Good evening. We have breaking news right now. Your pressure worked. Jimmy Kimmel will return on air tomorrow night.
Meanwhile, this afternoon I’m tracking a seismic shift in the U.S. social-media landscape: reports say President Trump will sign a deal this week that effectively hands control of TikTok’s recommendation engine to Oracle and a small group of U.S. investors — a move that would see TikTok’s algorithm copied, rebuilt, and retrained on U.S. data under American ownership.
Pause and imagine what that means: today Meta is associated with Zuckerberg, X with Musk — tomorrow, TikTok could be under the influence of Larry Ellison and a handful of politically connected investors. Many experts warn that concentrating platform control in so few hands, especially hands aligned with conservative media interests, will tilt the information ecosystem sharply to the right and squeeze out independent voices that challenge this White House.
That’s why independence matters now more than ever. I will keep holding power to account, demanding the full truth, and pushing back where others fall silent. But I can’t do this alone. Your subscription funds this work — it keeps us independent, investigative, and uncompromising. As we grow, we’ll expand coverage, amplify dissident voices, and build a platform that resists censorship from any side.
If you believe in fearless journalism, subscribe today. Join me — because when the media landscape narrows, it’s our collective voice that protects democracy.
Subscribe
With that, here’s what you missed:
After significant public pressure, Disney has allowed Jimmy Kimmel back on air. In a new statement, Disney writes: “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday."
As part of a Trump-brokered deal to prevent TikTok’s US ban, the app’s algorithm will be copied and retrained solely on US user data, overseen by Oracle and a new joint venture of American investors; the plan includes auditing TikTok’s source code, creating a US-only recommendation system, and pausing enforcement deadlines for 120 days, though analysts warn the changes could hurt user experience and the app’s value if it limits Americans’ access to global content.
The White House strongly defended border czar Tom Homan after a closed DOJ bribery probe, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the case politically motivated and insisting Homan “did absolutely nothing wrong,” denying he accepted $50,000 from undercover FBI agents; she framed the investigation as Biden-era weaponization of the Justice Department, while stressing Trump and the administration stand by Homan, a key ally in carrying out the president’s hardline immigration agenda.
In response, the MSNBC reporter who broke the story, Carol Denning, confirmed that she reviewed documents from the FBI which outlined that Homan did in fact take the cash from undercover agents. The White House could easily clear this up by simply releasing the files and the tape.
The White House defended Trump’s pressure on the Justice Department to probe political opponents, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisting they “won’t tolerate gaslighting” from the media, framing Biden as the one who weaponized the DoJ, and justifying Trump’s refusal to accept findings from a fired US attorney by saying he has the right to demand accountability from those who sought to jail him and damage his businesses.
Over 400 Hollywood figures, among them Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Aniston, and Selena Gomez, signed an ACLU-led open letter denouncing Disney’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after Kimmel’s remarks on Charlie Kirk’s death; the letter warns that government pressure on artists and media constitutes a grave threat to free expression, likening the moment to a “modern McCarthy era” and urging Americans across the political spectrum to stand up against censorship.
New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani withdrew from a local ABC town hall in protest of the network’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, denouncing Disney’s “cowardice” under Trump administration pressure and warning it signaled the First Amendment could no longer be relied upon; he accused Trump, Disney, Andrew Cuomo, and Eric Adams of enabling authoritarianism, while pledging to take public questions elsewhere, as the White House dismissed him as “the Little Communist” and rivals accused him of dodging scrutiny.
On ABC’s The View, hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, and Ana Navarro condemned the Trump administration and FCC chair Brendan Carr over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, arguing the government cannot pressure private companies into silencing critics; Goldberg said Carr misunderstands the First Amendment, Hostin cited Jefferson and Holmes on protecting dissenting speech, and Navarro warned such intimidation mirrors authoritarian tactics, while celebrities from Howard Stern to John Oliver joined broader calls to boycott Disney and resist political interference in free expression.
Senator Rand Paul criticized FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke ABC affiliate licenses over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s killing, calling the intervention “absolutely inappropriate” and stressing that while Disney and ABC have no obligation to employ Kimmel, regulators should not pressure private companies over speech disputes.
Sacramento prosecutors said the shooting at ABC10’s offices may have been politically motivated and tied to outrage over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, with DA Thien Ho citing notes left by suspect Anibal Hernandez Santana, a 64-year-old former lobbyist, as circumstantial evidence; Santana allegedly fired into the building days after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! under Trump administration pressure, though no injuries occurred, and investigators also found writings critical of Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel, and AG Pam Bondi.
Health officials report one of the largest US measles outbreaks in decades is spreading in southwest Utah and Mohave County, Arizona, with 65 confirmed cases, mostly among unvaccinated children; vaccination rates in some local schools are shockingly low (as little as 7.7% MMR coverage), far below the 95% herd immunity threshold, and experts warn that nationwide declines in childhood immunizations since 2019 are leaving communities vulnerable to surges, as the CDC notes nearly 1,500 cases across 38 outbreaks in 2025, the highest in over 30 years.
At a UN security council emergency meeting, Poland and the UK warned they would shoot down any Russian aircraft violating NATO airspace, after Estonia reported incursions by combat-ready Russian jets; Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski bluntly cautioned Moscow not to “whine” if wreckage falls on NATO territory, while Estonia’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna confirmed the jets carried missiles, underscoring mounting tensions as Russia dismissed the criticism.
The White House voiced support for congressional Republicans’ push for a “clean” short-term funding bill to avert a shutdown, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Trump seeks a responsible measure to keep the government open until 21 November while appropriations advance, and warning that Democrats would bear the blame if a shutdown occurs.
The Trump administration has revoked the visas of Brazilian solicitor-general Jorge Messias and five other current and former judicial officials, escalating tensions with Brazil after Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction; Trump and allies denounced the ruling as a “witch-hunt” and accused Brazil’s judiciary of silencing conservatives, while Brazilian authorities countered that Bolsonaro tried to overturn his 2022 election defeat to President Lula.
Nvidia will invest up to $100bn in OpenAI through a two-part deal where the chipmaker both sells its advanced data center GPUs to OpenAI and takes non-controlling equity in the AI startup; the partnership, framed by a letter of intent, aims to deploy at least 10GW of Nvidia chips starting in late 2026 to expand OpenAI’s constrained compute capacity, with CEO Sam Altman calling infrastructure “the basis for the economy of the future.”
Good news:
Engineering student Lauren Choi, founder of The New Normal Collective, has created a sustainable fashion line that transforms discarded red Solo cups into sweaters and beanies, using an extruder to spin shredded plastic into filament yarn that avoids microplastic shedding; produced via 3D knitting with no fabric waste or dyes (the colors come from the cups themselves), her garments have sold out quickly, retail for $45–$85, and are now being tested by larger firms for strength and durability.
A team of divers recovered artifacts from the wreck of the HMHS Britannic, Titanic’s sister ship sunk by a German mine in WWI, including a porcelain wash basin, Turkish bath tiles, cabin equipment, a navigation lamp, binoculars, and notably the lookout’s bell; the finds, floated to the surface and sent for conservation in Athens, will go on display at Greece’s National Museum of Underwater Antiquities, highlighting the history of the largest intact passenger ship on the seabed, where only 30 of over 1,000 aboard perished.
Conservationists celebrated the birth of the UK’s only bonobo baby at Twycross Zoo, where mother Yuli welcomed her newborn as part of a European breeding program; hailed as a “globally significant” milestone for one of the world’s most endangered great apes, the arrival underscores efforts to protect bonobos—humanity’s closest relatives after chimpanzees—whose wild populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo are threatened by poaching and deforestation.
See you in the morning.
— Aaron
