Fallout After CBS Pulls '60 Minutes' Segment Hours Before Air
Plus: U.S. Coast Guard Pursuing Third Oil Tanker Off Venezuela Coast
There’s more daylight from here!
Yesterday, December 21st, was the winter solstice, which is the shortest day (at least in terms of daylight) of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.
Given that the sun still set at 4:32 p.m. today in NYC 😢, the Mo News team pulled together some of the most interesting solstice facts as we eagerly await those longer days ahead:
“Solstice” derives from Latin, with “sol” meaning sun and “stitium” meaning pause or stop because, on and around the solstices, the sun appears to rise and set in the same place on the horizon 🌅.
The solstices mark the time when the Earth’s tilt is at its maximum, either facing towards or away from the sun.
For the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite occurred on Sunday: It was the summer solstice, marking the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer.
But, perhaps most importantly, this now means that the days will be getting longer, meaning more sun until late June, when we will have the summer solstice (and begin the cycle of shorter days all over again 🙃).
Claire
Mo News Intern
🚨 ONE IMPORTANT THING
CBS Delays ‘60 Minutes’ Segment; Correspondent Calls Decision Political
CBS News delayed a planned and heavily promoted ‘60 Minutes’ segment at the last minute this weekend, triggering internal criticism and accusations over editorial independence at the network.
The segment examined an El Salvador prison (CECOT) where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants. The network announced that it would not air the piece just three hours before the broadcast.
CBS News’s new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss said the segment was not cancelled, but postponed because it needed additional reporting. The correspondent who reported the story called the decision a “political one.”
The dispute comes months after CBS’s parent company Paramount Global was acquired by Skydance Media, which installed Weiss as CBS’s new editor-in-chief and acquired her news and opinion site The Free Press for $150 million. It puts ‘60 Minutes’ at the center of another dispute about media independence and bias.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
After Weiss reportedly requested numerous changes to the Venezuela story and ultimately decided not to air it Sunday, CBS Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi wrote in an internal email that her reporting was “factually correct” and added, “In my view, pulling it now…is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Alfonsi said the report had been screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and standards editors before it was pulled.
Weiss said at a Monday morning team meeting that she made the decision to hold the story “because it was not ready. While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it did not advance the ball—the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work.”
Weiss also reportedly suggested adding an interview with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — even though the Trump administration had previously declined to comment — and questioned the reporter’s use of the term “migrants” to refer to the Venezuelan deportees.
Weiss reportedly said at the meeting: “And this is ‘60 Minutes.’ We need to be able to make every effort to get the principals on the record and on camera. To me, our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else, and that is my North Star, and I hope it’s the North Star of every person in this newsroom.”
Alfonsi responded that government officials’ refusal to comment should not prevent publication, warning that it would effectively give administrations a “kill switch” over unfavorable coverage.
Tanya Simon, ‘60 Minutes’ Executive Producer, said in a private meeting with colleagues that she stood by the investigation but could not allay Weiss’s concerns.
“In the end, our editor in chief had a different vision for how the piece should be, and it came late in the process, and we were not in a position to address the notes. We pushed back, we defended our story, but she wanted changes, and I ultimately had to comply.”
Crucial context: ‘60 Minutes’ has for decades guarded the show’s editorial independence aggressively, even from CBS News executives. It has routinely pushed back hard against any interference in its reporting or stories and has effectively operated separately from the rest of the newsroom.
BIG PICTURE
The latest dispute comes months after CBS News’s parent company Paramount Global was acquired by Skydance Media — a deal approved by the Trump administration.
A couple weeks prior to the approval, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit that he brought against ‘60 Minutes’ for what he considered biased editing.
While Skydance leadership has pledged to protect editorial independence, some CBS journalists have been worried about the new ownership, given Trump’s ties to its billionaire owners.
At the same time, CBS News has long been perceived of having a liberal bias, and one of the goals of hiring Weiss was to ensure more balanced coverage.
President Trump originally praised Paramount’s hiring of Weiss to run CBS News; but at a rally in North Carolina Friday night, he complained that “‘60 Minutes’ has treated me worse under the new ownership.”
Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance is attempting a hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery — which previously announced a deal with Netflix for a nearly $83 billion merger. On Monday, billionaire Larry Ellison said he would personally guarantee more than $40 billion in Paramount Skydance’s offer, easing concerns from the Warner Bros. board that the company wasn’t financially competitive. Either deal would face intense antitrust scrutiny by the U.S. government and abroad.
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🚨 ONE IMPORTANT THING
U.S. Coast Guard Pursuing Third Oil Tanker Off Venezuela Coast After Saturday Seizure
The U.S. military seized a second oil tanker off Venezuela this weekend and is pursuing a third, escalating the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the country’s oil-dependent economy.
The Coast Guard on Saturday intercepted and seized the Centuries, a tanker reportedly carrying Venezuelan oil for a Chinese trader.
Later that day U.S. forces attempted to board another vessel, the Bella 1, but the ship fled toward the Atlantic and has not been apprehended as of Monday afternoon.
The seizures of oil tankers in the Caribbean is the latest tactic in President Trump’s pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
OVER THE WEEKEND
Hours after seizing the Centuries vessel, the U.S. Coast Guard apprehended the Bella 1, which has been under U.S. sanctions since last year for allegedly transporting oil to Iran that finances terrorist group Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force.
NBC News is reporting that the vessel was "sanctioned under counterterrorism authority for its involvement in the network of Houthi financial facilitator Sa’id al-Jamal." Shadow fleet vessels usually do not operate exclusively for one country.
The U.S. says the Bella 1 was flying under a “false flag” — giving the impression it was a Panamanian ship. A senior administration said the Panama government gave the U.S. approval to board the ship under a decades-long alliance to crack down on sanctioned vessels.
The vessel then fled from the Caribbean and began broadcasting distress signals to nearby ships.
It comes after the U.S. seized another sanctioned tanker, the Skipper, earlier this month. The two seized vessels each reportedly carried nearly 2 million barrels of oil, which is believed to be worth roughly $95 million each.
Unlike the Skipper and Bella 1 vessels, the Centuries tanker seized Saturday is not on any sanctions lists.
"The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region," Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a video post of the Saturday seizure on X.
TRUMP’S PRESSURE CAMPAIGN
Trump has stated he is looking to implement a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers to cut off Venezuela's oil industry and push Maduro to step down.
Trump has accused Maduro of orchestrating illegal drug trafficking into the U.S., which the Venezuelan government denies. The military has also carried out strikes against dozens of alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean since September, resulting in more than 100 deaths.
The Venezuelan government has criticized the "theft and hijacking" of private vessels. Maduro has also ordered Venezuelan Navy vessels to accompany some oil tankers leaving his country, saying that Venezuela would continue to trade oil and that Trump’s "intention" is regime change.
New in: Meanwhile, Trump announced Monday evening that the Navy would begin producing two new “Trump Class” battleships, which he said would be the largest and most powerful in the world. He said the ships will be equipped with hypersonic missiles, nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles, and high-powered laser systems — with the goal to acquire up to 25 of these vessels in the coming years.
⏳ THE SPEED READ
🚨NATION
Epstein survivors criticize DOJ for failure to release all files (AXIOS)
Denmark ‘deeply upset’ by Trump’s appointment of Greenland envoy who wants island to be part of US (CNN)
Trump administration halts offshore wind projects from Virginia to New England, in major blow to clean power (POLITICO)
1 killed in California as heavy rain and flooding threaten parts of the state over the holidays (NBC)
🌎 AROUND THE WORLD
Car bomb kills Russian general in Moscow (AP)
Bondi Beach attackers threw undetonated bombs and plotted for months, police say (TIME)
Freed Nigerian schoolchildren to be reunited with families (GUARDIAN)
Trump administration removes dozens of career diplomats from overseas posts (CNN)
‘Extremely cunning’ suspect in deadly Taiwan knife attack planned it for over a year (ABC)
📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH
Alphabet to acquire data center and energy infrastructure company Intersect (CNBC)
Powerball jackpot climbs to $1.6 billion ahead of Monday night’s drawing (ABC)
Vince Zampella, video game developer behind ‘Call of Duty’ franchise, killed in car crash (NBC LA)
Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify (GUARDIAN)
🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Nicki Minaj praises JD Vance as assassin, realizes gaffe (MO NEWS)
First footage of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey released online (GUARDIAN)
Heated Rivalry’s fifth episode ties for best-rated TV episode of all time (PINKNEWS)
Barry Manilow reveals he has lung cancer and will reschedule shows to undergo surgery (NBC)
Fan denies using slur during incident with Steelers’ wide receiver DK Metcalf (ESPN)
ICYMI FROM THE 📲
In case you missed it… A German aerospace engineer became the world’s first wheelchair user to launch into space on Saturday.
Michaela Benthaus suffered a spinal cord injury in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, making her paraplegic. She reached out to a retired space engineer online to see if her dream of being an astronaut was still possible.
He then helped organize the historic 10-minute flight with Blue Origin, the space tourism company founded by Amazon Billionaire Jeff Bezos. 👩🏼🦽🚀