News Above the Noise—Week of December 14, 2025
1. Deadly Shootings Rock U.S. and Australia
On Saturday, at least two people were killed and 9 injured in a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in an engineering and physics building where students were taking final exams. As of Saturday evening, authorities are still searching for the shooter and local residents were told to stay inside. This is a developing story. For live updates on the situation, click here.
Hours ago, two gunmen killed nine at Sydney's Bondi Beach in Australia. One gunman was arrested and other was killed on the scene. This story is also developing. For live updates on the situation, click here
2. Time Magazine Announced Its “Person of the Year”
In a tongue-in-cheek reflection on Time magazine’s 2025 Person of the Year choice, The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel explains that the honor didn’t go to a single individual, but rather to the group of tech leaders behind artificial intelligence (aka “the architects of AI”). Warzel playfully asserts that this means we, too, are included in that designation, since AI systems are trained on vast amounts of human-generated data. To read the engaging article, click here.
3. Why Won’t Senators Stand Up to Trump?
In this round table about the state of the Senate, The New York Times talked to three lawmakers who decided to leave the governing body at different points in the Trump era: Republican Jeff Flake announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2018 because of President Trump’s influence on his party; Joe Manchin, a Democrat who later became a registered independent, who decided not to run for re-election at the start of the year; and Democrat Tina Smith, who announced this year she won’t be seeing re-election in 2026. Why did they decide to leave? What do they think of the state of the Senate right now? You don’t want to miss this conversation.
4. What Menopause Does to the Body
You know about the hot flashes and night sweats. But did you realize the menopause transition can lead to other, less talked about symptoms, such as heart palpitations, frozen shoulder, and recurrent urinary tract infections? In a helpful guide, The New York Times provides a head-to-toe illustrated explainer of everything that needs to be on your radar. Scroll through this must-read article here.
Editor's Note: Every week, The Sunday Paper's team of journalists sift through the news to find what Rises Above the Noise, makes sense of what's happening in the world, and provides hope for your week to come. While we do our best to provide our own informative summary of each piece, some publications require their own subscriptions beyond our control.
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