Lights, Tradition & the Weekend’s Coolest Opening 🧊
Good morning! The world’s largest indoor ice-skating rink opens today. Paris, anyone? 👇🏽
Also beginning this weekend? The “Festival of Lights.” The Jewish holiday Hanukkah — which commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in the second century BCE — begins at sundown on Sunday.
🗣️ Your Conversation Starters:
📱 Internet Safety: As Congress discussed online safety for minors (keep scrolling for Jenna's podcast on this), this oldie-but-goodie revisits smart ways to keep your kids safe online — and this article breaks down how a social media detox really works.
📝 Get (Back) With the Times: Secretary of State Marco Rubio reversed a Biden-era administration decision on the State Department’s official font, restoring Times New Roman after a switch to Calibri. Here's the history behind the classic typeface.
🤖 “The Architects of AI”: Time’s Person of the Year. The cover features tech leaders such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Credit: Time
🎅🏽 Disappearing Santa: One Santa-booking agency reports a drop in private Santa events — a possibly overlooked economic indicator? This comes as the Fed announced a rate cut this week while acknowledging they’ve heard “loud and clear how people are experiencing really high costs.”
🚜 $12 Billion: The amount the Trump administration will pay out to soybean and corn farmers, with “a relatively small portion” of that funding coming from tariff revenue.
📺 Battle of the Bids: As both Netflix and Paramount bid on Warner Bros. Discovery, here’s a look behind each company’s motivations.
💦 Reappearing Lake: After record rainfall, an ancient lake fills up again in Death Valley's Badwater Basin — the lowest point in North America.
🇮🇹 “Intangible Cultural Heritage”: Italian cooking joins Mexican and French cuisine on UNESCO’s list of cultural traditions and practices. Mangiamo!
🐼 HBD, Satrio Wiratama! Indonesia welcomed its first panda cub — a “conservation success story.” Conservationists classify giant pandas — native to China — as “vulnerable,” meaning they are no longer endangered but still face significant threats.
🧠 9, 32, 66, 83: Not lottery numbers; the ages at which your brain’s structure changes, according to new research. Speaking of the lottery, though — Saturday’s Powerball jackpot rose to $1 billion for the second time this year. The odds of winning? 1 in 292.2 million (but not zero 😉).
🇮🇱 Ancient Ceasefire: Scientists found possible evidence of a 2,100-year-old ceasefire between Hellenistic King Antiochus the Seventh and Jewish King John Hyrcanus I. In modern times, moving to the next phase of the Israel –Hamas ceasefire plan remains “complicated.”
🎙️ This Week From Jenna:
A cheat sheet on a pivotal hearing in the Senate about online safety for teens (and beyond). A must-listen about the unique challenges facing parents and children alike, with special insight into the new tactics of criminals, and the inadequacy of old laws. 👇🏽
WATCH ABOVE OR BY CLICKING HERE. You can also listen on podcasting platforms everywhere (Apple, Spotify).
🎙️ SCOOP (approx. 59 minutes) Santa Sightings, Supreme Court Cases and the Senate Tackles Healthcare (Again). Watch or Listen. (SCOOP Insiders can attend this live broadcast once a week and get their news questions answered; they also receive the special video report EXCLUSIVELY delivered to their inbox along with a "cheat sheet" for the week ahead — learn more HERE).
🙌🏽 What We Found SmartHER This Week:
Our day-to-day world could use a little more mystery.
That belief reunited two high school friends, Ben and Mike. Mike spent years telling stories in his backyard and eventually in Hollywood. Ben traveled the world working with NGOs alongside indigenous artisans (he's also one of the first believers in SmartHER News - helping our team in a myriad of different ways from the beginning!). Both shared a lifelong fascination with adventure lore, forgotten legends, and the sort of old-world mysteries that make you lean in a little closer… oh, and Bigfoot.
As they compared notes from their different paths, one idea kept resurfacing. We all crave stories. Stories make life feel bigger and more meaningful. We also crave snacks (like, all the time). So why didn’t the things we snack on spark that same sense of wonder?
That question became Duff & Shaw, a collection of boldly flavored snacks wrapped in legendary tales.
Each treat arrives as if recovered from a hidden trail, an icy peak, or a forbidden tomb, the sort of place where footprints appear without warning and creatures slip just out of view. It is a small discovery meant for anyone who loves a good story and a great snack.
Duff & Shaw’s treats make great gifts for kids, grown-ups who act like kids, or for that one guy in your life who is not nearly embarrassed enough about his obsession with Bigfoot. We see you, Dennis.
“It's one fight and one team.”
Navy senior Michael Middleton ahead of Saturday’s 126th Army-Navy game, one of the oldest rivalries in college football. While reflecting on the traditions and playful antics surrounding the matchup, Middleton emphasized unity beyond the rivalry, noting that whether someone graduates from West Point or the Naval Academy, “We all work for each other. If we're in some far-flung place, having to do a job the nation has called us to do, I don't care where you graduated because we're all out there for each other.”
Something Interesting? It takes 4 hours to make each Navy helmet for Saturday’s Army vs. Navy game. Both teams’ uniforms this year pay tribute to the 250th anniversaries of the U.S. Army and Navy — which uniform is your favorite?
Credit: U.S. Army / U.S. Navy
And that's The Weekend Digest!
❤️,
Jenna and the SHN Team
Daily news, interviews, our latest podcasts and more at www.SmartHERNews.com.
