It’s Wednesday, December 17. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: The tech companies selling chatbots—but hiring writers. Jed Rubenfeld asks: Could Luigi Mangione walk free? Eli Lake on an adaptation of “Animal Farm” that misses the point. Nikki Haley and John Walters argue the war with China has already begun. And much more.
But first: Our man in Ukraine on the country’s race to save its missing children.
“How do you start looking for a missing child in the largest country on Earth?” I asked Viktoriia Novikova, a Ukrainian human rights investigator who has been tracking the thousands of children kidnapped by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It would be best, she said, to show me.
So, taking a days-long train from Kyiv, I met Novikova in Kryvyi Rih, some 70 miles from the front line, to visit the family of one of Ukraine’s thousands of missing children.
Seven-year-old Stanislav Smetana was taken by Russian authorities from a Ukrainian children’s home during the early days of the war. Novikova has used every tool available to her—internet searches, satellite photos, documents from Russian authorities—to track children brought to Russia in the hopes of reuniting them with their families.
For three years, Novikova has been regularly trekking to Kryvyi Rih to get any additional shred of information she can, and to give Stanislav’s older sister Dasha updates on the effort to bring him home. On this trip, though, Novikova had an unsettling development to share: The trail had gone cold.
In my latest dispatch from Ukraine, I report on the urgent effort to bring back Ukraine’s children. As peace talks allow some to contemplate the conclusion of the war, there’s no end in sight to the anguish of those trying to find children that were taken by the enemy.
Why,” Dasha asked me, “should Stanislav be living in Russia when he has family here who will care for him in Ukraine?” Read my full report.
—Aidan G. Stretch
Could Luigi Mangione actually walk free? It all depends on whether the police violated the Constitution in one key moment of the manhunt for the suspected killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In his latest column, Jed Rubenfeld breaks down the legal technicality Mangione’s high-powered lawyer claims will get her client acquitted—and whether or not her argument holds water.
George Orwell is surely rolling in his grave over a new animated version of “Animal Farm.” A new trailer suggests that director Andy Serkis has turned the powerful allegory about the dangers of communism into something very different. Eli Lake dives into the muddied morals of this very “modern” “Animal Farm.”
The new, in-demand talent at AI companies isn’t coders—it’s writers. And some of them are making a killing: up to $400,000 annually. In the fight to persuade humanity of AI’s benefits, a human touch is crucial, reports Maya Sulkin. Read Sulkin’s report on the tech companies avoiding AI “slop” and shelling out big bucks for professional writers.
Communist China’s war on the U.S. has already begun, argue Nikki R. Haley and John P. Walters. From positioning itself in choke points of the global supply chain, to waging espionage campaigns in science and academia, to TikTok propaganda—Beijing is trying to make sure Americans never realize they’re under attack. “It cannot be politically incorrect to say, ‘We are at war with the CCP,’ ” write Haley and Walters. “In fact, it is politically necessary.”
Could two prominent climate nonprofits be illegally lobbying for China? That’s what 26 Republican state attorneys general are asking the Justice Department to investigate, citing “substantial evidence” that two climate-focused NGOs acted in the interests of “foreign principals.” Read Gabe Kaminsky’s report on the latest claim about China’s attempts to influence U.S. energy policy.
Instagram Teen Accounts default teens into automatic protections for who can contact them and the content they can see.
The manhunt for the Brown University shooter entered its fourth day on Wednesday morning. Police released several new images of the person of interest and a video timeline on Tuesday, but still have not announced any further leads on the identity of the shooter.
Nuno Loureiro, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was shot and killed at his home in Brookline on Monday night. Loureiro was an expert in nuclear science and engineering, and his death is being investigated as a murder.
The alleged father and son gunmen who killed at least 15 people in a mass shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach this weekend seem to have been inspired by ISIS. In a statement to the press yesterday, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said, “It would appear that there is evidence that this was inspired by a terrorist organization, by ISIS,” and added that Islamic State flags and IEDs had been seized from their vehicle.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles announced on Tuesday that Rob Reiner’s son, Nick Reiner, has been formally charged with the murder of his parents. If found guilty, Reiner could face life in prison, or the death penalty.
New government data shows that unemployment rose in November. The new rate of 4.6 percent marks the highest number in over four years, raising significant concerns about the economy even as job gains continue to grow.
The U.S. military struck three more alleged drug boats in the Pacific on Monday. The latest round of attacks killed eight, bringing the overall death toll in the boat strikes up to 95.
Elon Musk has reportedly begun funding GOP House and Senate campaigns ahead of the 2026 midterms. The funding effort came as a surprise to some, who doubted his allegiance to the party after a public spar with President Trump.
President Trump announced Monday that his son, Donald Trump Jr., is now engaged to Bettina Anderson. Trump Jr.’s relationship with Anderson, a Palm Beach socialite, has long been under the tabloids’ microscope; last winter, photos of the two holding hands went viral amid his previous engagement to Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Vanity Fair published a sweeping two-part profile of President Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, in which she expresses controversial opinions about the president. “I’m not an enabler. I’m also not a bitch,” Wiles said. “I guess time will tell whether I’ve been effective.”
Norman Podhoretz, one of the great intellectuals who helped define modern conservatism, has died aged 95. He edited Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995 and—as he told the Free Press just a few months ago—“never stopped living a double life,” between his birthplace of Brooklyn and the “glittering fortress of class and intellect” that is Manhattan. Read his story of a life well lived:
Anyone in the Trump administration who thought sitting down for multiple, lengthy interviews with a scribbler for "Vanity Fair" was a good idea needs to write this 1,000 times on the chalkboard: "Play dumb games, win dumb prizes."
If Luigi is tried he walks if only one juror is a Mamdani fan boy or fan girl