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President-elect Trump met with world leaders ahead of the reopening ceremony of the Notre Dame Cathedral as he steps back onto the global stage following his election victory. Trump traveled to France on Saturday to attend the reopening of Notre Dame, the famous cathedral that suffered serious damage during a fire five years ago. The trip marks Trump's first international trip since he was elected to a second, non-consecutive term in office. Trump's diplomacy was on full display during the trip as he met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Presidential Palace in Paris. The pair was later joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy . "It's a great honor for French people to welcome you five years later," Macron said of Trump. "And you were, at that time, president for the first time. And I remember the solidarity and your immediate action. So, welcome back again. We are very happy to have you here." ‘BREATHTAKING SPEED’: TRUMP...

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch : X adds Aurora, an AI image generator that appears to excel at photorealistic images and has few restrictions; it isn't clear if xAI trained Aurora itself   —  X, the Elon Musk-owned social network previously known as Twitter, has added a new image generator to its Grok assistant.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the progressive Democrat from New York, has launched a bid to serve in the top Democratic role on the House committee leading investigation efforts into the federal government. In a letter to her fellow lawmakers on Friday, AOC announced her candidacy to serve as ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability for the 119th Congress, a position currently held by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. The "Squad" member, in her pitch to colleagues, noted that her focus would be to lead a Democratic effort against the incoming administration under President-elect Donald Trump . "This is not a position I seek lightly," the congresswoman wrote in the letter. "The responsibility of leading Democrats on the House Oversight Committee during Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is a profound and consequential one. Now, more than ever, we must focus on the Committee’s strong history of both holding administrations acco...

OpenAI : OpenAI expands its Reinforcement Fine-Tuning Research Program to let developers create expert models in specific domains with very little training data   —  What is Reinforcement Fine-Tuning?  —  This new model customization technique enables developers to customize our models using dozens …

Kylie Robison / The Verge : OpenAI launches ChatGPT Pro, a $200/month subscription tier that gives unlimited access to all of its models, including a version of o1 with extra compute   —  OpenAI is creating a new, more expensive tier for its flagship chatbot ChatGPT, and is bringing its “reasoning” model series out of preview with an update.

Outgoing GOP Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, R-N.Y., is gunning to be the next leader of President-elect Donald Trump's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), after Trump's first nominee withdrew his name from the running, a source familiar with the situation told Fox News Digital.  D'Esposito has been working to consolidate support from regional law enforcement unions to support his bid, and he has been actively making calls to people in Trump’s orbit to get his name to the top, the source indicated, adding that D'Esposito has been "campaigning pretty hard for this." SMALL TOWN POLICE ON FRONT LINES OF CARTELS' DRUG WAR COSTING AMERICANS THEIR LIVES Trump nominated Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister for the role over the weekend, but Chronister withdrew his name from consideration on Tuesday. Chronister's decision came amid criticism from Republicans over how he handled lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. THOMAS MASSIE, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATORS VOCALLY OP...

Jeff Cox / CNBC : Trump plans to nominate former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as SEC chair, keeping with his promise for a crypto-friendly administration   —  President-elect Donald Trump, keeping with his promise for a crypto-friendly administration, plans to nominate former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to head the agency …

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal : AWS announces Project Rainier, a cluster that will contain “hundreds of thousands” of Trainium2 chips, slated for 2025 and to be used by Anthropic   —  The company's megacluster of chips for artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic will be among the world's largest, it said …

House Republicans could begin the new year grappling with a one-seat majority, a perilously slim margin for the 119th Congress as President-elect Donald Trump guns for an active first 100 days. Last-minute GOP losses and exits in favor of the new administration mean Republicans could begin that period with precious little room for dissent, and one congressional race could decide the difference between a likely one- or two-seat majority.  JOHNSON BLASTS DEM ACCUSATIONS HE VOWED TO END OBAMACARE AS 'DISHONEST' In California’s 13th Congressional District, Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., is fighting for his political life against Democrat Adam Gray.  As of Monday afternoon, Gray leads Duarte by a few hundred votes – a margin of roughly 0.1%. California state law mandates that counties certify their election results by Dec. 5. If Democrats flip the seat, the House would have 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats heading into the New Year. However, three Republican lawmakers’ departu...

President-elect Trump tapped longtime ally and crusader against the "deep state," Kashyap "Kash" Patel to lead the FBI, where he will work to snuff out America’s "crime epidemic," bust up migrant gangs, and stymie drug and human trafficking, the upcoming president declared in his announcement.  "Kash did an incredible job during my First Term, where he served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. Kash has also tried over 60 jury trials," Trump posted to Truth Social on Sunday evening.  "This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border. Kash will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI." Following Trump’s massive win over Vi...

Josh Taylor / The Guardian : Meta will require advertisers to be verified before they can run ads targeting Australian users with financial services, starting in early February 2025   —  Exclusive: Businesses to require financial services license number to post Facebook ads, while individuals will need government-issued ID

President-elect Trump tapped his daughter Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, Lebanese-American businessman Dr. Massad Boulos, to join his Cabinet as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.   "I am proud to announce that Massad Boulos will serve as Senior Advisor to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs ," the president-elect wrote on TRUTHSocial. "Massad is an accomplished lawyer and a highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the International scene. He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values, an asset to my Campaign, and was instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American Community. Massad is a dealmaker, and an unwavering supporter of PEACE in the Middle East. He will be a strong advocate for the United States, and its interests, and I am pleased to have him on our team!"  Boulos led efforts to engage the Arab American community, organizing dozens of m...

Bloomberg : Q&A with Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark on Nokia's failure in mobile phones, moving from mobile and fixed networks into data centers and defense, 5G, and more   —  Pekka Lundmark sees opportunities for the Finnish communications company to grow in defense and data centers.