Sam Altman Declares "Code Red"

Cyber Monday spending

OpenAI declares “Code Red”

Brit arrested in U.K. over U.S. gun photo

Cyber Monday spending is projected to rise 6.3% from last year, capping a strong Thanksgiving shopping weekend.

Black Friday online sales already hit an all-time high of $11.8 billion, boosted by consumers using chatbots to compare prices.

Electronics, apparel, and furniture are expected to make up more than half of Cyber Monday spending.

AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites is expected to jump 670% year-over-year, as tools like Walmart’s Sparky and Amazon’s Rufus reshape how consumers shop.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Gas prices dropped to a four-year low of $2.98 per gallon, the lowest since November 2021. (BN)

The TSA set a new screening record Sunday, processing 3.13 million travelers—the highest ever—over the Thanksgiving weekend. (X)

AI could double the U.S. economy’s growth rate over the next decade, potentially adding 1.8% annually to labor productivity, an Anthropic study said. (ZDNET)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed that South Korea’s import tariff rate will drop to 15%, retroactive to November 1. (INV)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Costco filed a federal lawsuit challenging Trump’s emergency tariff orders on imported goods, seeking a refund of duties if courts overturn the levies. (FBN)

Shopify suffered a crippling outage during Cyber Monday, disrupting transactions for thousands of merchants. (BBN)

Disney’s succession race to replace CEO Bob Iger is drawing to a close, as parks chief Josh D’Amaro and TV head Dana Walden are seen as frontrunners. (WSJ)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into Chinese retailer Shein over alleged labor violations and unsafe products. (KVUE)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: China issued its first batch of streamlined rare earth export licenses, fulfilling a Trump-Xi summit pledge to ease shipments. (RTS)

Trump administration is pushing to embed mandatory U.S. LNG imports into its EU trade deal to cement American dominance. (OP)

The Energy Department unveiled $134 million in funding to bolster domestic rare earth element supply chains, targeting recovery from unconventional sources like e-waste. (X)

Silver soared 3% to hit an all-time high of $59 per troy ounce. (IVT)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Vanguard reverses course, will permit trading in crypto-holding ETFs and mutual funds starting Tuesday. (TB)

Kalshi is tokenizing thousands of its betting contracts on Solana to lure crypto traders and boost liquidity. (CNBC)

Michael Saylor’s Strategy established a $1.44 billion USD cash reserve to cover preferred-stock dividends and debt obligations, a prudent buffer as shares remain down roughly 60% from their peak. (TS)

Sony Bank plans to launch a dollar-pegged stablecoin as early as 2026 for seamless payments in games, anime, and subscriptions. (NIK)

Altman said ChatGPT must get faster, more reliable, and far more personalized in day-to-day use.

Google’s latest Gemini model has overtaken OpenAI on key benchmarks, accelerating user growth from 450 million in July to 650 million in October.

Anthropic is gaining enterprise momentum, adding more pressure.

With OpenAI planning massive long-term data-center investments, questions about revenue timelines have rattled markets.

Work is being delayed on advertising, health and shopping agents, and a personal assistant called Pulse.

Teams are being temporarily reassigned, with daily calls planned for those working on ChatGPT upgrades.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Apple’s AI chief John Giannandrea announced his retirement, stepping down in spring 2026 after Siri’s underwhelming performance. (AR)

White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks refuted conflict-of-interest allegations in a New York Times hit piece. (TB)

China’s DeepSeek launched its V3.2-Speciale AI model, matching Google DeepMind’s Gemini 3 Pro in reasoning and rivaling OpenAI’s GPT-5. (SCMP)

Runway unveiled its Gen 4.5 AI video model, outpacing Google and OpenAI in benchmarks with high-definition output and physics-aware rendering. (RW)

Nvidia unveiled Alpamayo-R1, touting it as the “first industry-scale open reasoning vision language action model” for autonomous driving research. (TC)

OpenAI and Thrive Holdings announced a strategic partnership, with OpenAI acquiring a stake to integrate advanced AI into enterprise accounting and IT services. (CNBC)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Amazon showcased its evolving robotics fleet at a Nashville warehouse, featuring autonomous robots, with one million robots driving its holiday operations. (CNN)

MIT unveiled a new muscle-tendon system that triples the speed and boosts the force output of biohybrid robots by 30 times, marking a leap in real-muscle robotics. (MIT)

Civ Robotics introduced its AI-powered CivNav navigation tool to automate construction processes. (PV)

UMA, a new robotics firm led by ex-Tesla and Google DeepMind engineers, unveiled plans to develop humanoid robots for real-world tasks by 2026. (IE)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: A Pentagon Inspector General audit uncovered significant gaps in the Department of Defense’s accounting for government property managed by contractors, risking flawed financial records. (DS)

Trump’s nominee for NASA chief, Jared Isaacman, pledged to relocate the Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston’s Johnson Space Center. (SP)

Poland, flush with a record $51.1 billion 2025 defense budget, is wooing U.S. tech firms like Anduril and Palantir with contracts for AI and unmanned systems. (DN)

Israel showcased the Iron Beam laser defense system, intercepting drones and rockets in combat tests, with plans to deploy it alongside Iron Dome by mid-2026. (DP)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Nevis, an AI startup automating wealth advisers’ administrative tasks, secured a $35 million Series A from Sequoia and others at a $200 million valuation. (BBG)

Audio-language model startup Gradium raised $70 million in a seed round from investors, including Eric Schmidt, to develop realistic voice AI systems. (PYMT)

Secretive Israeli startup Moonshot Space raised $12 million in funding, led by Angular Ventures, for its high-power electromagnetic launcher, designed to propel objects to hypersonic speeds with electricity. (CALC)

Retail automation startup Duvo raised $15 million in seed funding from Index Ventures and others to expand its AI-driven platform. (SA)

Jon Richelieu-Booth, 50, posted a photo on LinkedIn holding a shotgun while visiting a friend in rural Florida.

The gun was legally borrowed in the U.S., and no threats or political commentary were made in the post.

UK police visited his home days later, warning that “people had been concerned” and advising him to consider how his posts “make others feel.”

Despite offering proof the image was legal and taken abroad, officers returned and arrested him for “possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.”

Additional charges, including stalking and breaching bail, were repeatedly brought and then collapsed for lack of evidence.

Richelieu-Booth spent 13 weeks under investigation, with police seizing his phone and computers before prosecutors finally dropped the case entirely.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Bessent launched an investigation into allegations that Minnesota tax dollars were diverted to the Al-Shabaab terrorist group. (X)

New SNAP work requirements, mandating 80 hours monthly of work or training for recipients up to age 64, took effect Monday, projected to cut 2.4 million beneficiaries over a decade. (FBN)

Canada’s Conservatives denounced the Liberals’ move to remove religious exemptions from hate-speech laws, calling it an assault on freedom of speech. (NP)