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Mundy the elephant finds community in Georgia
“I'm kind of in shock. I wanted to feed Mundy and Tara close together. And so I fed Tara over here. She picked up her food and brought it right over to the fence line here so she could be eating with Mundy. So you tell me what that means. I think that is really good.”
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McCarthy speakership defined by far-right rebellion
“The dominant political story of the year has been the 270-day-long speakership of Representative Kevin McCarthy, whose slim majority in the House of Representatives has enabled a far-right rebellion to exert more weight over the lower chamber. The battle between the rebellious Freedom Caucus and McCarthy has been at the heart of an averted debt ceiling crisis.”
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AI rise triggered historic Hollywood labor strikes
“The rise of artificial intelligence and large language models dominated not only the economy but has also been at the root of a Hollywood double strike conducted by Writers Guild of America and a SAG APTRA strike, these were part of a larger phenomenon of labor strikes across the country.”
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Regional bank failures sparked global economic concerns
“2023 also saw the roots of a global banking crisis arise out of four American regional banks, the two largest being Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. 2021's inflation surge moderated in 2023, while the Federal Reserve continued to raise its interest rates in the first half of the year.”
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Tyre Nichols death ignited national police protests
“Five black police officers of the Memphis Police Department severely beat Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, during a traffic stop. Nichols dies due to his injuries on January 10, and his death causes outrage and protests across the country.”