FlashMobOfOne

Missouri workers earning minimum wage received a New Year's gift as the state's minimum wage increased to $15 per hour on Wednesday, marking the final step in a gradual increase approved by voters in 2024.

The program, which started in 2018, helps connect former players with relevant job opportunities and resources, including resume reviews, career coaching, predictive index testing, job matching and interview coaching. The former players are also able to participate in certification programs and mock interviews and attend a career fair held each year at the Super Bowl.

“The one thing that I didn’t want to discount going through this process were their resource pieces,” said Lee, a linebacker who spent time with the Texans, Bills, Patriots and Lions between 2016-20. “I could do my own resume. I can do some of these things that seem very easy or simple, so to speak, but allowing someone else to come to the picture and add their professional eyes onto my life, it was very helpful. Sometimes we feel like we have to do everything ourselves, but the human resource that goes behind this, that’s the machine. People actually care. They’ve helped me through this process and along every step of the way.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the US has agreed to offer “strong” security guarantees to Ukraine for 15 years, but acknowledged that the future of the country’s eastern Donbas region was unresolved after his two-hour meeting on Sunday with Donald Trump in Florida.

Speaking on his way back to Europe, Zelenskyy said the US Congress and Ukraine’s parliament would jointly vote on American pledges. These were a key part of a 20-point peace plan discussed with the US president at his Mar-a-Lago residence, he said.

The guarantees are seen by Kyiv as crucial to deter further Russian aggression in the event of a peace deal. Zelenskyy admitted that previous promises – including the US and UK-backed 1994 Budapest memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders – “did not work”.

Donald Trump has floated the idea of ending the filibuster – a procedural technique in Congress that allows a minority of senators to block legislation from passing – which would make pushing through his political agenda in 2026 much easier.

In an interview with Politico, the president urged Republicans in the Senate to scrap the filibuster, saying it had become an obstacle to effective governing and removing it would prevent another government shutdown and pave the way for his party to push through its legislative priorities.

“The filibuster is hurting the Republican Party,” Trump told Politico. He called on Republican lawmakers to eliminate it “without question”.

If Congress were to get rid of the filibuster, Trump added, “you can do everything. You can do great health care if you get rid of the filibuster. We can do everything we want.”

I had a magical moment yesterday, looking at the Steam Sale and tempted to buy Dying Light: The Beast, and it hit me that I have the original Dying Light in my backlog.

Eight hours later, it's safe to say I really like this game, and spending zero dollars is pretty nice too.

What's everyone else playing?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area to support its immigration crackdown, a significant defeat for the president’s efforts to send troops to U.S. cities.

The justices declined the Republican administration’s emergency request to overturn a ruling by U.S. District Judge April Perry that had blocked the deployment of troops. An appeals court also had refused to step in. The Supreme Court took more than two months to act.

Archivists have saved and uploaded copies of the 60 Minutes episode new CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss ordered be shelved as a torrent and multiple file sharing sites after an international distributor aired the episode.

The moves show how difficult it may be for CBS to stop the episode, which focused on the experience of Venezuelans deported to El Salvadorian mega prison CECOT, from spreading across the internet. Bari Weiss stopped the episode from being released Sunday even after the episode was reviewed and checked multiple times by the news outlet, according to an email CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi sent to her colleagues.

CBS News pulled a “60 Minutes” report on El Salvador’s CECOT prison just hours before its scheduled Sunday broadcast, saying it would air at a future time.

“The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated,” the program posted on social media. “Our report ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast,” the program posted on X and other social media platforms three hours before it was slated to air.

A CBS News spokesperson said in an email that the segment “needed additional reporting.”

The New York Times, quoting from a copy of a note written by Sharyn Alfonsi, a correspondent who reported the segment, said CBS pulled the segment for “political” reasons.

Full Disclosure: This is from my YT channel and I'm not sure if that violates the self-promotion rule or not in this community, so feel free to remove if so.

TLDW: I recommend five Christmas movies you may not have seen or may have forgotten about, in descending order of wholesomeness.

1. Love Hard
2. Family Man (2000)
3. Gremlins
4. Violent Night (Note: Very graphic violence)
5. Bad Santa (Note: VERY raunchy, offensive humor)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump delivered a politically charged speech Wednesday carried live in prime time on network television, seeking to pin the blame for economic challenges on Democrats while announcing he is sending a $1,776 bonus check to U.S. troops for Christmas.

The remarks came as the nation is preparing to settle down to celebrate the holidays, yet Trump was focused more on divisions within the country than a sense of unity. His speech was a rehash of his recent messaging that has so far been unable to calm public anxiety about the cost of groceries, housing, utilities and other basic goods.

A new article on Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff, in Vanity Fair reveals her candid thoughts over the past year on a range of major issues facing the Trump administration and the personalities involved.

Wiles repeatedly met with the filmmaker and author Chris Whipple from January, and gave her commentary on the events in which she was either a key player or central observer at the White House.

But after its publication, Wiles hit out on X, calling it a "disingenuously framed hit piece," that "significant context was disregarded," and "much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story."

Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, is once again facing criticism for rushing to social media to tout his agency’s work on tracking down a person of interest in a shooting prematurely.

After a shooter killed two and injured nine at Brown University on Saturday, Patel, a lawyer and rightwing commentator before his job in the administration, posted on X that his agency had helped detain a “person of interest in a hotel room” in Coventry, Rhode Island, acting off a lead from the Providence police.

But the person of interest was later released from custody hours later, and the shooter is still at large.