Good morning! If you’ve spent the past few years slowly bonding with grandma over the perils of driving at night, you’re not alone. Everyone else’s (not yours, obviously) headlights really are infinitely brighter than they used to be. Three-fourths of drivers say it's a problem and 85% think it's getting worse. There’s really no solution in sight here (nor much of anything else with those blinding lights). But you can rest assured that your 30th birthday is not to blame for this particular ill.

BIDEN

📆 Biden makes his mark as he heads for the exits

What's a president do when he’s got just seven days left in power? Apparently, the answer is not “listen to every Taylor Swift album 11 times in a row.”* Joe Biden is headed for the exits a week from today, but the president and his staff are making the most of the time they've got left.
*Obviously, we used Taylor's Versions for this calculation. Total time: ~16 hours.

Immigration: On Friday, President Biden gave more than 900,000 people legal permission to stay in the U.S. via an 18-month extension to their Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The move shields them from deportation by the incoming Trump administration.

• TPS is meant for people already in the U.S. — even if they came illegally — who would face hardship (like war or natural disaster) by going home.

• Many in Trump's orbit oppose the program as a "scam" that, for example, still considers El Salvador unsafe due to a 2001 earthquake.

• The winners here include about 600,000 people from Venezuela; 230,000 from El Salvador; 100,000 from Ukraine; and 2,000 from Sudan.

Ukraine: Biden is tossing Ukraine an extra $500 million in military aid. The help comes from existing U.S. military stockpiles and includes everything from missiles and ammunition to fighter jet support equipment and spare parts. The gear gets sent to Ukraine and American defense contractors then produce new stock to fill its place.

• Biden’s Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) enables this move. The State Department calls PDA a rapid response tool to help allies in crisis.

Goodbyes: President Biden will deliver his farewell address this Wednesday, January 15. He'll speak to the nation live from the Oval Office at 8:00 p.m. EST.

GOVERNMENT

📱 The Supreme Court heard arguments in TikTok’s case challenging the U.S. government’s “ban or divest” law. Based on their lines of questioning, which leaned heavily on national security concerns, justices appear likely to side with the government on this. That decision would force ByteDance to quickly sell the app or face a ban from U.S. app stores. With the legal deadline looming this Sunday, expect a ruling from the court sometime this week on whether we all have to go groveling back to Instagram Reels.

🗳️ The U.S. Census Bureau's newest projections paint a grim picture for Democrats. Each state's Electoral College vote total depends on its population. And, well, it turns out everyone's moving out of Democratic-leaning states and into Republican-leaning states. New numbers won't be officially counted until the 2030 Census. But, were these projections in place last year, Trump could've won the presidency without needing any of the three so-called "Blue Wall" battleground states in the Midwest.

🧠 The U.S. Intelligence Community is split on the cause of the mysterious health problems commonly known as Havana syndrome. America's foreign diplomats and intel officials have, since 2016, reported sudden loud piercing sounds followed by chronic issues like headaches, dizziness, and cognitive problems. The official government line? "We have no clue." But two unnamed intelligence agencies aren't buying it. They're instead giving a "roughly even" chance to the idea that some sort of directed energy tech is to blame.

🥶 Donald Trump’s dream of an American Greenland is gaining steam. The resource-rich (but super frozen) island's prime minister is "ready to talk" to Trump. Múte Egede emphasized that his island's 56,000 people don't want to be Danish — Denmark currently owns the place — or American. They want to be "Greenlandic." Could the U.S. help with that? Said Egede, “Cooperation is about dialogue. Cooperation means that you will work towards solutions.”

POLITICS

🪙 Harris money train keeps running

Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris may not have won the White House this year, but she did raise $1 billion in the process. And that fundraising machinery is still chugging along. Donors who signed up for monthly recurring donations during the campaign are still coughing ‘em up. In January. The campaign may have ended, but the automatic debits did not.

• One Democratic operative slammed the move, saying it "takes advantage" of loyal supporters. Another is "more than comfortable" with it since the cash is now going straight to the Democratic Party.

• Shady donation tactics are nothing new. The 2020 Trump campaign was forced to issue $64 million in refunds after burying the whole "this is coming out next month, too" bit in the fine print.

Cash aside, Harris is still considering a comeback bid for governor of California in 2026.

Sen. JD Vance is no more. The soon-to-be vice president resigned his U.S. Senate seat on Friday ahead of taking his new gig next week. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) will appoint a replacement this week to serve the remaining two years of Vance's term.

TRIVIA

We’re all tuned in this week as the Supreme Court decides the final fate of everyone’s favorite accidental hobby. Should TikTok lose in court and refuse to sell, it would be effectively banned in one of the world’s most populous countries. But TikTok has seen worse. What is the most populous country to ban TikTok?

Hint: It’s a big boy.

TRANSITION

🏛️ Trump dodges sentence as Senate hearings begin for Cabinet picks

The soon-to-be 47th president was sentenced on Friday for his felony conviction in New York. Judge Juan Merchan opted against a constitutionally thorny four years in prison in favor of an unconditional discharge.

• Reminder: The case stems from phony business records that hid a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

What are the negative impacts? Trump won’t be punished here but he doesn’t get off completely scot-free. As a convicted felon, he won’t be allowed to own a gun under federal law. Though that’s probably not something he needs at this point…

• He can still travel and will do so as president on a diplomatic passport. Some countries, like Canada, do often forbid felons from entering. But that’s unlikely to be an issue for the American president.

• Neither Florida nor New York law prevents him from voting. And while state laws vary on the matter, he’ll still be able to hold federal political office.

Can he pardon himself? No. The president can only pardon federal convictions. This was a state-level case, so any potential pardon will be up to New York’s Democratic governor (note that pigs are still firmly in the ground-dwelling category).

What about his other legal issues? They’re all toast. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith dropped both federal cases against Trump and resigned last week after submitting his final report on the matter. The legal fight over releasing that document is still raging. Trump's case in Georgia is on its way out, too.

🎤 Senate committee hearings begin for Trump Cabinet nominees

Trump’s presidential transition continues this week with the start of Senate hearings on his Cabinet nominees. More than a dozen of his picks for top jobs will get run through the wringer by hungry hungry hippos senators looking for any discernible signs of weakness. Here’s a peak at some of the biggies:

• Defense secretary hopeful Pete Hegseth will go before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday morning. Considering the controversies surrounding Hegseth and the importance of the job, this one is a guaranteed fireworks show.

• Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio will appear on Wednesday morning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (a panel he was a member of until two weeks ago).

• Attorney general wannabe Pam Bondi will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on both Wednesday and Thursday. Twice the fun!

If a hearing goes well, it’ll be smooth sailing toward the required Senate confirmation vote after Trump takes office and makes the nominations official. If you tank this week, say, for bad tweets? Say hello to Secretary Backup Plan.

BRIEFS

● FDA officials found dozens of cleanliness violations at the McDonald’s onion supplier linked to last fall’s deadly E. coli outbreak. Among them? Workers “were not observed” washing their hands at all when handling so-called “ready to eat” products.

● The rising German political party supported by Elon Musk is calling for the mass deportation of immigrants who "refuse to integrate." Elections are next month. But with seven parties on the ballot, the hard right is seen as unlikely to win.

● A week after making headlines for dumping its fact-checkers in favor of a community-driven system, Meta is joining the chorus of companies ousting their DEI policies. CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes corporate America has become too culturally "neutered."

● Ukraine says it’s questioning two wounded North Korean soldiers captured on the battlefield in Kursk, Russia. This is the first such report since “at least 11,000” North Koreans were deployed last year to assist Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

QUOTE

ANSWER

The most populous country to ban TikTok just so happens to be… the most populous country. Way back in 2020, India’s 200 million users said goodbye to TikTok. The Indian government’s security-based argument was similar to what the U.S. government believes today.