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Top 5 US news stories

December 5 2025

Greg Loving

05 Dec 2025 • 8 min read

State Representative Matt Morgan, a Republican, holds a map of the new proposed congressional districts in Texas in August.Credit...Sergio Flores/Reuters

Supreme Court Clears Texas To Use GOP-Favored Maps In 2026 Midterms

SoftBank Negotiates Trump Infrastructure Pact To Build AI Factory Network On Federal Land

Federal Agents Arrest Virginia Man To Solve Years-Long Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Mystery

Netflix Agrees To $83bn Warner Bros Discovery Takeover To Forge Global Entertainment Powerhouse

Zelensky Administration In Ukraine Sabotages Oversight Boards To Let Corruption Flourish In State Industries

DEVELOPING…The draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted by the US, will take place today in Washington, D.C., at midday ET….

1. Supreme Court Clears Texas To Use GOP-Favored Maps In 2026 Midterms

The Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for Texas lawmakers to use newly redrawn congressional maps favoring Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. The decision overturns, at least for now, a lower-court ruling that the new maps were likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. That decision had blocked lawmakers from using the maps in the midterms. The Supreme Court’s order comes days before a Dec. 8 deadline for candidates to file to run for office in Texas. It marks a victory for Texas Republicans and for President Trump, who has pushed Republican-led states to revise their congressional maps to try to secure G.O.P. victories in the midterms. The ruling also adds to the growing list of successes for the Trump administration before the justices, particularly on their emergency docket of cases heard without oral arguments, where the court’s orders are intended to be merely interim. Critics refer to it as the “shadow docket” and note the temporary decisions can have broad consequences. In recent months, Mr. Trump has pushed Republican-led states to swiftly redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 elections to try to fend off the possibility of Democrats winning control of the House. If Democrats gain the House majority, they could investigate Mr. Trump’s administration and otherwise stymie his agenda. The midcycle redistricting push, outside the political norm, is at the center of Mr. Trump’s midterm strategy. It has set off similar redistricting efforts in Democratic-led states like California. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, championed a ballot measure to allow California to redraw its congressional map. The state’s voters passed the measure, clearing the way for Mr. Newsom’s plan. Texas officials helped set off the national redistricting fight. In August, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that redrew maps for the state’s 38 congressional districts, creating five new seats that favored Republicans. Civil rights groups sued to challenge the map, asserting that lawmakers had engaged in racial gerrymandering, preventing minority voters from being able to select their candidates of choice.

NYT

2. SoftBank Negotiates Trump Infrastructure Pact To Build AI Factory Network On Federal Land

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is negotiating a major infrastructure initiative with the Trump administration to develop a network of manufacturing facilities on federal land across the United States. These industrial parks would focus on producing AI infrastructure components like fiber-optic cables, data center equipment, and semiconductor chips, with Japanese technology companies providing expertise while the federal government retains ownership of the completed facilities. The project, internally known as "Project Crystal Land," has evolved significantly from Son's original pitch for a massive $1 trillion technology city in Arizona to a more distributed network of manufacturing sites. Funding would come from Japan's $550 billion investment commitment made as part of a July trade agreement, with money potentially flowing as early as 2026. The deal allows the U.S. to direct where investments go and retain 90% of profits after Japan recovers its initial investment.

President Trump and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son at the White House in April. ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES

WSJ

3. Federal Agents Arrest Virginia Man To Solve Years-Long Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Mystery

Federal agents have arrested a man they suspect of placing two pipe bombs near the Capitol on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, a break in a mystery that fueled conspiracy theories for years. Brian Cole Jr., 30, was taken into custody at the home he shared with his parents in Woodbridge, Va. The authorities have yet to describe a motive for planting bombs outside the Republican and Democratic national headquarters on the eve of the congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The arrest came after years of investigative work, with agents conducting hundreds of interviews, combing through surveillance footage and producing profiles of several suspects. The authorities issued subpoenas to vendors selling items similar to those found in the bombs and even the type of sneakers the suspect was seen wearing. Investigators identified Mr. Cole, from Prince William County in Virginia, as a suspect after taking a fresh look at their files and re-examining earlier leads. A review of the case prompted agents to focus on his movements and transactions around the time the bombs were planted. Agents used Mr. Cole’s cellphone data to track his location on the night the bombs were set, then compared it with surveillance footage of the path the masked would-be bomber took. They also traced purchases of bomb components, including galvanized pipe, batteries, and timers, to his bank and credit card records.

NYT

A surveillance photo released by the FBI shows a person suspected of leaving pipe bombs at the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC, on January 5, 2021. FBI/Reuters

4. Netflix Agrees To $83bn Warner Bros Discovery Takeover To Forge Global Entertainment Powerhouse

Netflix has agreed an $83bn takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, in a deal that hands it one of Hollywood’s most celebrated studios and creates a global entertainment powerhouse. The transaction will transform Netflix into the dominant player in Hollywood, adding a coveted library of content including the Harry Potter and Batman franchises, WBD’s streaming business and the premium programming of HBO. As part of the takeover, WBD will continue with the planned spin-off of its cable television networks, including CNN, Discovery and Turner, into a separate company before the studios and streaming businesses are sold to Netflix. In an auction that kicked off in October and was overseen by WBD boss David Zaslav, Netflix saw off competition for the businesses from Paramount and Comcast. Announcing the deal on Friday, Zaslav said: “By coming together with Netflix, we will ensure people everywhere will continue to enjoy the world’s most resonant stories for generations to come.”

5. Zelensky Administration In Ukraine Sabotages Oversight Boards To Let Corruption Flourish In State Industries

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Kyiv’s Western allies faced a dilemma: how to spend billions supporting a government fighting Russia without watching the money vanish into the pockets of corrupt managers and government officials. The stakes were high because Ukraine’s vital wartime industries — power distribution, weapons purchases and nuclear energy — were controlled by state-owned companies that have long served as piggy banks for the country’s elite. To protect their money, the United States and European nations insisted on oversight. They required Ukraine to allow groups of outside experts, known as supervisory boards, to monitor spending, appoint executives and prevent corruption. Over the past four years, a New York Times investigation found, the Ukrainian government systematically sabotaged that oversight, allowing graft to flourish. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kyiv even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around. Supervisory boards serve an essential oversight function, allowing independent experts, typically from other countries, to scrutinize major decisions inside Ukrainian state-owned companies. They are also central to the corruption scandal swirling around Mr. Zelensky’s government. Anti-corruption authorities have accused members of his inner circle of siphoning off and laundering $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom. Mr. Zelensky’s administration has blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop the corruption. But it was Mr. Zelensky’s government itself that neutered Energoatom’s supervisory board, The Times found. In documents and interviews with about 20 Western and Ukrainian officials who have worked closely with company boards or served on them, The Times found political interference not only at Energoatom but also at the state-owned electricity company Ukrenergo as well as at Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency. Some people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations.

NYT

December 5 1492: Christopher Columbus lands on and names the island of Hispaniola. Convinced he has reached the Indies and found the gold-rich biblical land of Ophir, he has in fact done neither.

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