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The Powerball ticket worth $2 million sold in New Jersey for the Christmas Day lottery drawing was purchased online by a player from Bergen County.
The player from Old Tappan used the Jackpock.com site to buy the second-prize ticket for the Dec. 25 drawing.
No tickets matched all the winning numbers for the $124 million jackpot for that drawing. The current jackpot for this Saturday’s drawing is $200 million.
The second-prize Powerball ticket sold in New Jersey for the Christmas Day drawing was the only one nationally to match the five white balls drawn, but not the Powerball.
The lucky winner spent the extra $1 for the Power Play, doubling the prize to $2 million.
The winning Powerball numbers for the Dec. 25 drawing were: 15, 26, 27, 30 and 35. The Powerball was 3, with a Power Play of 3X.
The second-prize ticket was the second $2 million Powerball winner sold in New Jersey in less than a week.
A ticket purchased at Lucky 7 Deli and Food Mart on Centre Street in Nutley, Essex County for the Dec. 20 Powerball drawing also hit five numbers for $2 million.
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Watch CBS News
By Todd Feurer
January 2, 2025 / 10:36 AM CST / CBS Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS) — Some smash-and-grab burglars probably didn’t get much when they broke into a strip mall overnight in the Ashburn neighborhood.
Surveillance video shows two men in hoodies breaking into four restaurants shortly before 3 a.m. near 86th and Kedzie.
One of the store managers said they smashed the front windows or doors at his restaurant, Red Snapper, along with three other restaurants in the same strip mall – Brooklyn Pizza, Subway, and Sky Chop Suey.
Red Snapper manager Ameer Asmar said the strip mall stores keep their cash securely locked up, so there’s really nothing valuable to take.
“There’s no money for you for you guys. I don’t know what you guys are doing, so we’d appreciate it if you could stop doing all this damage,” he said.
Board-up crews spent the early morning hours repairing the damage caused by the burglars.
Police could not provide any further information on the break-ins.
Todd Feurer is a web producer for CBS Chicago. He has previously written for WBBM Newsradio, WUIS-FM and the New City News Service.
© 2025 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
©2025 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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As one of his last acts as governor, on New Year’s Eve, Gov. Roy Cooper commuted the sentences of 15 people on North Carolina’s death row to life without parole.
Before these commutations, the state had 136 offenders on death row and the Governor’s Clemency Office received clemency petitions from 89 of them, according to a Dec. 31 news release. Due to ongoing litigation, no executions have been carried out in North Carolina since 2006.
Out of the 89 petitions, Cooper granted 15 “after thorough review of detailed petitions” as well as “input from district attorneys and the families of the victims, and close review by the Governor’s Office,” the announcement said. The Governor’s Office considered a variety of factors in reviewing the petitions, including their conduct in prison, co-defendant sentences, and “potential influence of race, such as the race of the defendant and victim, composition of the jury pool and the final jury, and evidence and testimony offered at trial.”
More:Cooper pardons Haywood County man, plans more acts of clemency before end of year
“These reviews are among the most difficult decisions a Governor can make and the death penalty is the most severe sentence that the state can impose,” Gov. Cooper said in the release.
“After thorough review, reflection, and prayer, I concluded that the death sentence imposed on these 15 people should be commuted, while ensuring they will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
Cooper’s death row commutations come a week after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly every incarcerated person on federal death row Dec. 23, including a Buncombe County man sentenced to death for the fatal shooting of a Candler woman in 1994.
More:Biden commutes death sentence of Buncombe County man to life in prison without parole
The following people, all convicted of first-degree murder, had death sentences commuted:
Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober

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Investigations

*These numbers are based on available data and not exact. The number of districts and students is likely much higher. Some awardees, such as Hamilton County (TN), are connected to multiple grants and is therefore only counted once in the numbers.
PDE found that over $100 million in taxpayer money was spent on proposals promoting restorative justice practices, SEL, and DEI in the classroom from 2021 to 2024. This report only captures grants that specifically included restorative practices, SEL, and DEI. The grant total includes both awarded and disbursed dollars.
We chose to categorize the grants into four general buckets:
Note that grants could and often did fall into multiple buckets.
Key Takeaways:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) STOP School Violence Program provides grant money to nonprofits, school districts, and city and state governments with projects that “increase school safety by implementing solutions that will improve school climate.”
More often than not, when schools mention “improving school climate,” they mean replacing exclusionary discipline with restorative practices and social emotional learning. Exclusionary discipline removes the disruptor from the classroom, allowing the rest of the class to continue learning. Restorative practices, on the other hand, often disrupts class time for more students, as both the offender(s) and victim(s) in an incident are brought together to discuss what happened and “repair harm.” You can read more about restorative practices and school discipline here.
Social emotional learning (SEL) is more insidious than it may sound. While SEL was originally intended to teach children skills like self-awareness, self-management, and goal setting, the definitional shift to “Transformative SEL” prioritizes equity and “the collective” — it has become another avenue to bring DEI into the classroom. You can read more about SEL here.
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FXStreet Team
FXStreet
FTX exchange is set to begin repaying its creditors on Friday. The bankrupt exchange is set to begin repayment of up to $16.5 billion in assets recovered after the entity’s collapse. 
China enforces stricter rules requiring banks to monitor and report risky crypto transactions, aiming to curb illegal cross-border financial activities.
Crypto majors zoomed higher in the past 24 hours as the market entered a widely expected bullish year, with bitcoin (BTC) inching above $95,000 to shake off losses from last week.

Information on these pages contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Markets and instruments profiled on this page are for informational purposes only and should not in any way come across as a recommendation to buy or sell in these assets. You should do your own thorough research before making any investment decisions. FXStreet does not in any way guarantee that this information is free from mistakes, errors, or material misstatements. It also does not guarantee that this information is of a timely nature. Investing in Open Markets involves a great deal of risk, including the loss of all or a portion of your investment, as well as emotional distress. All risks, losses and costs associated with investing, including total loss of principal, are your responsibility. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FXStreet nor its advertisers. The author will not be held responsible for information that is found at the end of links posted on this page.
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FTX begins creditor payouts on January 3, in agreement with BitGo and Kraken, per an official announcement. Bonk, Fantom, Jupiter, Raydium and Solana are rallying on Thursday, before FTX repayment begins. 
Ethereum (ETH) is down 1% on Tuesday following a weeklong consolidation of the general crypto market. The top altcoin could be set for a bullish 2025 if blobs continue their recent trend of burning high amounts of ETH.
PEPE price surged 25% within the last 24 hours, decoupling from the broader crypto market’s year-end volatility. With whales spotted entering last-minute buying frenzy, can PEPE breach the $0.000025 resistance?  
Crypto narratives like Real-World Asset tokenization, Artificial Intelligence and Bitcoin as a treasury asset could gain relevance in 2025. Experts say meme coins could emerge as a key vertical next year and strike a cautious note about Solana and XRP ETFs.
Bitcoin price has surged more than 140% in 2024, reaching the $100K milestone in early December. The rally was driven by the launch of Bitcoin Spot ETFs in January and the reduced supply following the fourth halving event in April.
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Re “In Coronado, Awaken Church sparks a citywide debate over faith, freedom and hate” (Dec. 15): If Awaken embraces the political group RMNNT, then this does not reflect well on the church, since RMNNT does display very edgy images on its website. However, although churches primarily promote spiritual values, they have a constitutional right to influence political issues. Remember that Martin Luther King Jr. used the church to change Jim Crow laws and he wasn’t condemned for breaking church/state separation.
The U-T story quotes pastors condemning Awaken and its activism. Did they speak out against the abhorrent AB 1955 (hiding a student’s gender change from parents)? Can they explain their passivity when state Proposition 1, which enshrined unrestricted abortion into our Constitution, passed virtually unopposed? Having failed to even slow California’s descent into its modern moral morass, these pastors should not be surprised when an activist church like Awaken gains popularity.
— Jeff Ridgway, San Diego
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Maddock unveils MCU-style slate for horror-comedy universe; release date for Stree 3, Thama announced  Hindustan Times
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Acupuncture for your pet!

Just as a growing number of humans turn to acupuncture to relieve chronic pain and other conditions, more and more pet owners seek out the treatment for ailing animals.
Acupuncture is a part of traditional Chinese medicine that’s been in use for at least 2,000 years. The most familiar form applies needles to specific points within a body to better align its “Qi” or life force.
The American Veterinary Medical Association has had a policy on “complementary and alternative veterinary medicine,” which includes acupuncture, since 2001.
Dr. Katie Bockstedt, associate veterinarian at PetWell Veterinary Healthcare in West Midtown, practices traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM). She has a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from The University of Georgia and is certified in veterinary acupuncture and other integrative medicine practices. She has used acupuncture on dogs and cats with kidney disease, liver disease, arthritis, orthopedic issues and behavior problems such as urinary incontinence and separation anxiety.
“Most of the clients find me when their dog or cat has a problem not solved by Western medicine,” she says. The patients have “more complicated issues,” and their owners seek out other options that lead them to her.
She would like to treat more patients when they are younger to “get them on the right path from the beginning,” says Bockstedt, who found integrative medicine solved her own medical problems that had been resistant to Western medicine.
That led her to reconsider her veterinary practice where she often prescribed antibiotics and steroids.
“I thought, ‘I don’t like doing this for myself, so why would it be my first choice for my patients?’”
Acupuncture works by stimulating points in the body that relate to different internal organs or processes, she says. Microscopic studies show acupuncture points are different than adjacent structures; they usually have more blood vessels and nerve endings.
An initial integrative medicine appointment, which is $190 and takes two hours, includes a thorough patient history and ends with a treatment plan, which may involve diet changes, herbal medicine and acupuncture. In an acupuncture session, needles are inserted and left in for about 20 minutes. The owner distracts the patient from any discomfort with treats. The dog or cat usually relaxes once the first needles are in, and get calmer with subsequent sessions, Bockstedt says.
For chronic disease, she recommends four to six treatments, one to two weeks apart. After the initial series, the goal is for the patient to taper off to longer intervals between sessions, and eventually once a season.
Observation, lab work and physical exams indicate whether the treatments are effective. Improved quality of life is often the priority for clients, Bockstedt says. Western medical tests may or may not show changes from acupuncture treatment.
One patient, a dog with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that causes scarring in the lungs, had difficulty breathing, she recalled. After a few weeks of acupuncture, herbs and diet changes, the dog’s symptoms improved. “The owner reported that the dog’s energy levels were much increased, and she could no longer detect respiratory symptoms. The X-rays of this dog’s lungs never changed, but the owner did not mind as the symptoms resolved,” Bockstedt says.
Acupuncture is not always appropriate. In cases of emergencies, infections and surgeries, Western medicine is initially the best choice, with TCVM used to help speed healing, rebalance the body and prevent recurrence.
PETWELL VETERINARY HEALTHCARE
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Petwellatl.com
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STORY: Jessica Saunders
PHOTO: Erik Meadows
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When we fall prey to perfectionism, we think we’re honorably aspiring to be our very best, but often we’re really just setting ourselves up for failure, as perfection is impossible and its pursuit inevitably backfires.
Verified by Psychology Today
Posted January 2, 2025 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Do you use a name or pronoun when referring to or interacting with large language models (LLMs)?
It’s in this evolving relationship between humans and technology that a peculiar form of interaction is taking shape—something I dare call cognitive intimacy. It’s a term that reflects the dynamic, iterative, and deeply engaging dialogues we now have with LLMs. At first glance, it may seem audacious to describe an interaction with an algorithm as “intimate.” And, yet, there’s no denying the power of these exchanges to unlock insights, provoke reflection, and amplify our thinking.
But let’s not get carried away. Cognitive intimacy is undeniably contrived, a relationship bound by the limits of programming and devoid of true reciprocity. Still, this artificiality doesn’t undermine its value. If anything, it sharpens our understanding of what these systems can—and cannot—offer. It’s a mirror held up not to our emotions, but to our thoughts, sculpting and refining them in ways that feel profoundly personal.
When we think of intimacy, we often think of closeness, trust, and mutuality. Cognitive intimacy with an LLM operates differently. It isn’t mutual; the model doesn’t feel, think, or understand in the human sense. Yet, in its ability to engage with our thoughts—parsing our prompts, iterating on our ideas, and pushing us toward deeper clarity—it mimics aspects of human dialogue that feel strikingly familiar.
This intimacy unfolds in the iterative process. Ask a question, refine the response, challenge its assumptions, and watch as the model adapts, reconfigures, and recalibrates. It’s a dance—one that forces us to articulate our thoughts more clearly and reconsider perspectives we might otherwise take for granted. While the LLM lacks intent, the exchange often feels alive, vibrant, even collaborative.
Consider this: You pose a question about creativity, expecting a straightforward answer, but the LLM instead offers a perspective you hadn’t considered. You respond by pushing further, and the model’s reply nudges you in a direction that feels like discovery. This iterative back-and-forth is where the intimacy resides—not in the relationship itself, but in its capacity to deepen your understanding.
Still, we must acknowledge that this intimacy is artificial. LLMs are, after all, tools—sophisticated and dynamic, but tools nonetheless. They lack consciousness, emotion, and intent. The intimacy we experience with them is more a reflection of our own cognitive processes than a true connection with another entity.
Yet, does that contrivance make it any less valuable? A well-crafted novel or a thought-provoking film evokes deep emotion, despite being entirely scripted. Similarly, an LLM’s responses can provoke genuine intellectual and emotional engagement. The artificiality is part of the design, but it doesn’t diminish the power of the interaction. If anything, it underscores the remarkable ways in which humans adapt to and derive meaning from their tools.
What makes cognitive intimacy with LLMs so compelling is its functionality. It’s not intimacy for intimacy’s sake—it’s intimacy with purpose. These interactions challenge our assumptions, help us organize our thoughts, and provide a sounding board for ideas we might hesitate to share with others.
In many ways, LLMs act as a kind of Socratic mirror. Like Socrates in Plato’s dialogues, they probe, reflect, and guide us toward clarity—not by asserting truths but by helping us uncover them for ourselves. This reflective process can lead to powerful insights, particularly in creative or intellectual pursuits. Whether brainstorming for a project, refining an argument, or exploring a philosophical question, the interaction often feels like a partnership, even if the “partner” is a machine.
This iterative exchange can also enhance our internal dialogue. By externalizing thoughts and engaging with a responsive entity, we’re forced to confront our assumptions, clarify our reasoning, and refine our ideas. The LLM becomes a kind of thought sculptor, shaping and refining our cognitive landscape in real time.
Of course, it’s important to keep this relationship in perspective. Anthropomorphizing LLMs—treating them as sentient or emotionally aware—is not only misleading but also potentially harmful. Cognitive intimacy, while fascinating, is not a substitute for human relationships or self-reflection. It’s a tool, a scaffold that supports and amplifies our own cognitive efforts.
That said, the contrived nature of this intimacy doesn’t negate its power. It highlights a fascinating paradox: The artificial can evoke the authentic. In engaging with an LLM, we’re not connecting with a conscious being, but we are connecting with our own thoughts in new and transformative ways. The intimacy lies not in the relationship itself but in what it enables us to see and do.
The emergence of this type of “techno-intimacy” represents a fascinating shift in how we engage with technology. It’s not about replacing human connection or introspection but enhancing them. By offering a space for iterative, reflective dialogue, LLMs are reshaping our relationship with knowledge, creativity, and even ourselves.
The path forward is one of curiosity and caution. Cognitive intimacy is contrived, yes, but its effects are real. It challenges us to think more deeply, articulate more clearly, and engage more fully with our ideas. It’s a reminder that even in the artificial, there can be something profoundly human—a reflection of our own capacity for thought, creativity, and connection.
In this sense, cognitive intimacy isn’t just a relationship with technology—it’s a relationship with ourselves. And in that, perhaps, lies its greatest power.
References
John Nosta. The Thought Sculptor. Medika Life. December 18, 2024.
John Nosta is an innovation theorist and founder of NostaLab.
Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today.
Psychology Today © 2025 Sussex Publishers, LLC
When we fall prey to perfectionism, we think we’re honorably aspiring to be our very best, but often we’re really just setting ourselves up for failure, as perfection is impossible and its pursuit inevitably backfires.

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