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Lead: Representative Elise Stefanik announced on Friday in Albany that she is suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not run for reelection to the U.S. House. The move removes her from a projected competitive Republican primary against Nassau County official Bruce Blakeman and ends her current congressional tenure. Stefanik cited family reasons … Read more
Lead: The College Football Playoff bracket challenge is live as the CFP opens first-round play on Dec. 19-20, 2025. NCAA.com bracket data shows No. 1 Indiana is the single most selected national champion, chosen on 28.11% of entries, with No. 2 Ohio State (25.33%) and No. 3 Georgia (21.67%) close behind. A clear majority of … Read more
Actor Timothée Chalamet has publicly ended weeks of fan speculation that he secretly performs as masked rapper EsDeeKid by appearing alongside the artist in a newly released music video. The clip, filmed in north London, shows Chalamet briefly mimicking EsDeeKid’s eye-only reveal before removing a bandana and delivering rap lines on a remix of EsDeeKid’s … Read more
Lead: On Dec. 19, 2025, Google announced it will push the device-level migration from Google Assistant to Gemini into 2026, delaying an earlier plan to finish by the end of 2025. The company said the extension is intended to ensure a smoother transition for Android users worldwide. Once eligible devices are upgraded to Gemini, Google … Read more
Lead Health officials say the United States is experiencing an unusually early and active influenza season as a new H3N2 subclade spreads. The CDC’s latest update, current through Dec. 13, estimates at least 4.6 million illnesses, more than 49,000 hospitalizations and about 1,900 deaths so far this season. Wastewater surveillance and hospital reports show sharp … Read more
Lead: In a 2025 study published in Science Advances, researchers led by Economo and Matte report that several ant species appear to lower per-worker investment in costly exoskeleton tissue, effectively trading heavily armored individuals for larger numbers of cheaper workers. The work, based on comparative anatomical and ecological analysis, was conducted across multiple ant lineages … Read more
On Dec. 19, 2025, Representative Elise Stefanik announced she was suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not seek re-election to the House, saying she made the decision while spending time with family over the Christmas holiday. The 41-year-old Republican — a prominent ally of former President Donald Trump who transformed into a … Read more
On December 19, 2025, US forces carried out strikes across Syria tied by US officials to Islamic State remnants in response to a December 13 attack that killed two American service members. The operation, named “Operation Hawkeye” in reference to the Iowa origins of the fallen soldiers, struck roughly 70 targets including infrastructure and weapons … Read more
Lead: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that flu activity is rising nationwide this season, with an estimated 4.6 million illnesses, 49,000 hospitalizations and 1,900 deaths so far. New York City and several states are seeing elevated respiratory illness levels, while the majority of sequenced viruses are A(H3N2), driven by a subclade called … Read more
Lead On Friday, 19 December 2025, the US Department of Justice began publishing a long-awaited tranche of records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation after weeks of political fighting and public pressure. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department would release “several hundred thousand documents” on a rolling basis while protecting victim identities and ongoing … Read more
On Dec. 13, investigators say a gunman opened fire in a Brown University lecture hall in Providence, killing two students and wounding nine. Two days later an MIT professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, was shot to death at his Brookline home. Federal officials later linked both scenes to the same suspect and found him dead in … Read more
Lead: A federal judge in Rhode Island on Dec. 19 issued a preliminary injunction halting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s abrupt changes to homelessness funding, which would have reshaped how roughly $4 billion is distributed. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy found plaintiffs — a coalition of states, cities and nonprofits — were … Read more
Lead On Thursday, December 18, 2025, the performing arts complex on the Potomac was officially restyled as The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and by Friday crews were installing new signage. Lawmakers immediately raised legal questions, saying a formal name change may require Congressional action. Though … Read more
Bowen Yang, one of Saturday Night Live’s most prominent breakout performers, will leave the show after this Saturday’s episode, which is hosted by Ariana Grande; Cher is scheduled as the musical guest for SNL’s 2025 Christmas episode, Yang’s final broadcast. Yang began with SNL as a writer in 2018 (season 44), joined the cast as … Read more
On Friday, the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Elon Musk’s 2018 compensation package for Tesla — a grant originally valued at $56 billion — overturning a previous court decision that had voided the award two years earlier. The opinion acknowledged breaches in the original approval process but ruled that rescinding the award outright would be “inequitable,” … Read more
