This holiday, let's stop this social media pretending
CNN
We've all shared this experience. The perfect red envelope with the green holly stamp arrives in our mailbox. Inside is a long holiday letter, dotted with the photos of flawless families. Everyone knows no one is that perfect. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends. I enjoy hearing from them and getting their cards. I just wish that the cards, letters and photos were a bit more real and that people stopped feeling the compulsion to "keep up with the Joneses."
Why do we feel compelled to pretend? Online, it's starting to feel like an annual holiday letter every day; not a once-a-year occurrence in my mail slot, but 24/7 embellishing instead of revealing how we actually feel.
The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting spies, diplomats and troops that are colloquially known as Havana Syndrome, according to four sources briefed on the matter.
Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led two failed prosecutions of President Donald Trump, will testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee on January 22, the panel announced Monday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has told people that he is unhappy with the decision to criminally investigate Fed Chair Jerome Powell, a source with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
Venezuela’s promise last week to release “a significant number” of political prisoners is progressing far slower than many had hoped, as hundreds of families continue to wait in agony for their loved ones to be freed.
President Donald Trump billed strikes on Venezuela earlier this month as being about drugs, gangs invading the United States and law enforcement – i.e. arresting indicted leader Nicolás Maduro. But of late, he seems conspicuously preoccupied with the country’s oil wealth.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins announced Monday that he’s running for governor in 2026, hoping to take over for term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The top career prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Eastern District of Virginia office has been fired, according to three people familiar with the development Monday.
Lawyers for Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s move to cut Kelly’s retirement pay and reduce his rank in response to Kelly’s urging of US service members to refuse illegal orders. The lawsuit argues punishing Kelly violates the First Amendment and will have a chilling effect on legislative oversight.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling on her party to “read the room” and begin appealing to a wider swath of the working-class public by keeping a stringent focus on the economy.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday, a senior White House official told CNN.
The jury in the case of former Uvalde police officer Adrian Gonzales is back in a Corpus Christi courtroom as the trial enters its second week.
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday said it would invest $115 million in counter-drone technologies to secure the World Cup and events marking 250 years of American independence.
Democrats are getting the news they’d been hoping for out of Alaska, with former US Rep. Mary Peltola launching a Senate campaign on Monday morning.