Good morning. In this edition:

• 🏛️ D.C. dysfunction
• 📝 New Epstein files
• 🫎 Why don’t “meese” exist?

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.20-minute read (1,116 words).

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"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered."

–G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

The 119th Congress has nearly reached its halfway point, after wrapping up work for 2025 last week. And it’s ending the year with a growing reputation as one of the least productive editions in modern history.

By the numbers: A total of 60 bills have been passed by the current Congress and signed into law by President Trump in 2025. That’s an improvement from 2023, the first year of the 118th Congress, when 27 bills were enacted into law. But it’s significantly lower than the 85 bills in 2021, and 268 bills in 2019.

Additionally, a record-high 54 lawmakers so far this year have announced plans to call it quits after the 2026 midterm elections, with many citing current dysfunction in Congress as a main reason for leaving.

Driving the trend

Legislative stagnation and low morale in Congress isn’t a symptom that’s recently developed, but rather has been building for several sessions, more than a dozen former members of Congress recently told NPR,

• Many say the congressional calendar, which typically has the House working 3.5 days/week, leaves little time to build consensus on new legislation.
• They also point to a recent rise in partisanship and unwillingness to work across the political aisle, blaming a system where lawmakers with the most partisan rhetoric get rewarded with more media coverage and fundraising dollars.

Plus, incumbent members of Congress have had near-record-high re-election rates of 90%-95% in recent decades, which some analysts argue gives lawmakers little reason to promote bipartisanship or address major issues due to a lack of job competition.

Looking ahead…Action in each two-year Congress typically picks up steam once the calendar turns to the second year, before the entire House and one-third of the Senate comes up for re-election.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday pledged “a very aggressive legislative agenda coming right out of the gates in January,” including measures to address affordability and codify President Trump’s executive orders into law.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, do most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 Sony acquires majority stake in Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts franchise, in $457 million deal valuing it at ~$1.1 billion. | Delaware Supreme Court reinstates Elon Musk’s ~$56 billion Tesla stock pay package awarded in 2018; the court unanimously overturns lower court ruling that had canceled the compensation.
• ✈️ American Airlines says passengers will no longer earn miles or other rewards for purchasing basic economy tickets.
• 🎰 DraftKings launches long-anticipated prediction market letting users trade contracts linked to sporting and financial events; DraftKings says it’ll eventually expand into other markets like entertainment and culture. | Powerball jackpot rises to $1.6 billion, setting up the fifth-largest drawing in US history tonight.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🥊 Anthony Joshua KOs influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul in the sixth round of Friday’s fight; Paul suffers broken jaw in two places requiring emergency surgery.
• 🎭 Avatar: Fire and Ash earns $88 million in domestic box office debut and $345 million globally, slightly below analysts’ expectations; animated biblical musical David earns biggest-ever opening weekend for a faith-based animated movie, with $22 million.
• 🏟️ College Football Playoffs: #5 Oregon, #6 Ole Miss, #9 Alabama, and #10 Miami all win their initial playoff game to advance to CFP quarterfinals. | NFL: See a full Week 16 recap (link)

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• ☄️ Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS made its closest approach to Earth on Friday, getting within 168 million miles; it's the third such object discovered in our solar system, giving scientists a rare chance to study an interstellar visitor.
• 🚕 Waymo halts service in San Francisco after major power outage causes its autonomous cars—stranded without traffic signals—to stall and cause jams across the city.
• 🧑‍🚀 Artemis 2 astronauts complete practice countdown for their upcoming mission to fly around the moon, currently on target for early February 2026.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🎓 Suspect in Brown University mass shooting was found dead late Thursday in New Hampshire with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, following six-day manhunt; the suspect is also linked to the slaying of an MIT professor; Trump admin suspends the visa program used by the suspected shooter shortly after he was identified as a Portuguese national who entered the US in 2017.
• 🏛️ Justice Department released thousands of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ahead of Friday deadline under new congressional law; DOJ says it’ll continue releasing materials over the next few weeks after the deadline, since there were too many files to process in time.
• 🌍 US government said it seized a second oil tanker leaving Venezuela on Saturday, and was pursuing a third vessel as of late last night. | EU commits to lending ~$105 billion to fund Ukraine’s war effort against Russia; IMF estimates the interest-free loan will cover two-thirds of Ukraine's military and economic needs through 2027. | Gaza Strip is no longer facing famine, but crisis-level hunger still persists across the region, per new UN- and WHO-backed report.

☝️ You’re looking at some this year’s most fascinating and mysterious deep sea sightings by California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Scientists used remote-controlled cameras to capture video and images 3,000+ feet below the surface in 4K Ultra HD, sometimes spotting creatures for the very first time.

🤔 Did you know? The reason why the goose becomes geese in plural form but moose doesn’t turn into “meese” can be chalked up to their origins. Moose is a “loanword,” meaning that it was incorporated into English from a foreign language with little or no modification—and in this case, the Native American Algonquian language doesn’t have a plural form for moose

📰 Worth a read: We let AI run our office vending machine. It lost hundreds of dollars.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• The 10 most significant science stories of 2025
• How Chinese food and movies became a Jewish Dec. 25 staple
• If you want your kids to stay close when you’re older, do 7 things early on

🎁⌛ 3 days till Christmas—here's your out… Give an experience, not more stuff. Rosetta Stone Lifetime Unlimited: 25 languages for $149. Buy now, pick your delivery date, and you're done. Get it here.

On Friday, we covered a new executive order signed by President Trump that will relax federal restrictions on marijuana and instruct agencies to reclassify it as a less dangerous drug (from Schedule I to Schedule III).

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, should using cannabis be legal or not?

• Legal for everyone: 67%
• Medical use only: 19%
• Not legal for everyone: 9%
• Unsure/other: 4%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 705 votes and 77 longform responses.

Monday: Forefathers’ Day

Tuesday: Initial estimate of US GDP for Q3

Wednesday: Christmas Eve; weekly US jobless claims

Thursday: Christmas Day; US markets are closed; Stranger Things drops three episodes ahead of series finale

Friday: Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins (ends Jan. 1)

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Aqu
2. Condi
3. Dorm
4. Fer
5. Leni

🐓 A Honolulu engineer managed to turn an unlikely waste product—chicken feathers—into a durable, eco-friendly fabric that could one day rival cotton. That’s one plucky invention.

1. Aqu = Water (e.g., aquatic)
2. Condi = Season (condiment)
3. Dorm = Sleep (dormitory)
4. Fer = Carry (transfer)
5. Leni = Gentle (leniency)

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