Nick Reiner, facing murder charges in the deaths of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, appeared at an arraignment that lasted just minutes before it was rescheduled for January. He has not entered a plea.

The conventional wisdom that English prose has gotten easier to read because sentences have gotten shorter is wrong, according to a new analysis published in Works in Progress by writer and Mercatus Center research fellow Henry Oliver. The real transformation happened centuries ago in the 1500s and 1600s when Bible translators like William Tyndale and Thomas Cranmer developed a "plain style" built on logical syntax rather than the older rhythmic, periodic structures inherited from medieval prose. Oliver argues that much of what modern datasets measure as declining sentence length is actually just changing punctuation habits. Writers now use periods where earlier generations used colons and semicolons. One dataset shows semicolon usage dropped from one every 90 words in 1781 to one every 390 words today. The cognitive complexity of a paragraph often remains the same regardless of how it's punctuated. Even wildly popular modern books don't follow the "short sentences equal readable" formula. Oliver points to Onyx Storm, the 2025 fantasy novel that has sold tens of millions of copies, which opens with sentences of 24 and 30 words. The 30-word sentence has a subordinate clause twice as long as its main clause. The book reads easily not because sentences are short but because the language is plain and the syntax is logical.

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his Wednesday Senate testimony that the agency he governs "is not an independent agency, formally speaking." Axios: During his testimony, the word "independent" was removed from the FCC's mission statement on its website. The extraordinary statement speaks to a broader trend of regulatory agencies losing power to the executive branch during the Trump era. Last week, the Supreme Court appeared poised to allow President Trump to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission during oral arguments over the issue. Sen. Ben Ray LujÃn (D-N.M.) began the line of questioning, citing the FCC's website, which said the agency was independent as of Wednesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, the FCC's mission statement no longer said it was independent. Chairman Carr would not respond directly to questions about whether he believed the president was his boss. He would not answer whether it's appropriate if the president were to pressure him to go after media companies. He suggested the president has the power to fire him and other FCC commissioners.

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A comprehensive database built by scientists in Switzerland and Norway has catalogued 16,000 chemicals linked to plastic materials, and the findings paint a troubling picture of what Americans are actually eating when they prepare food in their kitchens. Of those 16,000 chemicals, more than 5,400 are considered hazardous to human health by government and industry standards, while just 161 are classified as not hazardous. The remaining 10,700-plus chemicals simply don't have enough data to determine their safety. The chemicals enter food through multiple pathways. Black plastic utensils and trays often contain brominated flame retardants because they're made from recycled electronic waste. Nonstick pans and compostable plates frequently contain PFAS. One California study found phthalates in three-quarters of tested foods, and a Consumer Reports analysis last year detected BPA or similar chemicals in 79% of foods tested. According to CDC data, more than 90% of Americans have measurable levels of these chemicals in their bodies. A 10-fold increase in maternal levels of brominated flame retardants is associated with a 3.7-point IQ drop in children.

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Coursera announced on Wednesday that it will acquire rival online learning platform Udemy in an all-stock deal that values the combined company at $2.5 billion, a move that brings together two of the largest U.S.-based players in an industry that has struggled since pandemic-era enrollment highs faded. Under the terms of the agreement, Udemy shareholders will receive 0.8 shares of Coursera for each share they hold, valuing Udemy at roughly $930 million. Based on Coursera's last closing price, the offer works out to $6.35 per Udemy share, an 18.3% premium. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. The two companies are betting that a combined platform will be better positioned to pursue corporate customers seeking to retrain workers in artificial intelligence, data science and software development. Coursera has built its business on partnerships with universities and institutions to offer degree programs and professional certificates, while Udemy operates a marketplace where independent instructors sell courses directly to consumers and businesses. Both stocks have significantly underperformed this year. Udemy shares have fallen about 35% and Coursera is down roughly 7%, leaving both trading well below their post-IPO highs as investors remain cautious about competition and pricing pressure in the sector.

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Google is suing a Chinese-speaking cybercriminal group it says is responsible for a massive wave of scam text messages sent to Americans this year, according to a legal complaint filed Tuesday. From a report: The group, known as Darcula, sells software that allows users to send phishing text messages en masse, impersonating organizations like the IRS or the U.S. Postal Service in scams. The lawsuit is designed to give Google legal standing so U.S. courts will allow it to seize websites the group uses, hampering their operations, a spokesperson said. Darcula is possibly the most prominent name in an emerging, loosely affiliated cybercrime world that creates and sells hacking programs for aspiring scammers to use. Darcula's signature program, called Magic Cat, provides an easy-to-use, intuitive way for cybercriminals without advanced hacking skills to quickly spam millions of phone numbers with links to fake websites impersonating businesses like YouTube's premium service, then steal the credit card numbers victims put in.

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Sixty years ago, half a million Indonesians were killed in anti-Communist purges. On Bali, resorts and clubs were built atop mass graves.

A New York intellectual and onetime liberal stalwart, his Commentary magazine became his platform as his political and social view turned sharply rightward.

The Chinese government is betting that robots will drive economic growth. But the bots can’t really do much yet.

BYD, Chery and other Chinese automakers are winning over drivers in Britain, where tariffs are low and buyers are open to new brands.

The Bondi Beach massacre has people fearing more anti-Jewish violence — and an Islamophobic backlash. But there are reasons to think stability will prevail.

Investigators said they were also looking into a trip to the Philippines that the father-and-son attackers took last month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: The alleged perpetrator had improper access to virtually every South Korean adult's personal information: names, phone numbers and even the keycode to enter residential buildings. It was one of the biggest data breaches of recent years and it has sent the company it targeted -- Coupang, South Korea's equivalent of Amazon -- reeling, generating lawsuits, government investigation and calls to toughen penalties against such leaks. The leak went undetected for nearly five months, hitting Coupang's radar on Nov. 18 only after a customer flagged suspicious activity. At first, Coupang, which was founded by a Korean-American entrepreneur, said it had experienced a data "exposure" affecting roughly 4,500 customer accounts. But within days, the e-commerce firm revised the figure: The leak exposed up to roughly 34 million user accounts in South Korea -- a sum representing more than 90% of the country's working-age population. Coupang started calling the incident a "leak" after Korean regulators took issue with the company's prior word choice. "The Whole Nation Is a Victim," read one local news headline. An investigation has found that the alleged perpetrator had once worked in South Korea as a software developer for authentication systems at Coupang, which is known for its blockbuster U.S. initial public offering a few years ago. The suspected leaker is believed to be a Chinese national who has moved back to China and is now on the lam, South Korean officials say. They haven't named the person. Even after leaving the firm roughly a year ago, the suspect secretly held on to an internal authentication key that granted him unfettered access to the personal information of Coupang users, South Korean authorities and lawmakers say. The infiltration, using overseas servers, started on June 24. By using the login credentials, the suspect was able to appear as if he were still a Coupang employee when accessing the company's systems.

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The two first-degree murder counts include a special circumstance, which increases the maximum punishment if he is convicted.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Reiner killed his parents, Rob and Michelle Reiner, using a knife. He has not yet entered a plea.

The speaker had planned to give moderate Republicans seeking an extension of the tax credits a vote on their proposal, but said on Tuesday it was simply “not to be.”

Didarul Islam and three others were killed when a gunman came to a Midtown skyscraper. The suit says the building had few physical barriers and lax surveillance.

The EU is moving to soften its planned 2035 ban on internal combustion cars by allowing a small share of low-emission engines. "The less stringent limit would leave room for automakers to continue selling some plug-in hybrids, which have both electric and internal combustion engines and can use the combustion engine to recharge the battery without the need to find a charging station," reports the Associated Press. From the report: The proposal from the EU's executive commission would change provisions of 2023 legislation requiring average emissions in new cars to equal zero, or a 100% reduction from 2021 levels. The new proposal would require a 90% emissions reduction. That means in practical terms that most cars would be battery-only but would leave room for some cars with internal combustion engines. Automakers would have to compensate for the added emissions by using European steel produced by methods that emit less carbon, and through use of climate neutral e-fuels made from renewable electricity and captured carbon dioxide and biofuels made from plants. EU officials say changing the limit will not affect progress toward making the 27-country bloc's economy climate neutral by 2050. That means producing only as much carbon dioxide as can be absorbed by forests and oceans or by abatement methods such as storing it underground. CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for climate change.

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In Rob’s hands, my most autobiographical novel rang true.

The country has long looked warily at the cycle of gun violence in the United States, where meaningful changes in policy have been rare.