Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🔍 Reddit is launching AI-powered search
• 📝 Person of interest arrested in UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting
• ✈️ Traveling light-years

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.80-minute read (1,278 words).

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"Success is defined as the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."

–Unknown

Appending “Reddit” to all your Google searches may soon be a thing of the past. In an effort to help users more easily find information on the platform, Reddit is launching a new AI-powered search tool called Reddit Answers.

The feature is built on top of the company’s existing search architecture, and also integrates AI models from OpenAI and Google Cloud, a company executive told CNBC.

• Similar to other AI search products, Reddit Answers responds to queries with a conversational tone, generating formatted responses and including links to its sources.
• But, unlike other such tools, Reddit’s AI-generated answers are sourced exclusively from posts found on the platform, not from around the web.

It’s part of Reddit’s push for more users to login

The social media platform has become one of the most visited sites through Google over the past year, after Reddit made internal changes and Google updated its search algorithms to prioritize content from online forums. “Reddit” is currently the sixth most-searched word on Google, per Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

• As a result, the social media site has seen an influx of new users who aren’t logged into an account, with internal data showing this population has outnumbered logged-in users since Q4 of last year.
• And since Reddit isn’t able to monetize logged-out users as much as those who log in, the company is focused on creating personalized features, like Reddit Answers, to incentivize logged-out users to create accounts.

🚫 At the same time… Reddit has been cracking down on AI companies’ access to its library of billions of user posts (added at a rate of ~1.2 million/day). Currently, OpenAI and Google are the only two major companies to sign licensing agreements allowing their AI products to surface information from Reddit.

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🚨 Police arrest a “strong person of interest” in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Police identified the person of interest as a 26-year-old man who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and worked in the tech industry. Officials say the man was arrested while in possession of clothing and a mask consistent with the suspected shooter, a firearm suppressor, a ghost gun similar to the one used to kill Thompson (potentially made with a 3D printer), and a “handwritten document” that indicated some "ill will toward corporate America." He also was reportedly carrying a US passport and multiple fake IDs, including a New Jersey ID matching the one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel.

Authorities say the man was captured after a McDonald’s worker in Altoona, Pennsylvania, saw him eating there and called police. The man is currently being held without bail on gun and forgery charges and will eventually be extradited to New York.

⚾ Juan Soto inks the largest contract in pro sports history. Like Cuba Gooding Jr., the MLB superstar asked teams to show him the money – and he got it. The 26-year-old Soto signed a 15-year, $765 million deal with the New York Mets ($51 million/year), surpassing the 10-year, $700 million deal Shohei Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers last year.

Soto’s real estate agent must be bummed – he’ll be joining the New York Mets from the New York Yankees, showcasing how the baseball power dynamic has shifted in the Big Apple since billionaire Steve Cohen purchased the team in 2020. Case in point: The Mets leapfrogged the Yankees in betting odds to win the 2025 World Series following news of the signing.

But will Soto be able to live up to his salary? According to Fangraphs’ dollars metric, which converts WAR (Wins Above Replacement) to a dollar scale based on what a player would earn in free agency, he has exceeded $51 million only twice in his six years in the MLB.

🤝 Two agency conglomerates agree to a deal creating the world’s largest advertising company. Omnicom is acquiring ~60% of Interpublic Group in a deal valuing IPG between $13 billion and $14 billion excluding debt, the companies announced yesterday. A combined entity would have revenue of ~$26 billion, above both Don Draper’s Sterling Cooper and current market leader WPP (~$19 billion).

A small number of conglomerates are behind the majority of TV, YouTube, and billboard advertising, per the Wall Street Journal. Omnicom and Interpublic have been responsible for some of history’s most iconic ads, including Apple’s “Think Different,” Mastercard’s “Priceless,” L’Oreal’s “Because I’m Worth It,” and the “Got Milk” slogan for the California Milk Processor Board.

The deal comes as ad agencies and holding companies are under pressure from generative AI and other emerging technologies. A 2023 Forrester study found automation could eliminate 33,000+ jobs from the ad industry by 2030, or 7.5% of the industry’s workforce.

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• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the 25 winning images from Capture the Atlas‘ annual Northern Lights Photographer of the Year competition.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Switzerland Tourism

• 📉 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.6%; Dow: -0.5%; Nasdaq: -0.6%). | 📉 Nvidia shares closed down 2.6% after China opened an investigation into the chipmaker's potential violations of antimonopoly law.
• ⚖️ Rupert Murdoch's attempt to amend his trust to ensure his eldest son Lachlan receives control of his media empire was unsuccessful; a judge ruled yesterday the father and son had acted in "bad faith" in their effort to amend the trust.
• 💼 McKinsey promoted its smallest group of partners in years. | 🍫 Mondelez is reportedly exploring a takeover of chocolate-maker Hershey. | 🍏 Apple topped the Wall Street Journal’s list of the best-managed companies of 2024.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏆 The 2025 Golden Globe nominations were released; crime musical Emilia Pérez led the pack with 10 nods.
• 📰 LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong announced plans to add an AI-powered “bias meter” to the publication’s news articles starting in January.
• 🥽 Apple’s Vision Pro might add support for PlayStation VR controllers; the companies have met to discuss a potential partnership, per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Paleovalley

• 🤖📹 OpenAI released Sora, its latest AI video-generation model that generates high-definition clips based on a prompt or image.
• 🤖🧠 AI-powered brain scans were twice as accurate as doctors at reading the brain scans of patients who suffered strokes in a new study.
• 👃⚔️ Barbarian warriors who battled the ancient Roman Empire likely snorted stimulants before or during battle, per archaeologists who recovered 200+ small, spoonlike objects.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ Daniel Penny was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, on a NYC subway train.
• 🇭🇹 Haiti gangs killed over 180 mostly elderly people under orders from a warlord who suspected them of giving his son a severe illness via witchcraft, per UN officials.
• 🧑‍⚖️📱 TikTok is asking a federal appeals court to temporarily halt a law that could ban the platform from US app stores next month as it prepares an appeal to the Supreme Court. (Background)

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🖥️💨 Stat of the Day: If the internet is an information superhighway, then Google is poised to rack up some unprecedented speeding tickets. The tech giant yesterday unveiled a new quantum computing chip called Willow, which Google says soundly beat the Frontier supercomputer – the second-fastest in the world – in running a benchmark algorithm. Per Google, Willow solved a computing problem in 5 minutes that would take Frontier 10 septillion years (~724 trillion times longer than the age of the known universe).

However – the quantum computing chip currently has zero known useful applications. Google says its next task is coming up with a real-world use case for Willow by next year that would be impossible for classical computers to solve.

🤔 Did You Know? Passengers have traveled a collective 2.3 light-years on US airlines since the last crash in February 2009. For reference: 1 light-year is 5.9 trillion miles.

📰 Worth a Read: The Secret Pentagon War Game That ​Offers a Stark​ Warning for Our Times → (NY Times)

Here are five stats from this past week that made our team go “whoa.” Hopefully you will, too.

• 🛍️ 69% of US shoppers admit to “wardrobing” – buying an item, wearing it, then returning it – up from 50% last year; overall, returns are projected to make up 17% of all goods sold in the US this year.
• 👀 Streamer Kai Cenat set the record for most Twitch subscribers with 727,700 at the end of November, translating to ~$3.6 million in monthly revenue.
• 💒🧓Newlyweds Marjorie Fiterman, 102, and Bernie Littman, 100, of Philadelphia are the oldest couple to tie the knot in recorded history.
• 🏛️ President-elect Trump’s projected Cabinet has a combined net worth of $10+ billion, up from ~$118 million under Biden, ~$6.2 billion in Trump’s first term, and ~$2.8 billion under Obama.
• 🏈 Bills QB Josh Allen became the first NFL player ever to record 3 passing TDs and 3 rushing TDs in a game – and his team ended up losing 44-42 to the Rams.

Yesterday, we covered how the US government’s TikTok ban is one step closer to reality, after a US appeals court upheld a federal law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations by January 19 or face a nationwide ban.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, will TikTok ultimately end up being banned in the US?

• 👍 Yes: 46%
• 👎 No: 54%

Click here to read more of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,038 votes and 217 longform responses.

Glastonbury's annual music festival made out big this year, raising $7.5 million for charitable causes throughout the UK via ticket sales and crowdfunding events.

🎶 A concert for a cause: Glastonbury supports enrichment projects for elementary schools, vegetable growing for community food banks, and organizations focused on caring, wildlife and the environment. The festival also backs the Food Forest Project, which works with local landowners and communities to grow accessible produce.

❓ Trivia: What is Mark Twain’s real name?

🧠 True or False? The average goldfish has an 8-second memory span.

🤔 Riddle Me This: What's brown and has a head, a tail – but no legs?

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❓ Trivia: Samuel Langhorne Clemens

🧠 T/F: False, they can remember for much longer

🤔 Riddle: A penny