Plus: This Vaccine May Help Slow Dementia, By Chance

Good evening,

🎶 It’s the most share-able time of the year. 🎶

Spotify released its end-of-year Wrapped lists on Wednesday. Mo News appeared as the #1 listened-to podcast for more than 6,000 fans, with over a million plays this year. So truly, THANK YOU!! 🤩

MUSICIANS: Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny emerged as the most-streamed artist globally, dethroning Taylor Swift, who was the platform’s #1 artist last year. Swift still came out on top among U.S. listeners.
SONGS: “Die With A Smile,” the single from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, was the most-streamed song globally this year. The song was originally released in 2024, but it took on a second life when Gaga included it in her eighth album, Mayhem, in March.
Spotify has been releasing what is now known as Wrapped every year since 2015. Ten years later, other apps are trying to copy their success with their own end-of-year roundups, including Duolingo, Strava, and the invitation app, Partiful. But not everyone’s happy with apps quantifying data about their social lives…

Spotify also introduced a new feature this year where it guesses a user’s age based on their listening habits. For some reason, everyone on our editorial team had the listening tastes of 65+ year olds. And Mo News Managing Editor Jill Wagner had a “listening age” of 100. What can we say? We’re old souls. 🧓🏻👵🏼

Mo News Team

🚨 ONE IMPORTANT THING

Trump Admin Launches Next Immigration Raids In Minneapolis & New Orleans

U.S. Border Patrol agents detain a man on the street on December 3, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Trump administration launched new immigration enforcement operations in New Orleans, LA, and Minneapolis–Saint Paul, MN, on Wednesday, in its latest crackdown across Democratic-run cities coast-to-coast.

TALE OF TWO REGIONS:
- NEW ORLEANS: The Dept. of Homeland Security dubbed the stepped-up immigration enforcement operation in and around New Orleans “Catahoula Crunch.” DHS says the operation will target “criminal aliens.”
  - About 250 agents will reportedly be sent to the Mississippi and Louisiana region with the aim of arresting about 5,000 people — more than in recent operations in Chicago (4,000) or Charlotte (500).
    - Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is welcoming the plan “with open arms.”
- MINNEAPOLIS: The Twin Cities’ operation is reportedly focused on Somali immigrants following reports of a billion-dollar fraud scheme involving Minnesota social programs over the past five years — a case tied to several dozen individuals within the state’s roughly 80,000-person Somali American community. The vast majority of the groups are now naturalized U.S. citizens.
  - Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey warned that up to 100 federal agents would be arriving. And Minneapolis police say they will not assist federal authorities.

MN SCANDAL
President Trump threatened to end Temporary Protected Status for about 700 Somali immigrants on Nov. 21, posting on Truth Social: “Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!.”

Federal prosecutors say more than a billion dollars in taxpayer money has been stolen from the state’s robust social programs — from free meals for kids during COVID, to housing support, to autism therapy — through fake invoices, clients, and even companies, later spent on luxury homes, cars, and overseas real estate.
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said his agency will investigate allegations that some of that money was passed to Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda–linked militant group that controls parts of Somalia.
- Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is running against Gov. Tim Walz (D) in 2026, accused the governor of raising taxes while letting “fraud run wild.”
Trump has also targeted Walz over the fraud scandal, calling him “incompetent” Tuesday and adding that Somalia-born residents “contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88% or something. They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country.”
- He also called U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who was born in Somalia, “garbage.”

Data on the immigration statuses of the Somali-Americans in Minnesota is not readily available, but the vast majority of Somali people in Minnesota have legal status, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Tuesday. Minnesota State Sen. Zaynab Mohamed said, “When ICE agents interact with Somalis here, they will find what we’ve been saying for years: Almost all of us are U.S. citizens.”

Walz condemned the pending immigration operation on X Tuesday: “We welcome support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem.”

.🚨 ONE THING THAT’S PROMISING

Shingles Vaccine May Help Slow Dementia, By Pure Luck

A common vaccine meant to prevent shingles appears to do something unexpected: slow the progression of dementia.

By the numbers: Researchers found that the shingles vaccine cut the risk of developing dementia by 20% over seven years, and adults who already had dementia were nearly 30% less likely to die from the disease over nine years compared with those who did not get vaccinated — suggesting the vaccine may actually slow its progression.

A new study, published Tuesday in Cell, found that adults who received the shingles vaccine showed about a 3% lower risk of developing new cases of mild cognitive impairment — an early warning sign of dementia — over nine years compared with those who weren’t vaccinated.

AN UNEXPECTED FIND
Scientists say the findings were completely unexpected. “Obviously, the vaccine was not designed or optimized to prevent dementia, so this is sort of an incidental finding. In some ways, we are being lucky,” Harvard Medical School professor Alberto Ascherio told The Washington Post. Other experts called it, “almost too good to be true.”

The research took advantage of a quirk in Wales’ 2013 shingles vaccine rollout, where adults born on or after Sept. 2, 1933 qualified for vaccination while those just a day older did not — creating a natural comparison group. Researchers are now calling for full randomized controlled trials and are seeking funding to conduct them.

Two doses of the shingles vaccine are currently recommended for adults 50+, or adults 19+ with weakened immune systems.
- Shingles, caused by the varicella-zoster virus, affects about 1 in 3 Americans in their lifetime, with risk increasing sharply with age.
Less than 5% of people between 65 and 69 have dementia, but cases rise to 35% for people age 90+, according to Columbia University.

⏳ THE SPEED READ

🚨NATION

House Democrats release new images of Epstein’s private Caribbean island (MO NEWS)
Trump to pardon Texas Democratic congressman in bribery case (MO NEWS)
Trump administration threatens to withhold SNAP management funds from states that don’t share data (AP)
Republican Matt Van Epps holds deep-red House district in Tennessee special election (NBC)
Jack Smith subpoenaed for closed-door House Judiciary interview (POLITICO)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

Hong Kong high-rise fire death toll rises to 159, infant among those killed (AP)
Israel receives coffin believed to contain one of two remaining deceased hostages’ bodies (FOX)
Malaysia says search for MH370 to resume this month, 11 years after packed plane vanished without a trace (CBS)
NATO allies gather in Brussels after inconclusive Ukraine peace talks in Moscow (NBC)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

Trump proposes slashing fuel efficiency standards for passenger cars (CNBC)
Shredded cheese sold at Walmart, Publix and other grocery stores recalled due to metal fragments (CBS)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declares ‘code red’ to improve ChatGPT amid rising competition (AP)
SpaceX can launch its Starship megarocket from Florida pad, Air Force says (SPACE)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Lauren Graham and Amy Sherman-Palladino to release ‘Gilmore Girls’ book in 2027 (AP)
Travis Kelce says he and Taylor Swift have ‘never once’ had an argument during their 2.5 year relationship (PEOPLE)
‘Mad Men’ debuts on HBO Max with production errors, including visible tech machine during vomit scene (NBC)
Brian Hartline of Ohio State named USF head coach (AXIOS)

ICYMI FROM THE 📲

In case you missed it…

A raccoon broke into a Virginia liquor store over the weekend, smashing bottles and tearing through shelves of alcohol before passing out drunk in the bathroom.

Hanover County Animal Protection found the raccoon and released it back into the wild, with the group’s Facebook post noting the animal “hopefully…learned that breaking and entering is not the answer.”

We missed this scene in Zootopia 2. 👀