“Lawyers representing the New York Daily News and an array of news organizations suing OpenAI for allegedly stealing [sic] and distorting their reporters’ work have asked a Manhattan judge to sanction ChatGPT’s parent company, alleging the tech behemoth deleted millions of conversations they were required to hand over as evidence of copyright infringement. OpenAI continued to destroy output logs despite orders from two judges to preserve and provide them to the news organizations, new court filings allege. More than 1 million logs that had been requested — containing information the news outlets believe was based on their journalists’ reporting — were subbed out, according to court documents.” (01/07/26)
“Private employers added 41,000 jobs in December, recovering from losses in the previous month but missing the projected estimate for gains by a few thousand jobs. Dow Jones estimated the private sector would add about 48,000 jobs in the final month of the year after losing 29,000 workers in November. Gains made were coupled with a 4.4 percent year-over-year pay increase for employees, according to ADP. The South and Northeast tracked the most growth, with 54,000 new jobs in the Southern region and 40,000 in the Northeast. The West was the only region to see a decrease in jobs, with 61,000 roles cut. The decrease reflects a broader decline in roles within the information, business services and manufacturing industries.” (01/07/26)
“A federal judge has demanded an explanation from prosecutor Lindsey Halligan for continuing to use the title of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia despite another judge’s ruling that she was unlawfully occupying the role. District Judge David Novak, appointed by President Donald Trump, issued a three-page order Tuesday giving Halligan seven days to explain herself, given that District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie had found in November that the Department of Justice had violated the Constitution by appointing her as a second successive interim hire. Currie’s finding led to the dismissal of criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, two long-standing enemies of the president.” (01/07/26)
“A series of mild eruptions at the most active volcano in the Philippines has prompted the evacuation of nearly 3,000 villagers from a danger zone on its foothills, officials said Wednesday. Authorities raised the 5-step alert around Mayon Volcano in the northeastern province of Albay to level 3 on Tuesday after detecting intermittent rockfalls, some as big as cars, from its peak crater in recent days along with deadly pyroclastic flows — a fast-moving avalanche of super-hot rock fragments, ash and gas. Alert level 5 would indicate that a major explosive eruption, often with violent ejections of ash and debris and widespread ashfall, is underway. ‘This is already an eruption, a quiet one, with lava accumulating up the peak and swelling the dome, which cracked in some parts and resulted in rockfalls, some as big as cars,’ Teresito Bacolcol, the country’s chief volcanologist, told The Associated Press.” (01/07/25)
“Chinese independent refiners are expected to switch to heavy crude from sources including Iran in coming months to replace Venezuelan shipments halted since the U.S. removed the country’s president, traders and analysts said. Caracas and Washington agreed to export up to $2 billion worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend. That arrangement is likely to curtail Venezuelan supply to China, analysts say, reducing a source of cheap oil for independent refiners known as teapots. The world’s biggest crude importer is a major buyer of discounted sanctioned oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela.” (01/07/26)
“A council fighting against Yemen’s Houthi rebels [sic] said Wednesday it had expelled the leader of a separatist movement and charged him with treason after he reportedly declined to travel to Saudi Arabia for talks. The statement carried by SABA news agency controlled by anti-Houthi forces is the latest escalation between Saudi-backed forces and the Southern Transitional Council, which had been backed by the United Arab Emirates. It also further complicates the future of Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country riven by one of the Mideast’s worst conflicts for over a decade. The STC said leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi remained in Aden. It also accused Saudi Arabia of launched airstrikes in Yemen’s al-Dhale governorate, causing casualties.” (01/07/26)
“Venezuela’s military held a mass funeral in the country’s capital on Wednesday as it began to bury dozens of soldiers slain during the United States'[s] weekend operation to capture former President Nicolás Maduro. Men carried wooden caskets cloaked in the Venezuelan flag past rows of uniformed officers. Singing echoed out from a nearby church in Caracas and music from a military orchestra ceremony echoed over the cemetery, while throngs of family members and soldiers marched behind a row of caskets. As the caskets were lowered into the ground, gunfire from a military ceremony echoed out over the state-owned graveyard in a low-income neighborhood in the city’s south side. Earlier in the day, families cried and embraced next to the caskets during a wake. ” (01/07/25)
“Aldrich Ames, a former CIA agent who spied for the Soviet Union and then Russia, died in prison, according to prison records. He was 84 years old. The Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate records for Ames state he died Monday. … Ames pleaded guilty to espionage and tax evasion charges in an eastern district of Virginia courtroom on April 24, 1994, and was given life in prison as part of the plea deal for violating the Espionage Act. He was arrested that February, along with his wife, Maria Rosario Ames, on charges that they had spied for the Soviet Union and then Russia since 1985, in exchange for $2.5 million.” (01/07/26)
“A plot to kill Burkina Faso’s military leader, Capt Ibrahim Traoré, has been thwarted, the West African nation has announced. The sophisticated plan had been hatched by Lt Col Paul Henri Damiba, the military officer ousted by Traoré in September 2022, the security minister said in a late-night broadcast. ‘Our intelligence services intercepted this operation in the final hours. They had planned to assassinate the head of state and then strike other key institutions, including civilian personalities,’ said Mahamadou Sana, further alleging that the plot had been funded from neighbouring Ivory Coast. There has been no comment from either Col Damiba or Ivory Coast. Since seizing power, Capt Traoré has faced at least two coup attempts and is also grappling with growing jihadist violence that has forced millions from their homes.” (01/07/26)
“The husband of Karen Budd-Falen, a senior leader in the Department of the Interior, made millions of dollars from a Nevada mine that Budd-Falen’s agency approved, according to reporting by Public Domain and High Country News. As the associate deputy secretary, Budd-Falen is third in command at the department, which oversees the National Park Service. Her current role doesn’t require Senate confirmation. She also served in the Interior Department during President Donald Trump’s first administration. Her meetings and financial self-disclosure — or lack thereof — at the time are now coming under fire, after records showed that her family sold water rights necessary for a mining project without disclosing the hefty profit. Save Our Parks, an advocacy group for national parks, said that the ‘self-dealing goes beyond conflicts of interest into outright corruption’ in a news release.” (01/07/25)
