America
Elon Musk Launches Wikipedia Rival • Elon Musk launched Grokipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopedia, as a rival to Wikipedia. Grokipedia’s goal is
“the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” he said. Musk has previously
criticized Wikipedia for being filled with “propaganda,” and called for people to stop donating to the site. The Grokipedia site has
a minimalist appearance with little beyond a search bar for users to type in queries. It states that it has 885,279 articles. Wikipedia, meanwhile, says it has more than 7 million articles in English.
Trump Appeals NY Conviction • President Donald Trump’s lawyers asked a New York state appeals court to toss out his hush money criminal conviction, saying federal law preempts state law and there was no intent to commit a crime. Trump was convicted
in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. The president denies her
claim. It was the only one of the four criminal cases against him to go to trial. Trump was sentenced
in January to what’s known as an unconditional
36 NEWSMAX | DECEMBER 2025
discharge, leaving his
conviction on the books but sparing him jail, probation, a fine, or other punishment.
Christmas Tree Ready to Shine • A majestic Norway spruce from upstate New York has been chosen to be this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. The 75-foot tree will
be wrapped from trunk to top in more than 50,000 multicolored LED lights and crowned with a 900- pound Swarovski star. It will be illuminated
Dec. 3 during NBC’s live Christmas in Rockefeller Center broadcast.
Court Bid to Ax GOP Seat • A lawsuit seeks to redraw the boundaries of the only congressional district in New York City represented by a Republican, arguing that its current configuration dilutes the power of Black and Latino voters. The case, filed by
an election law firm on behalf of four voters, comes amid a national fight over congressional boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections, which will determine control of the narrowly divided U.S. House. The plaintiffs allege
the district, which is represented by GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, is drawn without accounting for a rise in Staten Island’s Black and Latino population and should be reconfigured to include
A
Daring Venezuelan Plot Unravels
federal agent spent 16 months in an unsuccessful attempt to get Nicolás Maduro’s pilot to surreptitiously
divert his plane to a place where U.S. authorities could arrest the Venezuelan strongman. In exchange, the agent told the pilot, Gen. Bitner Villegas, in
a clandestine meeting that he would be made a very rich man. The intrigue-filled attempt to flip the pilot, uncovered by the Associated Press, had all the elements of a Cold War spy thriller. But the plot ended in September when the pilot appeared on a popular Venezuelan TV show alongside the interior minister, who called him a “kick-ass patriot.” Bitner stood by silently, raising a clenched fist.
parts of lower Manhattan, which lean Democrat.
Swan Lake Health Check • Dozens of swans descended from a pair gifted to the central Florida city of Lakeland by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in the 1950s were rounded up for their annual health checkup. The 54 swans were
scooped up in a net by a parks and recreation staffer in a boat on Lakeland’s Lake Morton. They were placed in temporary pens and taken to an animal hospital to be weighed and checked for any infirmities. Elizabeth sent the pair
of swans as gifts to the city of Lakeland in 1957 after
the Florida city’s swan population was depleted by disease and predators.
NBA Launches Gambling Probe • The NBA reacted to the arrests of Miami guard Terry Rozier and Portland coach Chauncey Billups for their alleged role in gambling schemes by starting a review of how the league can protect the integrity of the game. “Given the spread
of legal betting to the majority of U.S. states, this is an opportune time to carefully reassess how sports betting should be regulated and how sports leagues can best protect themselves, their players, and their fans,” the NBA said.
Briefly Noted
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