⚡ Trump Media to Merge With Fusion Firm TAE Technologies in $6B Deal – Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, has agreed to merge with nuclear fusion developer TAE Technologies in an all-stock deal valued at more than $6 billion. The very unusual combination would transform Trump Media into one of the first publicly traded fusion-energy companies, with shareholders of each firm expected to own roughly half of the combined entity. In the list of headlines I didn’t see coming, this one probably ranks at the top.

✈️ American Airlines No Longer Lets Basic Economy Flyers Earn Miles – American Airlines has officially eliminated AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points earnings on Basic Economy tickets purchased on or after December 17, 2025, meaning flyers opting for the cheapest fare will no longer receive any rewards or progress toward elite status for those flights, a significant shift in the airline’s loyalty program designed to push more travelers toward higher-priced fare classes. Hard not to be upset at this one.

☁️ Palo Alto Networks Announces Multibillion-Dollar Deal With Google Cloud – Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud have expanded their strategic partnership in a multibillion-dollar agreement that’s reportedly one of Google Cloud’s largest ever security services deals, with amounts approaching $10 billion over several years, according to sources; the pact deepens collaboration to secure enterprise AI and cloud deployments by integrating Palo Alto’s Prisma AIRS security platform with Google Cloud’s AI and infrastructure tools, migrating key Palo Alto workloads to Google Cloud and jointly developing AI-driven cybersecurity solutions as demand for robust cloud and AI defenses surges.

In a historic pivot that ends years of legal limbo, TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have officially signed binding agreements to spin off the platform’s U.S. operations into a new entity. According to internal memos and reports, the deal, which is expected to close on January 22, 2026, creates a joint venture named TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. This new entity will be majority-owned by a consortium of American and allied investors led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, who will each hold a 15% stake. By capping ByteDance’s direct ownership at 19.9%, the agreement technically satisfies the "divest-or-ban" law passed by Congress, ensuring that 170 million Americans don't lose access to their favorite short-form video app.

Retraining the Secret Sauce
The most critical technical component of the deal involves TikTok’s hyper-addictive recommendation algorithm. Under the new arrangement, Oracle will act as a "trusted security partner," hosting all U.S. user data on its domestic cloud infrastructure. More importantly, the algorithm will be completely retrained using only U.S. data to eliminate concerns of foreign manipulation or propaganda. While ByteDance will continue to license the underlying technology, the new U.S. venture will have exclusive authority over content moderation and policy decisions within the country. This walled garden approach is designed to ensure that what Americans see on their feeds is governed by an American board of directors, not by interests in Beijing.

The Trump Factor
The finalization of this deal is a significant political victory for President Donald Trump, who spent his first days back in office signing executive orders to keep the app running while negotiations continued. By involving longtime ally and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the administration has effectively brought TikTok into the fold of American Big Tech, shifting the narrative from a national security threat to a lucrative investment opportunity for U.S. billionaires.

A New Blueprint for Digital Sovereignty
The recent deal fundamentally redefines the world's approach to the Splinternet , the increasing fragmentation of the global internet along national lines moving past the old binary choice of total freedom or outright ban to introduce a complex, third model: Corporate Digital Sovereignty.

By compelling a foreign company to localize its data, ownership, and algorithms, the U.S. has established a powerful precedent that other nations are expected to adopt to exert control over major platforms like X, Meta, and future AI innovators. In the coming years, TikTok’s U.S. pivot will determine whether the platform can thrive under American oversight without losing its creative energy, or whether this ambitious handshake marks the beginning of a cautious, corporate-controlled chapter for short-form video. It will be fascinating to see it play out.

Less than $100k is left in The Rudolph, a 9-bed, 3-bath PadSplit in Mesa, AZ, designed to deliver strong cash flow from launch. The 2,300+ square foot property features an efficient layout built to maximize per-room revenue in a proven submarket.

mogul secured a de-risked structure in which the seller fully furnishes the asset and launches it on PadSplit prior to closing, allowing occupancy to ramp early and reduce execution risk.

The Rudolph is underwritten for approximately $76,800 in Year 1 rental income, with upside as the property stabilizes. This off-market opportunity builds on mogul’s strong PadSplit performance in Arizona, with limited remaining allocation available.

INVEST TODAY

• President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to accelerate the review and potential reclassification of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, following sustained lobbying from the cannabis industry. The order seeks to ease federal restrictions affecting research, banking, and commercial activity, marking a notable shift in U.S. drug policy.
• Disney and director James Cameron are facing a federal copyright lawsuit in California from 3D animator Eric Ryder, who claims that Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water unlawfully copied key elements from his unpublished sci‑fi story KRZ, including anthropomorphic beings, oceanic worlds and a life‑extending animal‑based substance, and is seeking at least $500 million in damages and an injunction to block the release of the new Avatar film Fire and Ash. It’s not the first time Ryder has filed a suit like this, so not sure how much stock to put into it.
• Viewers around the world streamed more than 700 million hours of podcasts on YouTube via TVs and other living-room devices in October 2025, nearly doubling the roughly 400 million hours watched on TV in the same month a year earlier, as video podcasts increasingly draw audiences away from traditional cable and streaming.

It’s been a little while since my last Stephen King recommendation, so it feels only right to come back with one of the big ones. This one is a doorstop of a novel in the best way, where King takes a world ending catastrophe and uses it as the starting gun for something even more gripping: what people become when the rules, routines, and illusions of safety fall away.

What makes The Stand great isn’t just the scale (though man it’s absolutely enormous), it’s the cast. King gives you a whole cross-section of humanity and somehow makes you care about them as the map redraws itself around their choices. The book moves from raw survival into a larger clash of ideas, with good and evil pulling at people like gravity.

If you’ve never read it, it’s a real commitment, but one that pays off in a big way. It’s dark, hopeful, unsettling, and strangely comforting all at once, like being reminded that even at the end of the world, community matters, stories matter, and the smallest choices can still carry enormous weight.

⭐ 4.85 / 5.0 in my book (no pun intended)

1. “You're hunting something that can't be killed”
2. “Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?”
3. "If you can do square roots in your head, you can make choices"

We usually see only an arc because the ground blocks the rest, but if you were in an airplane or high up, you could see a complete circular rainbow.

1. Predator Badlands (2025) Thia
2. Wicked (2024) Glinda
3. Pluribus (2025) Carol