The Snowflake and the Witness

One distinct memory from my childhood is from the days leading up to Christmas. It was snowing outside, the flurries rushing this way and that, riding the wind.

It was cold out there, but I was inside and warm. I had my nose pressed up against the window. 

Someone had told me that every snowflake was unique — all million billion trillion of them.

As I was thinking about that, wondering how it could possibly be true, or even how anyone could be sure about it, one tiny snowflake crashed into the other side of the window, and melted away right before my eyes.

As I watched its watery trail side away, I thought that if that snowflake was truly one of a kind, I had just witnessed its last moment.

But it turned out the snowflake wasn’t really gone. When I looked a little while later, it had joined together with the other snowflakes hitting my window to form an icicle.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Takes America’s ‘Imperial Presidency’ to a New Level (NYT)

• Zelensky moves towards demilitarised zones in latest peace plan for Ukraine (BBC)

• New Epstein files mention Trump (NPR)

• Trump’s Vanity Fleet (Atlantic)

• Controversial pulled CBS segment featured work from Berkeley research students (SFGate)

• Supreme Court Refuses to Allow National Guard Deployment in Chicago (NYT)

• ACA subsidies are expiring. Here’s who the lapse will hit hardest (CNBC)

• Why restricting graduate loans will bankrupt America’s talent supply chain (Fortune)

• Student Loan Borrowers in Default Could See Wages Garnished in Early 2026 (NYT)

• America’s hidden economic crisis (Business Insider)

• Attys Say ICE Won’t Let Them Talk To Detained US Citizen (Law360)

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported, can spend Christmas with family (AP)

• Student Loan Borrowers in Default Could See Wages Garnished in Early 2026 (NYT)

• TPUSA Turns Charlie Kirk’s Death Tent Into Selfie Station at AmericaFest (Daily Kos)

• J. D. Vance Cozies Up to Anti-Semitism (Atlantic)

• The Trump administration has a new target as part of its broader attack on government policies aimed at boosting underrepresented groups in the country’s workforce — blind workers. [HuffPost] 

• Poll: Major allies see US as unreliable and destabilizing (Politico)

• FCC blacklists foreign-made drones over security, spying concerns (The Hill)

• Oil Futures Slip With Venezuela, Russia-Ukraine in Focus (WSJ)

• US strikes another alleged drug-smuggling boat in eastern Pacific (AP)

• The U.S. economy grew robustly as Americans continued to spend (NPR)

• She thought a predator was grooming her daughter. It was an AI chatbot. (WP)

• Trump, 79, Rants Incoherently About Robots and AI (Daily Beast)

• America’s risky bet on hydrocarbons might hurt it in the AI race (Financial Times)

• A godfather of AI shares the career advice he’d give to his 4-year-old grandson as AI displaces jobs (Business Insider)

• Why the A.I. Rally (and the Bubble Talk) Could Continue Next Year (NYT)

• Report Finds More Americans Using GoFundMe For Basic Necessities (Onion)