Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🇺🇲🇮🇱🇵🇸 The US won’t withhold weapons to Israel over Gaza’s humanitarian situation
• 🥊 Tyson vs. Paul
• 🔏 The world’s most-common passwords

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.85-minute read (1,290 words).

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“Happiness is only real when shared.”

–Christopher McCandless (1968-1992)

On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced it won’t suspend military aid to Israel, after a US-imposed deadline to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza officially expired, citing good but limited progress in increasing the flow of aid to Gaza.

Background: In mid-October, US officials sent a letter urging Israel’s government to take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days – or risk losing military assistance from the US. The letter noted that aid shipments to Gaza had recently reached their lowest level since the early months of the war, and had dropped by at least 50% since April 2024.

Fast-forward one month…and rights groups say little progress has been made. A group of eight international aid organizations recently published a scorecard claiming Gaza’s humanitarian situation is at its worst point since the war began last October.

• Their scorecard cites a series of specific measurements outlined in the Biden admin’s October letter that Israel has failed to meet, such as enabling at least 350 humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza each day.
• Additionally, the Human Rights Watch published a report yesterday accusing Israel of a deliberate and systematic campaign of mass displacement targeting Palestinians in Gaza, which the org says amounts to both a war crime and a crime against humanity.

The US State Department says Israel’s government has taken some of the steps outlined in its previous letter but it “would like to see some more changes happen,” while Israel called the Human Rights Watch report "completely false and detached from reality."

Big picture – a war update: Israel continues to launch airstrikes into Gaza it says are targeting Hamas’ military operations, while Israeli ground troops have been battling Hamas fighters in northern Gaza since the beginning of last month. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed 43,000+ Palestinians, per local health authorities, while Israel has reported ~500 deaths from the war outside of Hamas’ initial October 7, 2023, attack.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should the US keep supplying military aid to Israel?

• Yes, maintain the status quo
• Yes, but add more conditions to the aid
• No
• Unsure/other

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🧅 The GOAT of online satire tentatively strikes again. Satirical news publication The Onion has purchased Infowars, Alex Jones’ conspiracy-friendly website, at bankruptcy auction for an undisclosed sum. The winning bid was backed by families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, whom Jones owes ~$1.5 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax. What’s next for the brand? Per Bryce P. Tetraeder, fictional CEO of The Onion’s parent company: “The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.” Noble work. But on a more serious note: The publication plans to reintroduce Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities,” the NY Times reports – though late yesterday, the court overseeing the bankruptcy put a hold on the sale pending a hearing next week.

📦 Amazon is in firing-shots mode. On Wednesday: The company launched Amazon Haul, its response to Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop, which offer cheap goods shipped directly from China and have eaten away at its market share. Amazon Haul is a mobile-only, ultra-discount storefront offering a variety of products – including apparel, home goods, electronics, and more – priced at $20 or less. On Thursday: Amazon announced Prime members can access new upfront pricing for treatment of five common conditions, such as erectile dysfunction and men’s hair loss, placing the company in competition with other D2C marketplaces like Hims & Hers Health – whose shares fell ~24% on the news, the company’s worst day on record.

🥊 Mike Tyson and Jake Paul are set to square off. The officially sanctioned boxing match, delayed from July due to Tyson’s stomach ulcer flareup, takes place tonight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington (home of the Dallas Cowboys). Some key stats: There’s a 31-year age gap between the fighters (58 vs. 27); the rules are slightly different than regular matches (heavier gloves and shorter rounds); and it’s Netflix’s first attempt at hosting a major live sports event. Paul is a minus-275 betting favorite, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

New LinkedIn job posting: Series regular on a new TV show, $50,000/episode.

This👆may soon become a common occurrence, as Hollywood shows have begun to adopt a hiring process similar to that of any traditional organization, with salary rates fixed and listed on the initial job description.

• The Pitt, a new Max show debuting in 2025, is the latest to adopt the trend; salary rates for the series regulars are fixed at $35,000 or $50,000 per episode.

Why change the process? Generally speaking, streamers are tightening purse strings as their focus shifts from growth to profitability; many TV show budgets have been reduced, impacting all aspects of production – including the selection of actors. Setting a fixed pay rate before auditions are even held helps both streamline the casting process and keep the show under budget.

Big stars won’t be affected. The “No. 1 on the call sheet,” aka the highest paid actor on any given project, will still be able to negotiate salary based on star power. Shows may opt to only hire one or two big names though, to keep costs low.

📸 Big picture: In addition to The Pitt, the fixed-fee technique has also been employed by other currently running shows, including CBS’ Elsbeth, Fox’s Accused, and Peacock’s Poker Face. Moving forward, analysts say it could become more commonplace on shows that have a large number of series regulars, such as Yellowstone or Stranger Things.

Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, predicted this game-changing tech would be worth $17 trillion by 2037 back in 2017. But now, she’s saying it could be worth $80 trillion by 2030.

To put that into perspective, that’s:

• 🛍️ 39 Amazons
• 🖱️ 26 Microsofts
• 📈 24 Nvidias
• 🤖 39 Alphabets
• 💻 519 IBMs

And a Shark Tank billionaire expects it to create the world’s first trillionaire. What could be worth so much? It’s a radical tech breakthrough transforming every walk of life. And the entire movement is wholly dependent on one tiny company.

Learn more about this game-changing company here at The Motley Fool.

• ☝️ Four people in Southern California were arrested and charged with insurance fraud after they claimed their cars were trashed by a bear – but videos submitted to the insurance company allegedly show a person in a bear suit instead.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Cornbread Hemp

• 💰 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.6%; Dow: -0.5%; Nasdaq: -0.6%). | 💼 Initial jobless claims fell by 4,000 to 217,000 last week (vs. the 225,000 analysts forecast); it's the lowest level in six months. | 🗣️ Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a speech on the US economic outlook yesterday. Watch/read it here.
• 🐭 Disney posted strong Q4 results buoyed by streaming growth and a strong summer box office.
• 🚗 Advance Auto Parts is closing 500+ stores and divesting another 200 independent locations as part of a turnaround bid.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Jon Gruden, the former Raiders and Buccaneers head coach, signed a multiyear deal to join Barstool Sports. And it’s got him feelin’ nicey. | 📺 Craig Melvin was tapped to replace longtime TODAY show co-anchor Hoda Kotb.
• 🏀🤝 Adidas inked a NIL deal with 16-year-old basketball star Kaleena Smith, marking the company’s first signing of a women’s high school hoops player.
• 📲 Bluesky, a social media site with a similar design to X, has added ~1.3 million new signups since the US election last Tuesday; meanwhile, X saw 115,000+ web users deactivate their accounts the day after the election, the highest recorded total in the Musk era by a factor of 2x.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Nuts.com

• 🤖📲 Google’s Gemini AI chatbot launched its first app for Apple’s App Store this week. | 🤖🧓 O2, the UK’s largest mobile phone network operator, launched a voice-based chatbot that mimics the voice of an elderly person and aims to waste the time of phone scammers.
• 🚫🚀 Eric Berger, a senior space reporter at Ars Technica, says there’s an “at least 50-50” chance that NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket "will be canceled" due to budget overruns and delays, per his inside sources.
• 🇦🇶🌴 The first-ever amber discovered in Antarctica provides evidence that rainforests once existed near the South Pole between 83 million–92 million years ago. | 💧☄️ A meteorite rediscovered in a drawer at Purdue University in 1931 contains evidence of liquid water being present on Mars 742 million years ago, per a new study. | 🪸 The world’s largest known coral was discovered in the waters of the Solomon Islands; with a circumference of 600 feet, the 300-to-500-year-old organism is visible from space.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🏛️🏥 President-elect Trump yesterday nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)
• 🛸🏛️ A slate of four witnesses – including former gov’t and military officials – provided new testimony to Congress regarding UFO/UAP sightings; several claimed the US gov’t is shielding information on UAPs from the public. | 🗳️ The FBI raided the apartment of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan; the NY Times reports the raid is part of an FBI probe into whether US users illegally placed bets on Polymarket, which allowed bets on the US election.
• 🇳🇿 New Zealand’s parliament temporarily suspended voting on a controversial bill after an opposition lawmaker started a haka and proceeded to rip up a copy of the bill. | 🌧️🇪🇸 Southern Spain has experienced severe thunderstorms in recent days, with some areas receiving a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours; it comes two weeks after Spain saw deadly flooding in the same general area.

CLICKBAIT

• ✈️⌚ The Fastest Airport Security Line You Don’t Know About.

🔐🌐 Stat of the Day: Everyone knows passwords are supposed to be secret. But it’s not a good idea to take that literally, according to a new report from enterprise password manager NordPass, which found the world’s top 25 most-common passwords – a list that includes “secret,” “123456,” “password,” and “qwerty123” – would all take a hacker less than 1 second to crack. Other common passwords in the US include: “iloveyou,” “baseball,” “princess,” and “football.” In addition to using easy-to-crack phrases, NordPass found many people use the same passwords across their work and personal lives – making corporate networks more vulnerable when personal passwords are stolen, and vice versa.

🤔 Did You Know? In the famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware from the American Revolutionary War, the man holding the American flag behind George Washington is 18-year-old future President James Monroe – though this historical detail, like many others in the painting, is factually inaccurate.

📰 Worth a Read: A 19th-century con man made his fortune by creating a map of a fictional country → (Atlas Obscura)

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• Somebody moved UK's oldest satellite, and no-one knows who or why → (BBC)
• Man Who Suffered Concussion After Skiing Accident Forgot Girlfriend Dumped Him the Day Before—And They Married 7 Months Later → (Brides)
• Thailand’s baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng now has an official song in 4 languages → (Associated Press)
• Milei’s ‘chainsaw’ for bureaucracy could slash an antiquated law aimed at protecting Argentine kids from turning into werewolves. Really. → (Argentina Reports)
• Nigerian man's 10,814.5-square-foot drawing is the world's largest → (UPI)

Burger King employee Kevin Ford didn't miss a day of work in 27 years.  

The dedicated employee went viral in 2022 when he was recognized for his years of service with a small gift basket from his employer – but the internet thought he deserved more. 

👑 Kevin's daughter started a fundraiser for her humble dad – and over the next two years, it raised over $450,000. Late last year, Kevin purchased his own home. 

• “When I try to think of how I feel, it’s very difficult because this is unbelievable," he told Today. "It still feels like a dream that this is happening to anybody, let alone me."

🦢 Stop looking at me swan: Read tales from Adam Sandler’s pickup basketball games.

🍞 Get your bake on: How to make a sourdough starter from scratch in seven easy steps.

🐅 Grrrrreat fact: Tigers’ stripes aren’t just on their fur – their skin is striped, too.

🥊 Tyson vs. Paul prep: Explore the 10 craziest endings to boxing matches.

📈 Improve: The Assist is always showcasing actionable ways to improve at work, and does it in a very DONUT-y way. Subscribe for free.*

📧 Explore: Join thousands of readers every Friday for Cole’s Newsletter, a curated collection of the best articles, tools, tips, and books to help your life and career. It's a breezy, bite-size read enjoyed by employees from Apple, Figma, and X.*

*A message from our partners.

Our weekly news quiz just dropped. See how your news superpowers stack up against our team.

Below are three lists of ingredients. Your job is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Russet potatoes
• Salt
• Butter
• Chopped kale
• Onions
• Milk

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Thick-cut bacon
• Eggs
• Cream cheese
• Salt
• Gruyère cheese
• Pepper

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Graham cracker crumbs
• Cinnamon
• Salt
• Butter
• Dulce de leche
• Bananas
• Heavy cream
• Powdered sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Cocoa powder

☝️ Recipe #1: Colcannon

✌️ Recipe #2: Copycat Starbucks egg bites

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Banoffee pie