a pattern in tech cycles. Only a few women — such as Ms. Guo and Ms. Murati — have reached that wealth level.

The A.I. craze has amplified the “homogeneity” of those who are part of this boom, Dr. O’Mara said."

The IP Legislation That Shaped 2025 and Prospects for the New Year; IP Watchdog, December 29, 2025

 BARRY SCHINDLER , IP Watchdog; The IP Legislation That Shaped 2025 and Prospects for the New Year

"As 2025 draws to a close, the intellectual property ecosystem faces a wave of transformative changes driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving legislative priorities. From sweeping federal proposals aimed at harmonizing AI governance and overriding state laws, to new copyright and media integrity measures designed to address deepfakes and transparency, and finally to renewed momentum behind patent eligibility and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reform, these developments signal a pivotal moment for innovators, rights holders, and policymakers alike. This article explores three critical fronts shaping the future of IP: federal AI legislation and executive preemption, copyright accountability and media integrity, and the year-end outlook for patent reform—each redefining the balance between innovation, protection, and compliance."

An Anti-A.I. Movement Is Coming. Which Party Will Lead It?; The New York Times, December 29, 2025

 MICHELLE GOLDBERG, The New York Times ; An Anti-A.I. Movement Is Coming. Which Party Will Lead It?

"I disagree with the anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, bitterly reactionary right-wing pundit Matt Walsh about basically everything, so I was surprised to come across a post of his that precisely sums up my view of artificial intelligence. “We’re sleepwalking into a dystopia that any rational person can see from miles away,” he wrote in November, adding, “Are we really just going to lie down and let AI take everything from us?”

A.I. obviously has beneficial uses, especially medical ones; it may, for example, be better than humans at identifying localized cancers from medical imagery. But the list of things it is ruining is long."

Lilly Endowment backs Notre Dame’s AI ethics framework; South Bend Tribune, December 30, 2025

 South Bend Tribune; Lilly Endowment backs Notre Dame’s AI ethics framework

"The University of Notre Dame has received the largest private grant in its history.

Lilly Endowment Inc. awarded the university a $50.8 million grant, according to a press release. According to the announcement, the grant will fund the DELTA Network: Faith-Based Ethical Formation for a World of Powerful AI, a project led by the Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG)."

A code of ethics for AI in education; The Times of Israel, December 29, 2025

 Raz Frohlich, The Times of Israel; A code of ethics for AI in education

"Generative artificial intelligence is transforming every corner of our lives — how we communicate, create, work, and, inevitably, how we teach and learn. As educators, we cannot ignore its power, nor can we embrace it blindly. The rapid pace of AI innovation requires not only technical adaptation, but also deep ethical reflection.

As the largest education provider in Israel, at Israel Sci-Tech Schools (ISTS), we believe that, as AI becomes increasingly present in classrooms, we must ensure that human judgment, accountability, and responsibility remain at the center of education. That is why we are the first in Israel to create a Code of Ethics for Artificial Intelligence in Education. This is not just a policy document but an open invitation for discussion, learning, and shared responsibility across the education system.

This ethical code is not a technical manual, and it does not provide instant answers for daily classroom situations. Instead, it offers a holistic approach — a way of thinking, a framework for educators, students, and policymakers to use AI consciously and responsibly. It asks essential, core-value questions: How do we balance innovation with privacy? How do we ensure equality when access to technology is uneven? How do we maintain transparency when using AI? And when should we pause, reflect, and reconsider how we use AI in the classroom?

To develop the code, we drew from extensive global research and local experience. We consulted with ethicists, educators, technologists, psychologists, and legal experts — and, perhaps most importantly, we listened to students, teachers, and parents. Through roundtable discussions, they shared real concerns and insights about AI’s potential and its pitfalls. Those conversations shaped the code’s seven guiding principles, designed to help schools integrate AI ethically, transparently, and with respect for human dignity."

Blondie and Dagwood are entering the public domain, but Betty Boop still may be trapped in copyright jail; The Los Angeles Times, December 30, 2025

 Michael Hiltzik, The Los Angeles Times; Blondie and Dagwood are entering the public domain, but Betty Boop still may be trapped in copyright jail

"Duke’s Jenkins refers to “the harm of the long term — so many works could have been rediscovered earlier.” Moreover, she says, “so many works don’t make it out of obscurity.” The long consignment to the wilderness thwarts “preservation, access, education, creative reuse, scholarship, etc., when most of the works are out of circulation and not benefiting any rights holders.”

Among other drawbacks, she notes, “films have disintegrated because preservationists can’t digitize them.” Many films from the 1930s are theoretically available to the public domain now, but not really because they’ve been lost forever.

What would be the right length of time? “We could have that same experience after a much shorter term,” Jenkins told me. “Looking back at works from the ‘70s and ‘80s has similar excitement for me.” Economic models, she adds, have placed the optimal term at about 35 years.

It’s proper to note that just because something is scheduled to enter the public domain, that doesn’t mean legal wrangling over its copyright protection is settled. 

With recurring characters, for instance, only the version appearing in a given threshold year enters the public domain 95 years later; subsequent alternations or enhancements retain protection until their term is up. That has led to courthouse disputes over just what changes are significant enough to retain copyright for those changes. 

“Copyrightable aspects of a character’s evolution that appear in later, still-protected works may remain off-limits until those later works themselves expire,” Los Angeles copyright lawyer Aaron Moss said."

New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled; The New York Times, December 29, 2025

 Adam Nagourney and Neil Vigdor, The New York Times ; New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled

[Kip Currier: The principles of integrity and character are unsurprisingly alien to Richard Grenell. Artists are likely canceling Kennedy Center engagements because they don't want to be associated with an administration that has attacked free expression, financially diminished the arts, as well as science, and that has violated federal law by adding Donald Trump's name to an arts organization memorializing our slain 35th President, John F. Kennedy Jr.

Standing up for values one believes in -- values that are bigger than oneself -- is an example of moral courage, not "derangement".]

[Excerpt]

"A veteran jazz ensemble and a New York dance company have canceled events at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, intensifying the fallout at one of the nation’s pre-eminent arts centers after it was renamed to include President Trump...

The Cookers did not give a reason for the decision in a statement on Monday that said, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice."...

Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, also said on Monday that it was canceling two performances in April that had been intended to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Mr. Varone, the head of the company, said it would lose $40,000 by pulling out.

“It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” he said in an email.

Richard Grenell, the Kennedy Center’s chairman, said in a statement on Monday night that the artists canceling shows were “far-left political activists” and that they had been booked by previous leadership. “Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” he said."

Year in Review: The U.S. Copyright Office; Library of Congress Blogs: Copyright Creativity at Work, December 29, 2025

 George Thuronyi , Library of Congress Blogs: Copyright Creativity at Work; Year in Review: The U.S. Copyright Office

"Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office

As the year draws to a close, I am pleased to recognize an impressive slate of accomplishments at the U.S. Copyright Office. Despite some challenges, including a lengthy government shutdown, the Office continued to produce high-quality work and reliable service to the public—from policy analyses to technology updates; efficient registration, recordation and deposit; and education and outreach. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead such a skilled and dedicated staff.

A central policy focus of the year was further work on the Office’s comprehensive artificial intelligence initiative. In January, we published Part 2 of our report, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, addressing the copyrightability of works generated using AI. In May, we released a pre-publication version of Part 3, addressing the ingestion of copyrighted works for generative AI training.

A particularly exciting development has been in the area of IT modernization: the launch of more components of the Enterprise Copyright System (ECS). The Office engaged in a successful limited pilot with members of the public of both the eDeposit upload functionality and our most-used registration form, the Standard Application. The development teams are implementing the feedback received, and work has begun on the first ECS group registration application. We also launched the ECS licensing component, which improves the Office’s internal capabilities in administering section 111 of the Copyright Act.

Another ECS component, the new and improved Copyright Public Records System (CPRS), replaced our legacy system as the official Office record in June. More and more pre-1978 historical public records have been digitized and published, with 19,135 copyright record books now available online, amounting to more than 72 percent of the total collection.

The Office also made strides in administration and public service. Our small claims court, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), completed its third full year, offering a more accessible option for resolving copyright disputes below a certain monetary value. The Office published a rule expediting the process for obtaining a certification of a final determination and initiated a study of the CCB’s operations to be delivered to Congress in 2026.

Our public information and education programs continued to grow. The Office hosted or participated in 190 events and speaking engagements and assisted the public, in both English and Spanish, with responses to 247,484 inquiries in-person and by phone, email, and other communications. We launched a new Registration Toolkit and a Copyright for Kids activity sheet. In September, the Office hosted the International Copyright Institute, our premier weeklong training event for foreign copyright officials, coproduced with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

This fall, we responded to a Congressional request on issues relating to performance rights organizations (PROs). And earlier in December, we announced a new group registration option for two-dimensional artwork, responding to the needs of visual artists. The Office also has taken forward the periodic review, mandated by the Music Modernization Act, of the mechanical licensing collective (MLC) and digital licensee coordinator (DLC), to be completed in 2026.

On the litigation front, the Office worked with the Department of Justice to develop and articulate positions in copyright-related cases. One major win was an appellate decision affirming the Office’s rejection of an application to register a work claimed to be produced entirely by artificial intelligence. The D.C. Circuit agreed with our view that human authorship is required for copyright protection.

Collaboration with and advising other federal agencies was again a key part of our interagency work in the international arena. This included participating in WIPO meetings on copyright and contributing to the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual Special 301 Report.

Concurrent with all of this activity, the Office’s provision of our regular services continued apace. Despite furloughs during the six-week lapse in appropriations, we issued 415,780 registrations and recorded 12,310 documents containing 5,704,306 works in fiscal year 2025. All the while, we maintained historically low processing times. We also received and transferred 503,389 copyright deposits, worth more than $57.8 million, to Library of Congress collections.

The Copyright Office remains committed to advancing copyright law and policy and supporting stakeholders in the creation and use of works of authorship. The work of the past year demonstrates the value of a resilient institution, grounded in expertise and public service. We look forward to further achievements in 2026."

Public libraries in Illinois now required to store anti-opioid overdose medications after a series of near-deaths; The Independent, December 28, 2025

 Isabel Keane, The Independent; Public libraries in Illinois now required to store anti-opioid overdose medications after a series of near-deaths

"A new state law will require all public libraries in Illinois to stock medications that can reverse opioid overdoses after at least one library in the state reported multiple overdoses each year.

The new law, which goes into effect January 1, will require all public libraries in the state to stock opioid overdose reversal drugs and allow trained staff to administer them in the event of a suspected overdose, the Illinois Department of Public Health said earlier this month."

A 1 Percent Solution to the Looming A.I. Job Apocalypse; The New York Times, December 27, 2025

 Sal Khan, The New York Times; A 1 Percent Solution to the Looming A.I. Job Apocalypse

"On my way to meet a friend in Silicon Valley a few weeks ago, I passed three self-driving Waymos gliding through traffic. These cars are everywhere now, moving as if they’ve been part of the landscape forever. When I arrived, the wonder of those futuristic cars gave way to a far more troubling glimpse of what lies ahead.

My friend told me that a huge call center in the Philippines — a center his venture capital firm had invested in — had just deployed A.I. agents capable of replacing 80 percent of its work force. The tone in his voice wasn’t triumphant. It was filled with deep discomfort. He knew that thousands of workers depended on those jobs to pay for food, rent and medicine. But they were disappearing overnight. Even worse, over the next few years this could happen across the entire Filipino call center industry, which directly makes up 7 percent to 10 percent of the nation’s G.D.P.

That conversation stayed with me. What’s happening in the Philippines is connected to what’s happening on the streets of San Francisco; Phoenix; Austin, Texas; Atlanta; and Los Angeles — the cities where driverless cars now operate.

I believe artificial intelligence will displace workers at a scale many people don’t yet realize."

When A.I. Took My Job, I Bought a Chain Saw; The New York Times, December 28, 2025

 Brian Groh, The New York Times; When A.I. Took My Job, I Bought a Chain Saw

"In towns like mine, outsourcing and automation consumed jobs. Then purpose. Then people. Now the same forces are climbing the economic ladder. Yet Washington remains fixated on global competition and growth, as if new work will always appear to replace what’s been lost. Maybe it will. But given A.I.’s rapacity, it seems far more likely that it won’t. If our leaders fail to prepare, the silence that once followed the closing of factory doors will spread through office parks and home offices — and the grief long borne by the working class may soon be borne by us all."

Americans Hate AI. Which Party Will Benefit?; Politico, December 28, 2025

 CALDER MCHUGH, Politico; Americans Hate AI. Which Party Will Benefit?

"There is a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to tap into rising anxiety, fear and anger about the havoc AI could wreak in people’s lives, they say, on issues from energy affordability to large-scale job losses, and channel it toward a populist movement — and not doing it, or not doing it strongly enough, will hurt the party...

There is hardly any issue that polls lower than unchecked AI development among Americans. Gallup polling showed that 80 percent of American adults think the government should regulate AI, even if it means growing more slowly. Pew, meanwhile, ran a study that showed only 17 percent of Americans think AI will have a positive impact on the U.S. over the next 20 years. Even congressional Democrats, at a record low 18 percent approval, beat that out, according to Quinnipiac.

“It’s not just the working class [that’s hurting]. It’s the middle class. It’s the upper middle class,” said Morris Katz, a strategist who has worked with incoming New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner and Nebraska independent Dan Osborn, among others. “We’re really headed towards a point in which it feels like we will all be struggling, except for 12 billionaires hiding out in a wine cave somewhere.”"

When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

 Rafael Behr , The Guardian; When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control

"In the absence of global governance, we will depend on the integrity of robber barons and authoritarian apparatchiks to build ethical guardrails around systems already being embedded in tools we use for work, play and education."

The protesters showing up every week to shut down ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: ‘We will end this’; The Guardian, December 26, 2025

 Richard Luscombe , The Guardian; The protesters showing up every week to shut down ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: ‘We will end this’

"They come on buses, in cars and RVs. Some ride on motorcycles. Every Sunday afternoon, convoys of protesters from all over Florida, and others from out of state, descend on the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail in the Everglades to stand vigil for those held inside.

It is a ritual that began in August, a month after the opening of the remote detention camp celebrated by Donald Trump for its harsh conditions, and hailed by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, as a model for the president’s aggressive detention and deportation agenda.

The open air vigils continued, and grew in size, through the brutal heat and torrential rains of the south Florida summer. They endured through a federal judge’s order in August that “Alligator Alcatraz” should close, and a subsequent reversal by an appeals court; the protesters’ voices grew louder at alleged human rights abuses and violence inflicted on detainees.

Over the holiday season, thousands more people are expected to join the protests. The Guardian spoke to several people at the heart of the vigils:..

The pastor

As pastor of the Allendale United Methodist church in St Petersburg, Andy Oliver has never been afraid of diving into political issues. The treatment of detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz”, he said, compelled him to organize a bus to attend the vigils, and he was encouraged that other locals joined his parishioners to make their voices heard.

“We filled up the bus and had to rent a couple more vehicles. We had so many people wanting to be there,” he said.

Oliver sees parallels at the immigration jail with the religious stories he preaches.

“In the Christmas story, the person who came to announce Jesus’s arrival was his cousin John the Baptist, and he was pretty quickly thrown in jail for calling for liberation,” he said.

“Jesus came to bring liberation to people. We have people that are physically being detained even beyond the scope of what the law allows, families are being separated, harms are being done. Jesus was born as a refugee. He spent most of his ministry with people on the margins. I think that’s where Jesus would be, he’d be calling for these prisons to be emptied.”

Oliver said the diversity of the vigil crowd was notable, and that it was “powerful” to share the experience with people of different faiths."

Our king, our priest, our feudal lord – how AI is taking us back to the dark ages; The Guardian, December 26, 2025

Joseph de Weck , The Guardian; Our king, our priest, our feudal lord – how AI is taking us back to the dark ages

"This summer, I found myself battling through traffic in the sweltering streets of Marseille. At a crossing, my friend in the passenger seat told me to turn right toward a spot known for its fish soup. But the navigation app Waze instructed us to go straight. Tired, and with the Renault feeling like a sauna on wheels, I followed Waze’s advice. Moments later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A trivial moment, maybe. But one that captures perhaps the defining question of our era, in which technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives: who do we trust more – other human beings and our own instincts, or the machine?

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously defined the Enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” Immaturity, he wrote, “is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another”. For centuries, that “other” directing human thought and life was often the priest, the monarch, or the feudal lord – the ones claiming to act as God’s voice on Earth. In trying to understand natural phenomena – why volcanoes erupt, why the seasons change – humans looked to God for answers. In shaping the social world, from economics to love, religion served as our guide.

Humans, Kant argued, always had the capacity for reason. They just hadn’t always had the confidence to use it. But with the American and later the French Revolution, a new era was dawning: reason would replace faith, and the human mind, unshackled from authority, would become the engine of progress and a more moral world. “Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”, Kant urged his contemporaries.

Two and a half centuries later, one may wonder whether we are quietly slipping back into immaturity. An app telling us which road to take is one thing. But artificial intelligence threatens to become our new “other” – a silent authority that guides our thoughts and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to think for ourselves – and this time, not to gods or kings, but to code...

With all the benefits AI brings, the challenge is this: how can we harness its promise of superhuman intelligence without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of liberal democracy itself? That may be one of the defining questions of the 21st century. It is one we would do well not to delegate to the machine."

Judge blocks Trump effort to strip security clearance from attorney who represented whistleblowers; AP via The Washington Post, December 24, 2025

 Joey Cappelletti | AP via The Washington Post; Judge blocks Trump effort to strip security clearance from attorney who represented whistleblowers

 "A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a March presidential memorandum to revoke the security clearance of prominent Washington attorney Mark Zaid , ruling that the order — which also targeted 14 other individuals — could not be applied to him."

Government Officials Once Stopped False Accusations After Violence. Now, Some Join In.; The New York Times, December 25, 2025

 Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times; Government Officials Once Stopped False Accusations After Violence. Now, Some Join In.

"A churn of disinformation after a major news event is hardly a surprise anymore, but its spread after the Brown killings was not limited to the dark fringes of the internet. It was fueled by prominent figures in business and government whose false statements or politically charged innuendo compounded public anger and anxiety.

That has raised new alarms about the nature and quality of public discourse — and whether there is any consequence for those who degrade it or for the social media platforms that reward it."

Trump aides’ official religious messages for Christmas draw objections; The Washington Post, December 26, 2025

 Azi Paybarah , The Washington Post; Trump aides’ official religious messages for Christmas draw objections

"How to celebrate Christmas while respecting the Constitution’s ban on “establishment of religion” has been an issue for federal officials at least since 1870 when President Ulysses S. Grant, seeking to unite the country after a brutal Civil War, designated Christmas — along with Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day — as federal holidays.

Government officials sought to balance the celebration of a federal holiday rooted in a religious tradition with the country’s tradition of pluralism and secular public spaces. The result was often a Christmas message that avoided specific references to Christianity. For decades, it was common for government officials on both sides of the aisle to share celebratory yet secular messages about Christmas with images that did not carry overt religious meanings, like snowflakes and Christmas trees.

Many still do. The State Department, for example, posted a secular Christmas message this year, directed at “all Americans.”

Many of the Trump administration’s officials who are most active on social media, however, took a different approach."

The Service Dogs Helping Veterans With PTSD; The New York Times, December 24, 2025

 Simar Bajaj , The New York Times; The Service Dogs Helping Veterans With PTSD

There’s research suggesting that these four-legged “battle buddies” can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. But shortages and long wait times pose barriers.

"Dr. Bahr is part of a growing cadre of veterans using service dogs for PTSD relief. In a 2024 study, veterans with service dogs were followed for three months and found to have less severe PTSD, depression and anxiety than those on the waiting list.

This research doesn’t say whether service dogs caused these mental health benefits or how long they might last.

Still, many veterans say these dogs make life more manageable. They are trained to catch subtle signs of distress, like thumping legs or a hitch in breathing, said Maggie O’Haire, a human-animal interaction expert at the University of Arizona. But researchers suspect that service dogs can also smell the chemical changes that accompany stress and anxiety.

Labrador retrievers are among the most common breed of service dogs, prized for their steadiness and eagerness to bond.

With a nuzzle or a tug of the leash, these dogs can interrupt the swell of panic in veterans, Dr. O’Haire said. “They know your environment is not filled with danger,” she explained, so they help veterans ground themselves."

Kennedy Center criticizes musician who canceled performance after Trump name added to building; AP, December 26, 2025

 STEVEN SLOAN , AP; Kennedy Center criticizes musician who canceled performance after Trump name added to building

"The president of the Kennedy Center on Friday fiercely criticized a musician’s sudden decision to cancel a Christmas Eve performance at the venue days after the White House announced that President Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” the venue’s president, Richard Grenell, wrote in a letter to musician Chuck Redd that was shared with The Associated Press.

In the letter, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages “for this political stunt.”"

So This Is Why Trump Didn’t Want to Release the Epstein Files; The Atlantic, December 24, 2025

 Sarah Fitzpatrick , The Atlantic; So This Is Why Trump Didn’t Want to Release the Epstein Files

"Trump has also insisted that he knew nothing of Epstein’s criminal activity—though his critics have questioned how that could be true given their close relationship and history of chasing women together. Members of Congress from both parties have said they will continue to probe the issue in the upcoming year. Representatives I spoke with told me their takeaway from reading the files is that top officials in the Trump administration have not been honest about what was in them, and that they intend to press Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for more information.

“Although the files are overly redacted, they’ve already demonstrated that the narrative painted by Patel in hearings, Bondi in press statements, and Trump himself on social media wasn’t accurate,” Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who co-authored the Epstein legislation, told me. “A complete disclosure consistent with the law will show there are more men implicated in the files in possession of the government.”"

Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, and the Fight for User Rights: 2025 in Review; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), December 25, 2025

 TORI NOBLE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, and the Fight for User Rights: 2025 in Review

"A tidal wave of copyright lawsuits against AI developers threatens beneficial uses of AI, like creative expression, legal research, and scientific advancement. How courts decide these cases will profoundly shape the future of this technology, including its capabilities, its costs, and whether its evolution will be shaped by the democratizing forces of the open market or the whims of an oligopoly. As these cases finished their trials and moved to appeals courts in 2025, EFF intervened to defend fair use, promote competition, and protect everyone’s rights to build and benefit from this technology.

At the same time, rightsholders stepped up their efforts to control fair uses through everything from state AI laws to technical standards that influence how the web functions. In 2025, EFF fought policies that threaten the open web in the California State Legislature, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and beyond."

MAGA Official Slammed for Clobbering the Living Christmas Lights Out of AI Santa Claus; The Daily Beast, December 28, 2025

 Will Neal, The Daily Beast; MAGA Official Slammed for Clobbering the Living Christmas Lights Out of AI Santa Claus

[Kip Currier: I was curious about Indiana State Sen. Chris Garten's values and background when I saw this story. So it's eye-opening to see his own descriptor of himself on his Facebook page:

"My name is Chris Garten. I am a Christian, husband, father, Marine Corps veteran..."

https://www.facebook.com/GartenforSenate/

Though Garten's military service is commendable, nowhere in the Bible would the Christian Jesus condone the kinds of actions that Garten portrays himself performing in these AI-generated images of himself brutalizing Santa Claus. How do such images advance one of Jesus's greatest Commandments to "love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31)?

How does a person who self-identifies as a Christian justify such depictions to others, as well as when he prays? Especially when Jesus stands for helping the "least among us" (Matthew 25:40) and says that "the last shall be first" (Matthew 20:16).

Even in jest, do these images convey a sense of good judgment or an elected official who is a positive role model in a free and democratic society?]

[Excerpt]

"A MAGA official has branded his critics “snowflakes” after marking this year’s holiday season by sharing his apparent fantasy of whaling on a defenseless Saint Nick on the steps of Indiana’s State Capitol building.

State Senator Chris Garten shared the AI-generated images on X on Christmas Day. One of the four pictures features the two-term Republican state senator, decked in a sleeveless suit à la WWE, kicking a bewildered Santa Claus squarely on the chin to send the beloved, age-old children’s folk character sailing backwards through the air.

A second shows the MAGA official launching himself forward with the apparent intention of following up with a flying punch to the jaw. A third shows him further brutalizing the trembling, mythic gift-giver as he writhes in agony on the floor...

“Lots of intolerance, swearing, and outrage on display over a few AI pics I had a blast designing with my kids,” he wrote in a subsequent post. “Some of you clowns are just insufferable. Hopefully your negativity stays in the comments and not directed at your families.” 

“Merry Christmas, snowflakes,” Garten added, accompanied by another AI-generated photo of himself in a Santa suit, pointing at an oversized snowflake."

Stop Defending Bari Weiss; The Atlantic, December 24, 2025

 Jonathan Chait , The Atlantic; Stop Defending Bari Weiss

"Weiss is following a long-standing instinct to turn every Trump abuse into a debate, a generosity she does not afford targets on the left...

Weiss claims that the CECOT story fails to “advance the ball” because many of its central facts have already been reported. This mania for insisting that every new story introduce breaking news was nowhere to be found when she was airing a town hall with Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, whose talking points have not exactly suffered from underexposure.

Liberal democracy is the proposition that democracy requires more than mere voting. It needs a set of neutral rules governing the state and civil society to prevent ruling parties from becoming entrenched in power. Trump’s maneuvers to influence CBS blatantly violate even the most minimal guardrails of liberal democracy. Those blunt abuses of power matter a million times more than the specific content of a particular 60 Minutes segment.

Conservatives would never accept a left-wing government using regulatory favoritism to pressure conservative media into softening their coverage of a Democratic administration. They may delight in the new editorial direction of CBS News, but they cannot defend the process that led to it. So they pretend it didn’t happen; offer narrow, pointillistic defenses of Weiss’s editorial pretext; and deftly dodge the authoritarianism that enabled it."

Ohio’s libraries could face hard choices next year after 2025 budget cuts; Cleveland.com, December 27, 2025

 Mary Frances McGowan, cleveland.com; Ohio’s libraries could face hard choices next year after 2025 budget cuts

"“They’re going to continue to do that to the best of their ability, but it is going to make providing these services more difficult, especially in a time when the demand for services is growing, and the expectation of local citizens is growing and expanding.”

The state budget Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in June removed the longstanding funding formula that gave libraries a percentage of the state’s revenue fund, replacing it with discretionary line-item appropriations.

While funding was never inherently guaranteed -- library advocates had to testify in Columbus every two years to explain how they were using taxpayer funds -- but as a percentage of the state revenue, it was a solid funding source. 

The comparative instability of the new formula is worrying for libraries. Future legislatures or gubernatorial administrations could reduce funding without warning — a big shift for institutions that have long relied on stability."