Trump signs the annual defense bill with provisions authorizing the president to screen and restrict US financing of Chinese tech companies (Anvee Bhutani/Wall Street Journal) https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/ndaa-us-investment-chinese-tech-firms-c0866b0b?st=jkqwu9&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Q&A with Sam Altman on OpenAI's "code red" call, enterprise strategy, product ambitions, IPO plans, ChatGPT's personalization plans, and more (Alex Kantrowitz/Big Technology)
The US Senate confirms FDIC acting chairman Travis Hill to lead the agency, which regulates stablecoin issuers and impacts how the crypto industry is banked (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)
The US Senate confirms Trump pick Michael Selig as chairman of the CFTC, as lawmakers consider legislation to give the agency more control over digital assets (Lydia Beyoud/Bloomberg)
US approving Nvidia H200 exports to China is based on the idea that Huawei is a viable competitor, but data shows the gap between Nvidia and Huawei is widening (Chris McGuire/Council on Foreign Relations)
Sources: Riot Games is working on a major overhaul of League of Legends, internally called League Next, for 2027; Riot confirms a big update is in the works (Cecilia D'Anastasio/Bloomberg) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/riot-has-a-secret-plan-to-remake-its-league-of-legends-game?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2NjA5NjE4NCwiZXhwIjoxNzY2NzAwOTg0LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUN0hLMzhLR1pBSzYwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJGRUIzODlCNUI2ODI0RTY0QjY5MENEODE1RTBDREZGRCJ9.UPpzbjNqabzTLwz-1lVVBK4cfd1jmlT9gxz17gLhVrA
Pennsylvania's Supreme Court rules that police can get Google search data without a warrant; an expert warns it may encourage warrantless searches nationwide (Suzanne Smalley/The Record)
Mistral launches Mistral OCR 3, featuring improvements in processing forms, scanned documents, complex tables, and handwriting, priced at $2 per 1,000 pages (Mistral AI)
Memo: the TikTok US deal is set to close on Jan. 22; terms include retraining the recommendation algorithm on US user data and Oracle overseeing data protection (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
Internal memo: TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US unit; Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX will collectively own 45% of the US entity, and ByteDance will retain ~20% (Sara Fischer/Axios) https://www.axios.com/2025/12/18/tiktok-sale