In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Four teams advance to join the four top seeds in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals; see preview of the matchups, scheduled to begin Dec. 31 (More)

> Bowen Yang ends run at "Saturday Night Live," bidding farewell to the show midseason (More) | Third "Avatar" installment earns $88M at the domestic box office, $345M globally (More)

> Boxer and influencer Jake Paul loses to former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in Netflix match Friday, confirms jaw broken in two places (More)


Science & Technology
> Self-driving company Waymo temporarily suspends service in San Francisco after widespread blackout knocks out traffic lights, leaving cars unable to function safely (More) | See our favorite insights on autonomous cars (1440 Topics)

> Commerce Department reportedly cancels five-year, $285M contract with the public-private SMART Institute; consortium focused on using digital replicas to speed up chip manufacturing (More)

> Evolutionary study suggests ant species with weaker individual exoskeletons free up nutritional resources to create more worker ants, tending to lead to more successful colonies (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close up Friday (S&P 500 +0.9%, Dow +0.4%, Nasdaq +1.3%), driven by a rebound in AI stocks; Oracle rises 6.6% on news of impending TikTok sale (More)

> Analysis shows a record $61B flowed into data center construction deals in 2025, with roughly 75% made in the US and Canada (More)

> Delaware Supreme Court reinstates Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $56B bonus package from 2018, which was rescinded by a lower court last year; Musk becomes first person to surpass $700B in net wealth (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Gunmen kill at least nine people, wound 10 others in mass shooting in Bekkersdal, South Africa (More)

> Files released by the Justice Department Friday include copy of the earliest known complaint against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, submitted to the FBI in 1996; the government did not bring charges until more than a decade later (More)

> French authorities arrest three employees at the Élysée Palace on suspicion of stealing thousands of dollars' worth of silverware (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS