Fans pay tribute to Hollywood director Rob Reiner
Fans of Rob Reiner paid tribute to the slain actor and director on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Trump: “Fentanyl is now a weapon of mass destruction”
As the U.S. military continues to attack vessels suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela along known trafficking routes in the Caribbean, President Donald Trump declared fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” and signed an executive order to formalize the designation. President Trump spoke in the Oval Office on December 15, referring to overdose deaths in the United States, saying, “There is no bomb like this.” His order came as the U.S. Southern Command announced airstrikes against three more ships in international waters, including the eastern Pacific Ocean. At least 90 suspected drug traffickers were killed in the strike.
This year’s four-character idiom
All year round we read “slop”. That’s the conclusion of Merriam-Webster, which selected the word of the year after reflecting on the impact of 2025’s content and determining that that particular word represents the sum total of what has been forced into our literary consciousness over the past 12 months. The dictionary defines it as “low-quality digital content”, usually generated by artificial intelligence. “All that stuff was thrown onto our screens,” said Greg Barlow, president of Merriam-Webster. “And this year’s word captures that in just four letters. The English language is coming back.”
What, am I paying Social Security?
This is a common problem. We like something, but we don’t like paying for it. When it comes to keeping Social Security solvent, 54% of Americans under 30 say they would rather cut benefits for today’s retirees than raise taxes, according to a Cato Institute survey. Meanwhile, 89% of seniors aged 65 and over said the burden should be paid for by young people’s taxes. It also doesn’t help that many Americans don’t seem to know how Social Security works. Half don’t know that payroll taxes pay for current retiree benefits, 21% don’t know what happens to their payroll taxes, and 43% don’t even know what payroll taxes are.
Anthony Geary, a mainstay of “General Hospital,” dies
‘General Hospital’ fans say goodbye to Anthony Geary. He played Luke on the ABC daytime soap opera for 37 years, and his 1981 wedding to Laura (Jeannie Francis) was the most-watched episode in soap opera history, with 30 million viewers. Geary, 78, passed away on December 14th. “It used to be very difficult to understand that an obituary in a newspaper was likely to read, ‘Luke of Luke and Laura fame passed away today,'” Geary told Entertainment Weekly in 2015, shortly before leaving the show. “You balance that with what it gave me. … In the end, it was worth it.”
It couldn’t have ended any uglier for the Kansas City Chiefs. The powerhouse team, which made the playoffs each of the past 10 seasons and won three Super Bowls while becoming one of the NFL’s star attractions, will now spend the postseason at home. To make matters worse, in KC’s loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on December 14, quarterback Patrick Mahomes went down with a torn ACL in his left knee and will miss the rest of the season. “I don’t know why this had to happen. And it hurts to be lied to,” he posted on X, vowing to come back “stronger than ever.” − Compiled and written by Robert Abitbol
