President Donald Trump has vetoed an annual defense bill authorizing billions of dollars in military spending after complaints that the bill did not include changes to Section 230, the provision that gives social media companies legal immunity over much of the content posted by their users. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to veto the $740 billion spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, unless Congress included a provision that would repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Congress approved the measure by veto-proof margins in December. House lawmakers will return to Capitol Hill on Monday for a vote to override the president’s veto, according to Politico’s Connor O’Brien. “Section 230 facilitates the spread of foreign disinformation online, which is a serious threat to our national security,” Trump said in a statement Wednesday. “It must be repealed.” Amending or repealing Section 230 has become a priority for the Trump administration over the last few months. In May, Trump signed an executive order urging the Federal Communications Commission to reinterpret the law. The order came in response to Twitter fact-checking a tweet from Trump for the first time, over false claims made on voter fraud. That pressure has only grown in the wake of the election, as President Trump has continued to use social platforms to promote false evidence of fraudulent voting. Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have been under immense pressure to moderate the president’s tweets when he posts falsehoods online. The companies’ increasing moderation efforts have led Trump and Republican lawmakers to make misleading claims that the platforms are biased against conservatives. In a statement, Trump said that Congress’ “failure to terminate the very dangerous national security risk of Section 230 will make our intelligence virtually impossible to conduct without everyone knowing what we are doing at every step.”

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team on Wednesday disputed suggestions from Pentagon officials who questioned the accuracy of Biden's assertion a day earlier that the Department of Defense has refused to brief his team on the massive cyberattack on government agencies and major American technology and accounting companies. "As the President-elect noted yesterday, the Department of Defense has continued to refuse to meet with our Agency Review Team members," said Ned Price, a spokesman for the Biden transition, said in a statement to CNN. "There has been no substantial progress since transition officials spoke to the intransigence of the Department's political leadership late last week," Price said. "As we said then, no Department is more pivotal to our national security than the Department of Defense, and an unwillingness to work together could have consequences well beyond January 20." An unnamed Pentagon official denied the allegations in a statement, saying Biden's claim the Defense Department wouldn't brief his team was "patently false."

More than 1 million Americans have received Covid shots, but the government isn't likely to make good on the goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of this month, federal officials said Wednesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention touted breaking the 1 million mark 10 days after the start of the most ambitious immunization program in U.S. history. But agency Director Robert Redfield acknowledged limited supply of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna present "a challenging path ahead."

On Dec. 2, 2002, My_Fault-1, a user on the 3D animation forum CGTalk, sat down with his family to watch a football game. During one commercial break, he flipped channels to The WB, where instead of the usual fare of teen dramas was Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa, an animated Christmas movie unlike anything he had ever seen. The heartwarming story, festive music, and cute animation were nowhere to be found. This was a surreal vision of the Christmas special on par with Plan 9 from Outer Space or The Room. In Rapsittie Street Kids, characters’ bodies had the blocky stature of an upright juice box. Their faces barely registered as human, in a queasy contrast with their realistically flesh-colored lips. The soulless world around them was made of muddy, repeating textures painted onto 3D objects, like the Matrix by way of a GeoCities page.

Late last week, The New York Times issued one of its biggest mea culpas in years. The nation's leading newspaper returned a Peabody award and a citation as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize after retracting the core of its hit podcast series Caliphate. In seeking to restore faith in its journalism, however, The Times may have demonstrated the persistence of some of the problems at the heart of this scandal. The paper's top editor participated in a podcast to help correct the record and to say, as he put it, "we got it wrong." Yet The Times' 30-minute corrective podcast was hosted by its leading audio star, who was, away from the microphone, simultaneously doing damage control on a controversy that proved close to home... Caliphate made its debut in spring of 2018. It explored ISIS and the lure and threat of terrorism, driven by host Rukmini Callimachi, a much-celebrated Times reporter. It focused greatly on a young-Canadian-Pakistani, Shehroze Chaudhry, who claimed to have been an executioner for ISIS in Syria. The Caliphate team made him the main character in the series, despite clear signs he was lying. This fall, Canadian authorities filed federal charges saying Chaudhry had lied about being an ISIS executioner. The ensuing front-page treatment from Mazzetti and his colleagues found no evidence Chaudhry killed anyone, joined ISIS or even ever traveled to Syria... Privately, Barbaro repeatedly pressed at least four journalists Friday to temper their critiques of The Times and how they framed what happened. I know, because I was one of them. So was NPR host and former Middle East correspondent Lulu Garcia-Navarro, whom he admonished to demonstrate restraint and warned was hurting the feelings of people at the newspaper.

The internal documents suggest that Facebook should stop positioning itself as a champion of small business.

From Guy Who Masturbates in a Zoom Meeting to Seven-Foot-Tall Hot Antifa Guy, the guys start coming and they don’t stop coming

House Democrats tried to pass $2,000 direct payments by unanimous consent Thursday, but Republicans blocked the move.

A Keller officer arrested a 22-year-old for making a wide right hand turn so he could search his car for narcotics, according to body camera footage.

Many of us are unaware of the special circumstances that eased our entry into American life—and of the bonds we share with other nonwhite groups.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Thousands of Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs are snorting and squealing their way across Puerto Rico in what many fear has become an unstoppable quest to eat and reproduce...

Failed Democratic Senate candidate sits on over $14 million in leftover campaign cash while Mainers face a cold, hungry winter. ... Local foods banks say Maine is facing an “unprecedented hunger crisis,” with nearly 215,000 people — one of every six Mainers, including 60,000 children — experiencing hunger and the fear of not knowing where their next meal will come from. A

Biden made his first public comments today in response to an ongoing campaign by progressive Democrats and consumer advocates to convince the President-Elect to enact sweeping student loan forgiveness.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s category guidelines ignited an outcry Tuesday when it was announced that “Minari” would be classified as a foreign language film for Golden Globes voters. Directors, writers and actors including Lulu Wang, Phil Lord, Celeste Ng and Daniel Dae Kim condemned the organization’s longstanding policy, saying it was time to change the rule. The HFPA stipulates that unlike the Oscars, the contenders in the Golden Globes’ best drama or comedy/musical categories must feature at least 50% English dialogue.

A nine-year-old is still number one, but the runner-up is a newcomer who came armed with a forklift, an exploding Toyota and the most expensive firecracker ever made. And he’s just getting started. [There is no need to say you've never heard of these people. -ed.]

President Donald Trump vetoed major defense policy legislation Wednesday, making good on repeated threats to reject the bill if it didn't repeal a legal shield for social media companies. The White House announced Trump's long expected veto of the National Defense Authorization Act in a statement. The administration cited lawmakers' refusal to repeal the online liability protections and forcing the renaming of military bases named for Confederate leaders, among other gripes... Congress plans to return the week after Christmas to vote to override the veto. The House has scheduled a vote for next Monday, and if that succeeds, the Senate will come back into session on Tuesday to deal with the issue. Two thirds of the House and Senate must vote in favor of the legislation in order to nullify the veto.

President Trump’s longtime banker at Deutsche Bank, who arranged for the German lender to make hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to his company, is stepping down from the bank. Rosemary Vrablic, a managing director and senior banker in Deutsche Bank’s wealth management division, recently handed in her resignation, which the bank accepted, according to a bank spokesman, Daniel Hunter. “I’ve chosen to resign my position with the bank effective Dec. 31 and am looking forward to my retirement,” Ms. Vrablic, 60, said in a statement on Tuesday. The reasons for Ms. Vrablic’s abrupt resignation were not clear.

In Southern Ohio, there’s a Native American national historic site called Great Serpent Mound. It’s considered sacred by the tribes. For right-wing Christian activist Dave Daubenmire, none of that matters. So on Sunday, the day of the Winter Solstice, members of his ministry went to the site to prayer against the “dark energy” that he claims is released there. That involved one member climbing onto the mound and essentially desecrating the site. ... At one point, after Yenyo says he’s the executive director for the American Indian Movement of Ohio, one of the Christians responds, “Well, we’re an executive director for Jesus.”

The Department of Justice is alleging that Walmart broke the law and contributed to the prescription opioid crisis by filling thousands of invalid prescriptions and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids, according to the department's statement. The Justice Department said the civil penalties it is seeking could total billions of dollars and injunctive relief. The department's complaint, which was filed in US District Court for the District of Delaware Tuesday, alleges a multi-year investigation found Walmart had violated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in multiple ways—both as an operator of its pharmacies and of its wholesale drug distribution centers. "As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids," said the Department's Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division Jeffrey Bossert Clark who alleged that Walmart for years "did the opposite." In response, Walmart (WMT) blasted the Justice Department for allegedly inventing "a legal theory that unlawfully forces pharmacists to come between patients and their doctors" and using "cherry-picked documents taken out of context."

Vladimir Putin has signed legislation that will grant former presidents of Russia lifetime immunity once they leave office. The bill, which was published online on Tuesday, gives former presidents and their families immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during their lifetime. They will also be exempt from questioning by police or investigators, as well as searches or arrests. The legislation was part of constitutional amendments approved this summer in a nationwide vote that allow Putin, 68, to remain president until 2036. Before the bill became law, former presidents were immune to prosecution only for crimes committed while in office. Now a former president can still be stripped of immunity if accused of treason or other grave crimes and the charges are confirmed by the supreme and constitutional courts. But the legislation Putin signed on Tuesday will additionally grant former presidents a lifetime seat in the federation council or senate, a position that assures immunity from prosecution upon leaving the presidency.