What I'm Reading - 1/19/25

The first two weeks of January certainly have been interesting. I’m exhausted. Thankfully, I’ve got a long weekend on the Eastern Shore watching my friends’ four dogs while they go to Atlanta for the Notre Dame/Ohio State National Championship game. Meet Willie, Roxy, Ruthie, and Maxine (clockwise from upper left).

Remember to take care of yourselves during all this craziness. I’m cooking some comfort food—chicken tetrazzini and Thai chicken curry soup—watching football and reading.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

What I’m Reading

Top Trends

1. MatthewBall.co: PRESENTATION: The State of Video Gaming in 2025

2. Devex: This week in global development

3. World Economic Forum: Global Risk Report 2025

AI Developments

1. The New York Times: OpenAI Courts Trump With Vision for ‘A.I. in America’

2. POLITICO: EU steps up scrutiny of X as anger grows over Musk’s political meddling

3. Aspen Digital: The First A.I. Elections

Stories About Specific Countries

1. The Washington Post: South Korea’s impeached president detained over martial law gambit

2. Time: Inside the U.K.’s Bold Experiment in AI Safety

3. Axios: Scoop: Google won't add fact checks despite new EU law

Political & Social Commentary

1. Foreign Affairs: The Race to Lead the Quantum Future: How the Next Computing Revolution Will Transform the Global Economy and Upend National Security

2. WIRED: Rich Men Rule the World

3. WIRED: Latin American Fact-Checkers Brace for Meta’s Next Moves

4. DFRLab: Politically biased observers attempted to legitimize fraudulent elections in Georgia

5. WIRED: Mapping Elon Musk’s Global Empire

6. Center for Campaign Innovation: 2024 Post-Election National Survey

7. The Verge: What does Mark Zuckerberg want from Donald Trump?

8. Rest of World: Global fact-checkers were disappointed, not surprised, Meta ended its program

9. The New York Times: Opinion | Mark Zuckerberg’s Macho Posturing Looks a Lot Like Cowardice

10. The Washington Post: Elon Musk isn’t the only tech leader helping shape the Trump administration

11. Bipartisan Policy Center: Training for Election Officials: A 50-State Analysis

12. NBC News: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to attend Trump's inauguration

13. Variety: TikTok CEO Thanks Trump for ‘Commitment to Work With Us’ to Keep App Legal in U.S. After Supreme Court Upholds Ban

14. Election Law Blog Podcast: Episode 6:4: Katie Harbath: The Present and Future of Social Media, Politics, and Elections

15. Vanity Fair: “We’re Not Hyperventilating”: Behind Axios’s Clinical Approach to Covering Donald Trump’s Second Term

16. The New York Times: Stephen Miller, Channeling Trump, Has Built More Power Than Ever

17. Axios: Sean Plankey, Nicholas Andersen short listed for Trump's CISA

18. WIRED: Mira Murati’s AI Startup Makes First Hires, Including Former OpenAI Executive

19. Rebooting Social Media: Threads of Wisdom: Experts React to Meta’s Policy Changes

20. The New York Times: Opinion | How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms

Legal & Regulatory

1. G1: Meta responds to government after loosening controls and says it is committed to transparency and human rights

2. The Washington Post: OpenAI wooed Democrats with calls for AI regulation. Now it must charm Trump.

3. NDTV: "Inadvertent": Meta Apologises For Zuckerberg Error After House Panel Warning

4. The New York Times: S.E.C. Sues Elon Musk Over Twitter-Related Securities Violations

5. Axios: Key House tech panels take shape

Miscellaneous Insights & Reports

1. The Conference Board: C-Suite Outlook

Company Announcements

1. OpenAI: OpenAI’s Economic Blueprint

2. Center for Democracy and Technology: Letter from Meta Civil Rights Advisory Group Members on Grave Concerns with Content Policy Changes

3. OpenAI: Partnering with Axios expands OpenAI’s work with the news industry

4. Google Blog: Working with The Associated Press to provide fresh results for the Gemini app