Welcome to exhausted America 2025: Most adults are more than a little fine with doling out cash as gifts, and many plan to be asleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
About 6 in 10 Americans say cash or gift cards are very acceptable as holiday presents, but theyre much less likely to say that about a gift that was purchased secondhand or re-gifted, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Cash is OK for the grandkids I guess, said Nancy Wyant, 73, in rural central Iowa. But Im a gift giver.
Come New Year’s Eve, she’ll be fast asleep before 2026 rolls around. At our age, we don’t do anything, the retired bus driver said with a laugh of herself and her live-in partner. Hes set in his ways.
They’ll be joined by the 44% of Americans who say they wont stay up to greet 2026, according to the poll. About half of U.S. adults age 45 or older wont make it to midnight, compared with around one-third of adults under age 45.
Consider 23-year-old Otis Phillips in Seattle, an outlier for his age. He, too, will turn in early. Its one of the holidays that doesnt really feel special to me, said the master’s student.
Most say cash makes an acceptable holiday gift
Cash is a safer gift for younger adults. The poll found about two-thirds of Americans under 45 say cash is a very acceptable holiday gift, compared with 55% of adults age 45 or older.
Everythings too expensive nowadays. And I dont want to go buy a gift for somebody and then it turns out they dont like it. So cash, said Gabriel Antonucci, 26, a ski resort cook in Alaska, about an hour outside of Anchorage.
Most people at least grudgingly accept various gift types, with about 9 in 10 saying cash or gift cards are at least somewhat acceptable and about 6 in 10 saying the same for secondhand gifts and re-gifted items.
Teresa Pedroza, a 55-year-old mom of two adult sons in central Florida, is mostly not on board.
I don’t like it when kids say they want cash, or I should get teenagers gift cards, she said. It kind of takes some of the charm away from gift giving. But she acknowledged reaching for cards a time or two out of convenience.
About three-quarters of adults under age 45 say secondhand gifts are at least somewhat acceptable, compared with about 6 in 10 adults age 45 or older. About 4 in 10 adults age 45 or older say secondhand gifts are somewhat or very unacceptable.
Many keep holiday decor up beyond the new year
It’s not just your pesky neighbors who leave their holiday decorations up into January. About one-third of U.S. adults say theyll leave them up after New Years Day.
Its more common for people to leave their decorations up after the holiday season than to put them up early, according to the poll. About 2 in 10 Americans say they put up holiday decorations before Thanksgiving.
I just had my husband bring down the bins. If we werent expecting company, I wouldnt even bother to decorate, honestly. Im tired of doing that, said Pedroza, the Florida mom of two.
Many will celebrate Christmas Day with sports
About one-quarter of U.S. adults say theyre planning to watch sports on Christmas Day, while only 5% will head for a movie theater.
Men are much likelier than women to say theyll watch sports on Christmas, and older Americans are much more likely than younger Americans to tune in. About 2 in 10 adults under age 45 say they plan to watch sports on Christmas, compared with about 3 in 10 adults age 45 or older.
Phillips does plan to break out his red sweater with the green Christmas tree that one of his grandmothers knitted for him a couple of years ago.
She made all kinds of things for me growing up, he said. This is by far my favorite. Phillips has it in rotation for his part-time job as a grocery checkout clerk.
He’s the outlier once again. Women are much likelier than men to say theyll wear a holiday sweater or accessories.
Gifts for pets and Elf on the Shelf
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they will give a gift to their pet this year.
In Iowa, Wyant’s nearly 3-year-old boxer-Great Dane mix named Indy is among them.
She’s a very spoiled dog, Wyant said. Shes got too many toys, so she’s getting treats this year. She loves her treats.
And the red felt elf that parents move around the house every night as a Santa spy to see which kids have been naughty or nice? Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults say theyll do Elf on the Shelf.
Noooo, Pedroza said when asked if she’d ever done the elf for her kids. My younger son was very well-behaved. I didn’t have to use any kind of tactics.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,146 adults was conducted Dec. 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
By Leanne Italie and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, Associated Press
Warner Bros. is telling shareholders of the company that it believes a $72 billion buyout offer from Netflix is superior, and to reject a hostile takeover bid from Paramount Skydance.
Paramount went hostile with its bid last week, asking shareholders to reject the deal with Netflix favored by the board of Warner Bros.
Paramount is offering $30 per Warner share, or $77.9 billion, to Netflixs $27.75 per share.
A Warner Bros. merger with either company would alter the landscape in Hollywood and will face intense scrutiny from U.S. regulators as it would impact movie making, consumer streaming platforms, and, in Paramounts case, a major source of news for millions of people.
The competing offers set the stage for combining some of the most beloved entertainment properties. Netflixs vast library includes Stranger Things and Squid Game,” while the much smaller Paramount owns its Hollywood studio and major TV networks like CBS and MTV. Both covet Warner, which owns Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, and the Harry Potter franchise.
“Whichever media company, if any, ultimately secures (Warner), controls the calculus of the streaming wars and so much more, said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at research firm Forrester.
Both offers will face regulatory scrutiny, an issue President Donald Trump has already weighed in on.
Here’s what to know about the three players and what the bids mean for the entertainment industry.
A look at the offers
CEO David Zaslav has been seeking offers for Warner Bros. Discovery since at least October, when he said the company might be open to selling all or parts of its business.
Paramount said Monday it had submitted six proposals to Warner over a 12 week period before its offer was rejected in favor of Netflix.
So Paramount decided to go straight to Warner shareholders with a bid it says is worth about $79.9 billion, or $30 per share in cash. Paramount, unlike Netflix, is also offering to buy the cable assets of Warner, and asking shareholders of the company to reject the Netflix bid.
Paramount CEO Larry Ellison said the offer is worth about $18 billion more in cash than the competing cash-and-stock bid from Netflix.
The Paramount deal includes help from investors such as Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner and funds controlled by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to a regulatory filing.
Netflix is offering a combination of cash and stock valued at $27.75 per Warner share. Its offer values Warner at $72 billion, excluding debt, but it is not bidding on Warner-owned networks such as CNN and Discovery.
Before Paramount’s bid, the Netflix deal was expected to close in the next 12 to 18 months, after Warner completes its previously announced separation of its cable operations.
Competing bids make an eventual deal more likely
Matthew Dolgin, senior equity analyst at research firm Morningstar, said there are still many unknowns, including whether Netflix will now sweeten its bid.
But, he said, a competing offer makes it more likely that Warner will eventually be acquired.
With Paramount now also being involved formally with an offer to shareholders, its even more likely to us that Warner gets acquired, because its no longer a single decision that may or may not hinge on regulatory approval, he said.
Shareholders have until Jan. 8, 2026, to vote on Paramounts tender offer.
Donald Trump weighed in earlier
Another wild card could be President Trump. He already weighed in on the deal, saying that the Netflix offer to buy Warner could be a problem because of the size of the potential size of the audience.
The Republican president said he will be involved in the decision about whether the federal government should approve the deal.
Paramount’s CEO is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, an ally of Trump. Federal regulators under Trump approved Paramounts $8 billion merger with Skydance in July.
Regulatory scrutiny awaits either deal
On the Netflix offer, state or federal regulators could be most concerned about the massive size of a combined Netflix and Warner subscription service, said Morningstar’s Dolgin. Netflix is already the worlds largest streaming service.
That’s less of a concern with the Paramount deal, because its streaming service is smaller and has as smaller international footprint than Netflix. But regulators may raise red flags over the combination of the Paramount and Warner film and television studios, because relatively few of those remain, Dolgin said.
A pattern of media acquisitions
As streaming platforms have matured, more media companies are seeking growth through acquisitions.
Warner Bros. Discovery itself was created in 2022 when U.S. telecom giant AT&T Inc. spun off and then combined its WarnerMedia operations with Discovery Inc.
In 2021, Amazon said it would buy MGM, the movie and TV studio behind James Bond, Legally Blonde and Shark Tank.” Disney bought Fox’s entertainment service in 2019.
Technology always faces this pattern of startups, lots of different players, legacy companies getting in on the action, and then ultimately lots of consolidation, said Forrester’s Proulx. And this is the state that were in right now in the streamng wars saga, and in 2026 well see continued consolidation.
Mae Anderson, AP business writer
China is exploiting partnerships with U.S. researchers funded by the Department of Energy to provide the Chinese military with access to sensitive nuclear technology and other innovations with economic and national security applications, according to a congressional report published Wednesday.
The authors of the report say the U.S. must do more to protect high-tech research and ensure that the results of taxpayer-funded work don’t end up benefiting Beijing. They recommended several changes to better protect scientific research in the U.S., including new policies for the Department of Energy to use when deciding whether to fund work that involves Chinese partnerships.
The investigation is part of a congressional push to raise a firewall blocking U.S. research from boosting China’s military buildup when the two countries are locked in a tech and arms rivalry that will shape the future global order.
Investigators from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce identified more than 4,300 academic papers published between June 2023 and June of this year that involved collaborations between DOE-funded scientists and Chinese researchers. About half of the papers involved Chinese researchers affiliated with China’s military or industrial base.
Particularly concerning, investigators found that federal funds went to research collaborations with Chinese state-owned laboratories and universities that work directly for Chinas military, including some listed in a Pentagon database of Chinese military companies with operations in the U.S. The report also detailed collaborations between U.S. researchers and groups blamed for cyberattacks as well as human rights abuses in China.
The Energy Department routinely funds advanced research into nuclear energy and the development and disposal of nuclear weaponry, along with a long list of other high-tech fields like quantum computing, materials science and physics. It doles out hundreds of millions of dollars each year for research. The department oversees 17 national laboratories that have led the development in many technologies.
The report followed a number of congressional investigations into federally funded research involving Chinese scientists and researchers. Last year, a report released by Republicans found that partnerships between U.S. and Chinese universities over the past decade had allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help Beijing develop critical technology that could help strengthen its military. Another investigation this year revealed that the Pentagon in a recent two-year period funded hundreds of projects in collaboration with Chinese entities linked to China’s defense industry.
The Energy Department has failed for decades to take steps to ensure the research it funds doesn’t benefit China, the report’s authors found. They made several recommendations to tighten the rules, including a new standardized approach to assessing the national security risks of research, as well as requirements that the department share information about research ties with China with other U.S. government agencies to make it easier to spot problems.
These longstanding policy failures and inaction have left taxpayer-funded research vulnerable to exploitation by Chinas defense research and industrial base and state-directed technology transfer activities, the authors concluded.
The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to questions about the report and its recommendations. A message seeking comment was left with the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the select committee, said in a statement that the investigation reveals a deeply alarming problem: The Department of Energy failed to ensure the security of its research and it put American taxpayers on the hook for funding the military rise of our nations foremost adversary.
Moolenaar this year introduced legislation aimed at preventing research funding in science and technology and defense from going to collaborations or partnerships with foreign adversary-controlled entities that pose a national security risk.
The legislation cleared the House but failed to advance to become part of the annual sweeping defense policy bill. It was met with strong opposition from scientists and researchers, who argued that the measures were too broad and could chill collaboration and undermine America’s competitive edge in science and technology.
In an October letter, a group of more than 750 faculty members and senior staffers from American universities told congressional leaders overseeing the armed services that the U.S. is in a global competition for talent. They called for very careful and targeted measures for risk management” to address security concerns.
David Klepper and Didi Tang, Associated Press
A private equity firm owned by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is no longer backing Paramount’s hostile acquisition bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the firm confirmed Tuesday.Days after Warner agreed to be bought by Netflix in early December, Paramount launched a rival bid that seeks to bypass Warner’s management and appeal directly to its shareholders with more money. Paramount is offering $30 per Warner share to Netflix’s $27.75.Warner, one of the “big five” Hollywood studios, owns Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, the DC Comics universe and the Harry Potter franchise. Experts say its acquisition could supercharge the winning company and reshape the streaming wars, either by catapulting Netflix further ahead of top competitors or by cementing a new power player in Paramount.Paramount, which is significantly smaller than Netflix, said its decision to circumvent Warner’s top managers came after they “never engaged meaningfully” with several earlier offers by the company.Paramount made the details of its new offer public and gave Warner shareholders an option to tender their shares selling them directly at a set price in support of its bid. The company is offering to buy Warner’s entire portfolio, including cable networks like CNN that Netflix excluded from its bid.In its appeal to shareholders, Paramount argued its offer may be more likely to pass regulatory scrutiny from the Trump administration.The president has said the Warner and Netflix deal “could be a problem” due to the size of the combined market share.Kushner’s decision to pull his firm’s financial backing takes away a possible Paramount advantage to win over Trump. The amount Kushner’s Affinity Partners was contributing to the offer was not disclosed in Paramount’s latest SEC filings.“With two strong competitors vying to secure the future of this unique American asset, Affinity has decided no longer to pursue the opportunity,” the firm said in a statement. “The dynamics of the investment have changed significantly since we initially became involved in October. We continue to believe there is a strong strategic rationale for Paramount’s offer.”Paramount’s bid is still backed by wealth funds run by three governments in the Persian Gulf, widely reported as Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.Paramount, which owns which owns CBS, MTV and the streaming service Paramount+, is newly headed by David Ellison, the son of a major Trump donor. But Trump has recently criticized the Ellisons for his treatment by CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”“If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!” Trump said Tuesday on Truth Social.Warner is reviewing Paramount’s offer and is expected to tell shareholders soon whether it’s a better deal than selling to Netflix.
Hannah Schoenbaum, Associated Press
Want to know how much you spent on Uber Eats this past year? If the answer is no, bad luck.
Just days after Saturday Night Live dropped a satirical skit about an “Uber Eats wrapped,” Uber brought the feature to life with a year-end recap.
Around this time each year, platforms from Spotify to YouTube start rolling out personalized recaps, breaking down how users spent their time over the past 12 months. The next logical step? A full accounting of every Uber trip taken and every guilt-ridden Uber Eats order placed this year.
On Monday, the company launched its new year-in-review feature called YOUBER, which compiles users activity across both Uber and Uber Eats. The recap shows where you went, how often you splurged on Uber Comfort, and just how frequently you returned to the same takeout spot. If you rank in the top 1% of a restaurants customers, YOUBER will let you know, whether or not that realization fills you with pride or shame.
In the SNL sketch, one character learns hes eaten more chicken nuggets than 99% of users worldwide. Another is assigned an Uber Eats agea riff on Spotifys listening ageonly to be told his is Dead. Better than mine, his wife replies. 52 and fat.
The parody recap also shows users the compromising and unflattering ways they appeared to the delivery driver while grabbing their food from their doorway. Finally, the app shows personalized messages from customers most frequented restaurants, and calculates the total spent on deliveriesin this case, $24,000.
Ubers real version is slightly less brutal. The YOUBER featurecurrently available only in the U.S.can be accessed via a banner in the app and presents users with a card of their stats.
That includes total rides, top order, most-used ride type, Uber rating, and one of 14 assigned Uber Personality Profiles, such as Do-Gooder for Uber Electric loyalists, Rise & Shiner for early-morning riders, or Delivery Darling for users who live for deliveries of all kinds. Of course, all shareable on social media if youre brave enough.
Alongside individual recaps, Uber also shared global highlights from its 2025 data. The longest ride of the year stretched nearly 700 miles from Austin, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida, taking around 11 hours. Meanwhile, Uber Eats largest order of the year was a Chinese food delivery containing more than 180 items.
The proposed $85 billion merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroads has lost the support of two unions that represent more than half their workers over concerns it will jeopardize safety and jobs, raise shipping rates and consumer prices, and cause significant disruptions.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division are among the most prominent critics of the deal to create the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. When they officially announce their decision Wednesday, they will join the American Chemistry Council, an assortment of agricultural groups, and competing railroad BNSF in raising concerns the merger would hurt competition.
The deal has the support of the nation’s largest rail union, which represents conductors and hundreds of individual shippers, and President Donald Trump has said the deal sounds good to him. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board will weigh the opinions of all stakeholders to determine whether the merger is in the public interest once the railroads file their formal application, which is expected later this week.
Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena has argued that creating a railroad that stretches from coast to coast would be good for the economy because without the need for a hand-off between railroads in the middle of the country rail shipments would move faster, meaning it could better compete against trucking.
But after months of meetings with Vena and other executives, the presidents of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division unionsboth affiliated with the Teamsterssaid they have serious doubts about the potential benefits, and warned the promises Vena made to preserve jobs aren’t detailed enough to be reliable. The unions say there’s nothing to keep the companies from transferring jobs hundreds of miles away or to prevent the sale of some UP lines to short-line railroads that pay less.
Union Pacific said in a statement that every employee with a union job at the time of the merger will continue to have one. Weve formalized this jobs-for-life agreement with five unions.
Vena has acknowledged that the number of employees at the combined railroad could still shrink through attrition, if workers leave on their own.
Rail unions worry about safety and shippers
This proposed monopoly will end up costing businesses more and those costs will be passed on to consumers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen National President Mark Wallace said. “We believe this transcontinental railroad will make shipping by rail less attractive as the merged carrier passes off rail lines that serve small towns, factories and farms to short line railroads while running miles-long slow-moving trains on the main line. For rail customers it will be a choice between Hell or the highway.’
The unions say they are worried that safety could deteriorate after a merger, because Union Pacific hasn’t made the same improvements Norfolk Southern has in the two and a half years since the disastrous derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Vena and Norfolk Southern CEO Mark George have said they are optimistic the merger will be approved because they believe it will be good for the country, their customers and rail workers. Shareholders of both railroads overwhelmingly support it.
Deal faces stringent review
The Surface Transportation Board will review the deal under a tough new standard it adopted in 2001 after a series of disastrous rail mergers in the 1990s that led to shipment delays of weeks or even months. These untested rules require any merger of the six largest railroads to be in the public interest and show that it will enhance competition. When the Surface Transportation Board approved the first major rail merger in more than two decades two years ago, it used a less stringent standard allowing Canadian Pacific’s $31 billion acquisition of Kansas City Southern.
Transportation expert and DePaul University Professor Joe Schwieterman said many people have questioned the Union Pacific merger because of its scope and the likelihood that it could trigger another merger, resulting in only two American railroads. Everyone will examine the merger application closely, Schwieterman said.
Currently, Norfolk Southern and CSX serve the eastern U.S. while Union Pacific and BNSF serve the west, and the two major Canadian rails compete where they can with their tracks crossing Canada and extending into the United States and Mexico.
A merged Union Pacific would likely control more than 40% of the nations freight.
This merger is like nothing weve seen before. Its creating a railroad of such enormous scope that its somewhat of a paradigm shift, Schwieterman said.
Competitors question the benefits
BNSF’s Chief of Staff Zak Andersen said his railroad, which is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is convinced this merger would be bad for competition and lead to higher rates and fewer options for shippers.
No customer is asking for this. This is strictly a Wall Street play for shareholders, Andersen said.
Earlier this fall, Buffett and CPKC’s CEO both said they weren’t interested in any kind of rail merger right now. Instead, they believe the railroads should continue to find ways to cooperate to deliver shipments more quickly, which can be done without all the complications of a merger. Still, CSX decided to replace its CEO this fall with an executive who has a background leading companies through major mergers.
Josh Funk, AP transportation writer
Fernando Moreno has been on dialysis for about two years, enduring an “unbearable” wait for a new kidney to save his life. His limited world of social contacts has meant that his hopes have hinged on inching up the national waiting list for a transplant.That was until earlier this year, when the Philadelphia hospital where he receives treatment connected him with a promising pilot project that has paired him with “angel advocates” Good Samaritan strangers scattered around the country who leverage their own social media contacts to share his story.So far, the Great Social Experiment, as it was named by its founder, Los Angeles filmmaker David Krissman, hasn’t found the Vineland, New Jersey, truck driver a living kidney donor. But there are encouraging early signs the angel advocate approach is working, and there’s no question it has given Moreno new optimism.“This process is great,” said Moreno, 50, whose own father died of kidney failure at 65. “I’m just hoping there will be somebody out there that’s willing to take a chance.”Moreno is part of a pilot program with 15 patients that began in May at three Pennsylvania hospitals. It’s testing whether motivated, volunteer strangers can help improve the chances of finding a life-saving match for a new kidney particularly for people with limited social networks.“We know how this has always been done, and we’re trying to put that on steroids and really get them the help that they need,” Krissman said. “Most patients are too sick to do this on their own many don’t have the skills to do it on their own.”
Seeking a blueprint for the future
The Gift of Life Donor Program, which serves as the organ procurement network for eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware, is supporting the pilot program with a grant of more than $100,000 from its foundation.So far, two of the five patients in the program through Temple University Hospital have found kidney donors, and one is preparing for surgery, according to Ryan Ihlenfeldt, the hospital’s director of clinical transplant services. One of the five patients at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Harrisburg has also undergone a transplant.The approach Krissman has developed is something new, said Richard Hasz Jr., Gift of Life’s chief executive, and may help identify the types of messages that attract and motivate potential live kidney donors.“This is the first of its kind that I’m aware of,” Hasz said. “That’s why, I think, the foundation was so interested in doing it studying it and hopefully publishing it so we can create that blueprint, if you will, for the future.”Gift of Life agreed to fund a broader test and helped Krissman identify five patients each at Temple, UPMC-Harrisburg and Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.Hasz said the pilot program’s approach combines social media outreach with Krissman’s storytelling talents and aggressive efforts to mobilize the patients’ own connections.“We know that patients who are waiting don’t always have the energy or the resources to do this themselves,” Hasz said.There have been other ways for patients to set up “microsites” where they can tell their stories and seek a donor match. But the pilot program currently underway in Pennsylvania aims to connect patients with a wide universe of potential donors and produce videos and other ways to spread their message.
Potential to ‘snowball’
Krissman’s bout with an illness about two decades ago inspired him to tackle the sticky challenge of increasing live kidney donations. He was debilitated for more than a year before medication helped him recover, explaining, “It gave me my life back. And I never forgot what it’s like to be chronically sick.”After producing a podcast on kidney transplantation, Krissman recruited four patients through Facebook who were waiting for kidneys. He was able to help two of them. A second effort, a pilot program with three patients in North Carolina that ended last year, helped match all three with living donors.Becca Brown, director of transplant services at UPMC-Harrisburg, thinks it might be a game changer.“There’s potential for this to really snowball,” Brown said. “I’m anxious to see what happens and if we can roll it out to other patients.”Some 90,000 people in the United States are on a list for a kidney transplant, and most of the roughly 28,000 kidneys that were transplanted last year came from deceased donors. Living kidney donations are hard to come by about 6,400 were transplanted last year. Thousands die each year waiting for an organ transplant in the United States.Living kidney donations can be a better match, reducing the risk of organ rejection. They allow for surgery to be planned for a time that is optimal for the donor, the recipient and the transplant team. And, the foundation says, living donor kidneys, on average, last longer than kidneys from deceased donors.The National Kidney Foundation says living donors must be at least 18 years old, although some transplant centers set the minimum age at 21. Potential donors get screened for health problems and can be ruled out if they have uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer, or if they are smokers.Many living donors make “directed donations” to specify who will get their kidney. Nondirected donations are made anonymously to a patient.
A way to make a difference
Francis Beaumier, a 38-year-old information technology worker from Green Bay, Wisconsin, came into contact with the angel advocate program after being a double living donor a kidney and part of his liver.He sees the program as “a great little way for everyone to make a small difference.”Another angel advocate, Holly Armstrong, was also a living donor. She hopes her efforts will plant a seed.“Some people might just keep scrolling,” said Armstrong, who lives in Lake Wiley, South Carolina. “But there might be someone like me, where they stop scrolling and say, ‘This boy needs a kidney.'”A study released last year found that people who volunteer to donate a kidney are at a lower risk of death from the operation than doctors had previously thought. Tracking 30 years of living kidney donations, researchers found fewer than 1 in every 10,000 donors died within three months of the surgery. Newer and safer surgical techniques were credited for dropping the risk from 3 deaths per 10,000 living donors.Temple serves a large cohort of poorer patients who can have difficulty understanding health issues and who suffer from uncontrolled hypertension and diabetes, Ihlenfeldt, who works there, said.“What David’s trying to do is coalesce a network of support around these patients who are sharing the story for them,” Ihlenfeldt said.
Rallying for Ahmad
At a kickoff event in a Harrisburg meeting room for kidney patient Ahmad Collins, a couple dozen friends and family listened with rapt attention as Krissman went over the game plan, answering questions and describing the transplant processCollins, a 50-year-old city government worker and former Penn State linebacker, has needed 10 hours a night of dialysis since a medical procedure left him with damaged kidneys late last year.His mind was on the strangers who might decide to pitch in.“They can be a superhero, so to speak,” Collins said. “They can have the opportunity to save somebody’s life, and not too many times in life do you have that opportunity.”
Mark Scolforo, Associated Press
The Great British Railways has a great British brand.
The U.K.’s new public railway is leaning on well-known, classic symbolism for its visual identity unveiled this month. Train liveries for the new brand will show a design of a stylized Union Jack flag, while the new logo brings back an old double arrow concept designed in 1965 by Gerald Barney for the old state-run British Rail. The brand’s font is the simple, modern sans-serif Rail Alphabet 2, an updated version of the British Rail font designed in the 1960s by Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir.
The new brand was designed in house by the U.K.’s Department for Transport and it will begin rolling out on trains, stations, signage, websites, and a ticketing app by spring 2026. The branding is an outward manifestation of a wider goal to deliver better public transportation. Already, they’ve frozen rail fare for the first time in 30 years.
[Image: GBR]
“This isn’t just a paint job,” U.K. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said in a statement. Instead, “it represents a new railway, casting off the frustrations of the past and focused entirely on delivering a proper public service for passengers.”
A new take on an old brand
Modern, minimalist, and geometric, Barney’s original 1965 double arrow logo for British Rail used the lines and angles of the U.K. flag to cleverly communicate two-way transportation. The mark also has staying power.
[Image: GBR]
Even after British Rail began to be privatized in the 1990s, the double arrow mark remained in use as an official rail symbol in the U.K. at stations and on tickets. And just as with classic mid-century civic design in the U.S., there’s similarly an audience for print standards manuals of the old British Rail brand.
The U.K. is in the process of renationalizing its railway companies following challenges like a drop in riders following the pandemic and high ticket prices. Both Conservative and Labour governments have pushed to make more of the country’s railways public, and for now, nine train operators, representing a third of all passenger train traffic in Great Britain, are nationalized. The remaining seven are expected to be nationalized by October 2027.
[Image: GBR]
Bringing the double arrow logo back, refining an old, classic font, and using a flag-inspired livery design is a smart move that keeps the public’s ownership of the brand front and center with well known and widely understood symbolism. If Great British Railways can deliver on a better experience for riders, the brand could become an example of civic design and public ownership done right.
Ryan Coogler’s bluesy vampire thriller “Sinners,” the big screen musical “Wicked: For Good” and the Netflix phenomenon “KPop Demon Hunters” are all a step closer to an Oscar nomination. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released shortlists for 12 categories Tuesday, including for best song, score, international and documentary film, cinematography and this year’s new prize, casting.“Sinners” and “Wicked: For Good” received the most shortlist mentions with eight each, including makeup and hair, sound, visual effects, score, casting and cinematography. Both have two original songs advancing as well. For “Wicked” it’s Stephen Schwartz’s “The Girl in the Bubble” and “No Place Like Home.” For “Sinners,” it’s Ludwig Göransson, Miles Caton and Alice Smith’s “Last Time (I Seen the Sun),” and Göransson and Raphael Saadiq’s “I Lied to You.”The “KPop Demon Hunters” hit “Golden,” by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick, was another shortlisted song alongside other notable artists like: Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner for “Train Dreams”; John Mayer, Ed Sheeran and Blake Slatkin for the “F1” song “Drive”; Sara Bareilles, Brandi Carlile and Andrea Gibson for “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” from “Come See Me In the Good Light”; and Miley Cyrus, Simon Franglen, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “Dream as One” from “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Diane Warren also might be on her way to a 17th nomination with “Dear Me” from “Diane Warren: Relentless.”One of the highest profile shortlist categories is the best international feature, where 15 films were named including “Sentimental Value” (Norway), “Sirât” (Spain), “No Other Choice” (South Korea), “The Secret Agent” (Brazil), “It Was Just an Accident” (France), “The Voice of Hind Rajab” (Tunisia), “Sound of Falling” (Germany) and “The President’s Cake” (Iraq).Notable documentaries among the 15 include “My Undesirable Friends: Part I Last Air in Moscow,” “The Perfect Neighbor,” “The Alabama Solution,” “Come See Me in the Good Light,” “Cover-Up” and Mstyslav Chernov’s “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a co-production between The Associated Press and PBS Frontline.The Oscars’ new award for casting shortlisted 10 films that will vie for the five nomination slots: “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners,” “Sirt,” “Weapons,” and “Wicked: For Good.” Notably “Jay Kelly and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” did not make the list.Composers who made the shortlist for best score include Göransson (“Sinners”), Jonny Greenwood (“One Battle After Another”), Max Richter (“Hamnet”), Alexandre Desplat (“Frankenstein”) and Kangding Ray (“Sirt”).For the most part, shortlists are determined by members in their respective categories, though the specifics vary from branch to branch: Some have committees, some have minimum viewing requirements.As most of the shortlists are in below-the-line categories celebrating crafts like sound and visual effects, there are also films that aren’t necessarily the most obvious of Oscar contenders like “The Alto Knights,” shortlisted in hair and makeup, as well as the widely panned “Tron: Ares” and “The Electric State,” both shortlisted for visual effects. “Tron: Ares” also made the lists for score and song with Nine Inch Nails’ “As Alive As You Need Me To Be”.The lists will narrow to five when final nominations are announced on Jan. 22. The 98th Oscars, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will air live on ABC on March 15 at 7 p.m. ET.
Lindsey Bahr, AP Film Writer
Shares of publicly traded companies operating in the cannabis space continue to perform strongly as the Trump administration considers reclassifying marijuana.
Reports first emerged last week that the Trump administration might change marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, which would lessen restrictions on it.
On Monday, President Trump told reporters that he was considering the reclassification.
We are considering that because a lot of people want to see itthe reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that cant be done unless you reclassify, Trump stated, according to CNN. So, we are looking at that very strongly.
Prior to Trumps announcement, a White House official told Fast Company that the administration had yet to make a final decision about reclassification. We have reached out to the White House about its current plans and will update this post if we hear back.
Cannabis brands see their shares rise
The potential of a reclassification has been enough to bolster shares of cannabis companies since the opening bell on Friday. Below are just some of the impressive jumps to watch.
Tilray Brands Inc. (Nasdaq:TLRY)
Closing on Tuesday: 27.54%
Five-day growth: 71.97%
Premarket growth on Wednesday: 3.66%
Cresco Labs Inc (OTCQX: CRLBF)
Closing on Tuesday: 34.93%
Five-day growth: 123.11%
After-hours growth: -0.23%
Canopy Growth Corp. (Nasdaq:CGC)
Closing on Tuesday: 10.24%
Five-day growth: 61.49%
Premarket growth on Wednesday: 6.01%
Curaleaf Holdings Inc. (OTCQX:CURLF)
Closing on Tuesday: 23.18%
Five-day growth: 67.89%
After-hours growth: 0.38%
Trulieve Cannabis Corp. (CNSX: TRUL)
Closing on Tuesday: 12.58%
Five-day growth: 76.40%
After-hours and premarket: N/A
Each of these stocks are still significantly down from highs in early 2021, during the early Biden era, when marijuana reform excitement seemingly peaked.
Whats the difference between Schedule I and Schedule III?
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) defines Schedule I drugs as those with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Marijuana currently sits on this list alongside heroin, ecstasy, LSD, peyote, and more.
The DEA states that Schedule III drugs are those with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Right now, that list includes anabolic steroids, ketamine, Tylenol with codeine, and testosterone.
If the change occurs, marijuana would be considered less dangerous than Schedule II drugs, which have a high potential for abuse, such as Adderall, cocaine, fentanyl, and Ritalin.
Reclassifying marijuana would have no impact on its federal legality.
