aacj

Top 5 US news stories

November 24 2025

Greg Loving

24 Nov 2025 • 7 min read

A recent investment announcement was held at the Google Midlothian Data Center in Texas. RON JENKINS/GETTY IMAGES

citizen journal will be off until December 1 unless major news breaks, enjoy Thanksgiving!

Zelensky Faces Trump Peace Ultimatum While Battling Domestic Corruption Crisis

AI Investment Drives Half of GDP Growth, Raising Fears of Unbalanced Reliance on Tech Spending

NY Law Firm Eyes Private Equity Deal, Signaling Shift in Legal Industry

Jobs Report Shows Mixed Gains as Public Gloom on Economy Deepens

Ecuadorean Drug Lord Who Faked Death Captured in Spain

BREAKING…MAGA STAR MTG TO RESIGN FROM CONGRESS…

1. Zelensky Faces Trump Peace Ultimatum While Battling Domestic Corruption Crisis

A. Ukrainian and American officials said they had made good progress on Sunday in talks about a contentious U.S. plan to end the war with Russia, even as President Trump lashed out at Ukraine, accusing its leaders of ingratitude. Mr. Trump has set a deadline of Thursday for Ukraine to agree to the 28-point peace plan, an early draft of which many Ukrainians dismissed as capitulation because it acceded to longstanding Kremlin demands. The talks, which began in Geneva on Sunday, were cast as an effort to bridge the gaps, and in a joint statement released after the discussions, Ukraine and the United States both said that much had been accomplished.

B. Buffeted by a corruption scandal that has sparked fury across Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky is in political trouble at home, weaker than at any point since the full-scale Russian invasion of his country began nearly four years ago. Yet, this very vulnerability makes him even less likely to yield to the Trump administration, which is pushing a 28-point plan that was secretly drafted by White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev. Zelensky has described the initial text, released by Washington shortly after the corruption affair in Kyiv erupted, as forcing Ukraine to give up its dignity and freedom.

C. Tymur Mindich, a former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelensky, fled to Poland just hours before Ukrainian detectives raided his home as part of a sweeping corruption investigation involving 70 residences and five detentions. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has accused Mindich of leading a criminal organization that siphoned $100 million from the state nuclear energy company, Energoatom, by coercing contractors into paying kickbacks. Although Zelensky is not personally accused of wrongdoing, this high-level scandal represents a significant political threat to his leadership, raising concerns among war-weary Ukrainians about systemic kleptocracy and prompting questions about whether Mindich was tipped off regarding the imminent raids.

NYT / WSJ / citizen journal

2. AI Investment Drives Half of GDP Growth, Raising Fears of Unbalanced Reliance on Tech Spending

The turbulence that hit stocks tied to artificial intelligence last week highlights a broader risk to the economy. Growth has become so dependent on AI-related investment and wealth that if the boom turns to bust, it could take the broader economy with it. Business investment in artificial intelligence might have accounted for as much as half of the growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, in the first six months of the year. Rising AI stocks are also boosting household wealth, leading to more consumer spending, especially in recent months. “It’s certainly plausible that the economy would already be in a recession” without the AI boom, said Peter Berezin, chief global strategist at BCA Research.

WSJ

3. NY Law Firm Eyes Private Equity Deal, Signaling Shift in Legal Industry

Cohen & Gresser, the New York law firm that represented Sam Bankman-Fried and Ghislaine Maxwell, is in talks about selling a stake to a private equity group, as the US legal industry begins to open up to outside investment. The firm has discussed options including the sale of a $40mn convertible note, which would ultimately be swapped for equity in the business, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks could lead to a deal as soon as the first quarter of next year, one of the people said. “We have been preparing our firm for the entry of modern finance into the legal sector for over a decade,” Lawrence Gresser, the firm’s co-founder and managing partner, told the Financial Times. “We are exploring innovative structures with a number of prominent investment firms that can support our strategic objectives.”

4. Jobs Report Shows Mixed Gains as Public Gloom on Economy Deepens

The September jobs report, released a month and a half late thanks to the government shutdown, contained some positive news that the Trump administration has reason to brag about. But it also revealed weakness in the economy, further reflected in fresh polling that the White House should take as a warning. Defying economic predictions, employers added 119,000 jobs in September and average wages continued to rise, outpacing inflation for the calendar year by about 1 percentage point. Labor force participation increased, as did production, while long-term unemployment fell. Most importantly, all the job gains since President Donald Trump took office have gone to native-born Americans, while all of the job losses have come from foreign-born workers, the opposite of what happened under President Joe Biden. But the report contained steep downward revisions from previous months, showing that between April and August, the economy added only 74,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% as more people joined the labor force, and wage growth was slower than in previous months. More troubling for the White House, the latest Fox News poll shows that 76% of adults have a negative view of the overall economy, which is worse than the 70% in the last month of Biden’s presidency, and 60% of voters rate their personal finances as fair or poor, which is the same as Biden’s final month in office.

Washington Examiner

5. Ecuadorean Drug Lord Who Faked Death Captured in Spain

Wilmer Chavarria was living the good life after faking his own death. For four years, the Ecuadorean drug boss allied with Mexico’s Jalisco cartel moved among Dubai, Morocco and Spain, allegedly overseeing his drug empire and hit jobs back home—all while staying at the most exclusive hotels, Ecuador’s government said. To avoid detection, he underwent seven surgeries to alter his appearance and changed his name to Danilo Fernández. Chavarria’s luck ran out Sunday when Spanish authorities arrested him at the airport in the Mediterranean coastal city, Málaga, where he was traveling from Morocco. A top Ecuadorean security official called him the most dangerous criminal in the country’s history, responsible for 400 killings. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said he was “one of the most notorious organized-crime figures in Latin America.” “Some wrote him off as dead,” said President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. “We searched for him in his very own hell.” Chavarria, who is better known by his alias Pipo, is the latest drug kingpin to fall in Ecuador. He is also the last of an original group of crime bosses alleged to be responsible for a surge of violence that began with mass prison killings in 2021 before spilling into the streets.

WSJ

November 24 1859: “Origin of Species” is published

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England on November 24, 1859. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.

Darwin acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle in the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his studies in variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of organic evolution.

We are temporarily pausing our podcasts as we revamp our app so any article can be read as audio

Found a mistake? Have a news tip or feedback to share? Contact our newsroom using the button below:

citizen journal offers three flagship products: a daily national news summary, a daily Kansas news summary, and local news and school board summaries from 29 cities across 5 states. Use the links in the header to navigate to national, kansas, and local coverage. Subscribe to each, some, or all to get an email when new issues are published for FREE!

Brought to you by (click me!)

Sources