Good morning! To all the haters out there with bad taste in Christmas movies, word has come down from on high: “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the GOAT. Ahead of his meeting with Hollywood A-listers, Pope Leo announced the Christmas classic as his favorite movie. Rounding out his list of four were "The Sound of Music," "Ordinary People," and "Life is Beautiful."

In related news, a teaser for "The Devil Wears Prada 2" just dropped, and the bad guy in next year's Toy Story 5 is, appropriately, a tablet.

MONEY

💰️ It’s like they’re killing Lincoln all over again

It looks like we’re all going to have to find something else to get sticky and clog up the bottoms of our car cupholders. After 232 years, the U.S. Mint has produced its last penny.

Why? I like pennies. Centuries of inflation have reduced the penny’s value so much that it’s effectively worthless. To make matters worse, pennies now cost more than 3 cents to make. Switching from copper to zinc in 1982 gave them some extra runway, but nothing lasts forever.

• The U.S. Mint produces coins at four locations in Philly, Denver, SanFran, and Upstate New York.

• Paper money is printed by the Mint’s sister agency at the Treasury Department, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

This isn’t the first coin to get axed due to lack of value. At various points in the 1700s and 1800s, the Treasury produced coins worth half a cent (seriously), two cents, and three cents. They even printed paper money worth three cents at one point. Imagine how thick that wallet would be.

• If your heart just needs other coins, fear not. The Treasury is still slinging 50-cent and one-dollar coins.

• They also make all sorts of real gold, silver, and platinum coins for value storage and collectors.

Is this legal? Probably so. Federal law authorizes the production of certain coins, but leaves it up to the Treasury to decide how many are necessary. In the Treasury’s view, that number is now zero.

How does this work? There are still 250 billion pennies in circulation, so it’ll likely be years before anything really changes. But, as the coins fade from view, businesses will simply round cash transactions to the nearest nickel.

• The U.S. is far from the first country to do this. New Zealand and Australia got rid of their pennies way back in 1990 and 1992.

• Canada followed suit in 2012, but the Brits are still leading the pro-penny pack.

Pennies will be to future generations what floppy disks are to kids today: cultural relics only found on the save button, or, for pennies, outdated idioms about spending, saving, and giving your thoughts.

Future: The other coins are safe for now. But if you’re a big Thomas Jefferson nerd, prepare yourself: Nickels cost nearly 14 cents to make.

GOVERNMENT

🎖️ Two panels commemorating the efforts of African American soldiers in World War 2 have been removed from an art display at the U.S. military cemetery in the Netherlands. The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) runs the place, which is the final resting place of more than 8,000 Americans. One panel showed the life of a young black soldier who died during the war at 23. The other explained military segregation and showed the civil rights struggle many black soldiers experienced upon returning home. The ABMC said the first is "currently off display" but remains in rotation. The other has been retired. Both were recent additions, having been placed there in 2023.

🏠️ President Trump’s recent suggestion of 50-year mortgages went over like a lead balloon. So they went back to the drawing board and came up with another housing affordability idea: portable mortgages. Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), is working on a plan that would allow you to transfer your mortgage from one home to the next. If you bought a house a few years ago at a super-low rate, like 3%, you might be hesitant to move and lose that. The idea here is to break that logjam and let you take the old mortgage with you. The FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helps regulate the mortgage industry.

👷 President Trump gave Fox News a tour of his various White House renovations. He showed off his concrete-ification of the Rose Garden (better for heels, he says), his marble-laden redo of the Palm Room, and his new “Presidential Walk of Fame.” Not yet available for a walkthrough was his controversial new ballroom that’s set to replace the entire 1940s-era East Wing. Trump said presidents have been clamoring for a larger event space for “150 years.” The White House released an incomplete list of 37 donors funding the $300 million project, which includes tech companies, tobacco companies, and crypto billionaires.

CONGRESS

🏛️ We’re back, baby

After 43 days, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history is over. Back pay for federal workers is rolling in, full SNAP benefits are going out, and flight cancellations are a relic of, um, yesterday.

President Trump signed the new budget last night, shortly after the House passed it on a mostly party-line vote. The final tally was 222-209, with most Republicans for and most Democrats against.

• Most Democrats are unhappy that, instead of actually extending them, expiring Obamacare subsidies will simply be given a vote next month.

• Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries is pushing for a three-year renewal.

The bill fully funds the government through January 30. So, expect to begin the year with another, hopefully less dramatic, funding fight.

• On top of that, it also boosts Congress’s security by $200 million.

To speed things up, the House agreed to the Senate’s version of the bill that the upper chamber passed on Sunday. But some provisions could soon come up for repeal votes. The biggest problem child? One provision that allows Republican senators whose phone records were seized by the Biden administration to sue the federal government,

• Also controversial? The Senate’s move to re-criminalize some weaker forms of THC that were legalized in 2018.

The House has 433 members again. After a long, controversial delay that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R) blamed on the shutdown, he swore in Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D). Two other seats are still vacant, owing to a death and a resignation. They should be filled early next year.

Epstein: Grijalva’s swearing in means there’s now enough support in the House to force a vote that will, if successful, force the Department of Justice to release all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

• This thing is expected to pass overwhelmingly. Despite how they may feel in private, most members of Congress don’t want to be seen voting against it.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released 23,000 pages of documents on Epstein. Among them was an email from the man himself that claimed Trump “knew about the girls.”

• In response, the White House called that an out-of-context, misleading smear. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted that the victim in question "repeatedly said" that Trump did nothing wrong.

Elsewhere, in the war for redistricting:

1. Democrats look set to pick up a House seat in Utah next year after a state judge redrew the Beehive State's congressional map to feature a deep blue Salt Lake City seat.

2. Democrats are gathering signatures to repeal the new Republican gerrymander in Missouri. But Team R is fighting back and allegedly paying Democratic canvassers $5,000 to simply … stop working.

TRIVIA

Young NYC hottie and social media weirdo Jack Schlossberg announced his campaign to represent Midtown Manhattan in Congress. As JFK’s only grandson — his mom is Caroline Kennedy — Schlossberg is basically Supreme Galactic Commander of the Heir Force. He’s probably also worldwide president of the “boy, do I wish I had my mom’s last name” club.

Congress has been without a Kennedy for a whopping five years already, so we’re probably due for another. That brings us to today’s question: How many members of the Kennedy family have served in Congress?

Hint: It’s less than 10.

BRIEFS

● President Trump sent a letter to Israel's president (a mostly ceremonial but still powerful role) asking him to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption. Meanwhile, Gaza is stabilizing, but violence in the West Bank is spiking.

● The United Nations' COP30 climate change conference in Brazil, featuring Al Gore, is back in action. The event was delayed for security reasons earlier this week after indigenous protestors stormed the gates to "get the attention" of those in charge.

● Trump is taking heat from conservatives for telling Fox News in an interview that the U.S. doesn't have enough workers with "certain talents" to fill all the jobs. He defended the H1-B skilled foreign worker program, arguing the U.S. needs to “bring in talent.”

● Google filed a federal lawsuit against a Chinese hacking network, Lighthouse. The group is allegedly responsible for text message scams that have compromised 100 million credit card numbers. Getting anything out of China, though, could be difficult.

● A federal judge in Chicago said the Department of Justice (DOJ) didn’t follow the rules for warrantless arrests when taking in 13 immigrants and ordered them released. He also signaled that hundreds of other cases needed to be reviewed ASAP.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Today’s magic number is six. Since JFK was first elected to the House in 1946, six members of the Kennedy family have served in Congress.

1. John F. Kennedy — MA, House/Senate, 1947-1960

2. Ted Kennedy — MA, Senate, 1962-2009

3. Robert F. Kennedy — NY, Senate, 1965-1968

4. Patrick Kennedy — RI, House, 1995-2011

5. Joe Kennedy II — MA, House, 1987-1999

6. Joe Kennedy III — MA, House, 2013-2021

Their ranks also include Cabinet members, state officials, ambassadors, members of the RFK Jr. hate club, Patrick Schwarzenegger, and Chris Pratt’s kids.

Bonus #7: JFK's maternal grandpa, John F. Fitzgerald, also served in Congress in the 1890s. But he wasn't technically a Kennedy.