Modern Day Jackie O

Good morning!

We have a landmark ruling coming out of a New York court this week.

They ruled that FISA section 702 surveillance of a US resident was unconstitutional and violated the 4th amendment. This is the beginning of justice for Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing efforts marking warrantless surveillance practices in question.

Snowden’s defection to Russia after whistleblowing was super controversial in the intelligence community. It was confirmed two weeks ago that Snowden is still living as a permanent citizen in Russia although his exact whereabouts are kept secret for security reasons.

We’ll see how this ruling shapes future conversations around balancing national security and residential privacy!

To the news. ⬇️ 

Arts + Culture

A 1st century Roman statue of Greek Goddess Athena will be at Chicago's Wrightwood 659 starting Jan 25, its first public debut in nearly 300 years

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival kicked off yesterday and runs through Sunday.

The internet has been loud with opinions about whether the New Balance "Snoafer" is really a sneaker, a sneaker-loafer without shoestrings.

Politics

Trump spoke and received questions at the World Economic Forum yesterday and urged several countries to work together to end the Ukraine war.

Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe has been confirmed as CIA director.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship.

A Republican House member has introduced an amendment that would allow Trump to run for a third term.

Trump orders release of JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr. assassination documents with 15 days to plan release for JFK and 45 to figure out release of RFK and MLK Jr.

Business + Tech

A class action lawsuit has been brought on Apple over 'forever chemicals' or PFAS in Apple watch bands.

The introduction of the Apple Macintosh personal computer was 41 years ago today.

Ford recalls 273,000 Broncos and Mavericks over battery problems.

Health + Science

A study in Nature identifies the human ear being a product of evolution from fish gills.

Isomorphic Labs, a Google company, is using AI to develop drugs that are on their way to trial by 2026.

European Storm Eowyn leaves a third of Ireland without power.

China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) project that they call the "artificial sun" just set a world record for maintaining plasma for 1066 seconds at 100 million degrees celsius.

Have a great rest of your Friday! 🎉 Talk to someone about the world this weekend.

XOXO,

Jackie