You’re not the only one racing toward a deadline this holiday season—lawmakers have until the end of the week to pass a bill to keep the government’s lights on beyond December 24. They made big progress yesterday by unveiling a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package to fund federal agencies through September 2023.

The bill needs to pass both chambers of Congress before the current budget expires at the end of the week. But if it fails to clear the Senate by tomorrow, Republicans say they will support a placeholder measure to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Where would the Benjamins go?

The bill concerns discretionary spending, so mostly to defense. Lawmakers want to send $858 billion to the military, representing a 10% bump from its current funding level. Domestic spending (excluding money to veterans) would go up by less than the inflation rate, to $772 billion. Here are some specifics:

• $119 billion for veteran healthcare, a 22% increase from this fiscal year.
• $45 billion in aid to Ukraine (more than Biden asked for).
• $40 billion for storm and wildfire relief.
• $5 billion to help low-income households deal with high heating costs.
• $1 billion to strengthen Puerto Rico’s energy grid.

What else made it in?

• A proposal to ban TikTok from federal government-owned devices is included. (We recently reported on the national security concerns lawmakers have about the Chinese-owned app.)
• The Electoral Count Reform Act, which would clarify that Congress has no say in whether to ratify the Electoral College votes, and that it is the VP’s job to simply count them publicly (without the power to overturn the results). This would make it significantly more difficult for lawmakers to challenge presidential election results.
• At the desperate urging of Maine’s lobster industry, the bill includes a provision to delay restrictions on nets for lobster fishing that are intended to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.
• The bill would also give you no excuse not to max out your 401(k) contribution by expanding incentives for people to put away money in tax-deferred retirement savings accounts and making the practice more accessible.

What didn’t make it in: Additional pandemic aid requested by the president and the Democrat-backed Child Tax Credit expansion were axed from the bill. A proposal to make it easier for cannabis companies to use banks did not make the cut either.

Big picture…legislators on both sides of the aisle are claiming success. Democrats are touting funding increases for veterans and relief from high energy costs for low-income families as wins. Meanwhile, Republicans are pleased with their so-far successful push for lower nondefense spending.—SK

Trump’s tax returns are going public. The Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee voted yesterday to publicly release six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, capping a multiyear political and legal battle in which Trump fought to keep his financial information private. The documents need to be redacted, and it’s not yet known when they will come out (though probably not for at least a few days). Meanwhile, the committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol will release its full report today.

The Taliban bans Afghan women from attending universities. Adding more restrictions on women’s access to education under their rule, the Taliban announced that women are now barred from attending public and private universities in Afghanistan. The rule, which is expected to be enforced immediately, comes after the Taliban had already banned girls from attending middle- and high school and from going to parks and gyms. It’s even more evidence that the Taliban’s pledge to protect women’s rights once they took back control of the country was a hollow one.

We will not be home for Christmas. Of the 112 million people AAA is expecting to travel for the holidays, many of them could face serious delays. A brutal winter storm is expected to start its own holiday journey tonight in the Rockies and carry massive amounts of snow and high winds across the Midwest and to the East Coast before Christmas Eve. Around 5,000 flights could be delayed or canceled because of the storm, forecasters predict. Guess we’ll try to make Easter.

Argentina’s national soccer team returned home after their World Cup win on Sunday and the country played it totally cool.*

*An estimated 4 million people flooded the streets of Buenos Aires yesterday (a national holiday) to attend a parade for the country’s third tournament title in history. It got so rowdy that the celebration was cut short and players had to be carried via helicopter from their bus because crowds were so big.

But one player in particular has been feeling the love: Lionel Messi, a national hero who finally secured the one thing that eluded him his entire career—a World Cup win. Good luck trying to find his jersey anywhere other than resale sites with sky-high markups, though, because they’ve sold out around the world.

And as if he needed any more trophies on his shelf, Messi is now also the record-holder for the most-liked Instagram photo of all time. His carousel post that featured him holding the World Cup trophy and other photos has 65+ million likes, surpassing the previous record holder: an egg photo from 2019 with 57.4 million likes.

This World Cup final was a BFD—even in the US, where we prefer sports that leverage hands. A record 16.8 million US viewers tuned in to watch Argentina defeat France in a shootout. The audience size smashed the previous record of 14.5 million viewers set in 1994, when Brazil beat Italy in the US-hosted tournament.—MM

Wells Fargo agreed to pay a $1.7 billion fine and an additional $2+ billion to customers in a settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) over consumer abuses yesterday. The fine is the largest in the history of the CFPB—and the total settlement is greater than the GDP of Greenland.

From “at least” 2011 through 2022, the bank misapplied home and auto loan payments, leading to illegal repossessions of some borrowers’ cars and wrongful foreclosures of some houses, according to a filing by the CFPB. Wells Fargo also charged surprise overdraft fees and froze more than 1 million customer accounts (for about two weeks on average). The mismanagement harmed more than 16 million consumer accounts.

“In the CFPB’s 11 years of existence, Wells Fargo has consistently been one of the most problematic repeat offenders,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said. He’s not wrong: While this fine ranks as the bureau’s largest ever, it broke a $1 billion record from 2018 that was…also against Wells Fargo.

The bank’s problems aren’t over yet. In a statement on Tuesday, Chopra expressed concerns that Wells Fargo’s efforts to boost profitability have delayed its reforms, adding that the settlement doesn’t mean that the agency’s work is done. Additional measures against the bank may still be taken.—MK

Stat: The NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury are getting a new owner. In a record-setting deal that highlights the ballooning valuations of sports franchises, billionaire mortgage lender Mat Ishbia has finalized an agreement to buy the two teams for $4 billion from Robert Sarver, who had been suspended by the NBA over workplace misconduct. The previous record sale for an NBA team was Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai’s purchase of the Brooklyn Nets for $2.35 billion in 2019 (but the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at $5 billion in the 2021 sale of a minority stake in the team).

Quote: “We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all.”

James Cameron is tired of all you plebs questioning if both Rose and Jack could have fit on the makeshift raft at the end of Titanic. So the famously over-the-top director said he had commissioned a forensic analysis from a hypothermia expert that would end the debate “once and for all.” This study, which included dunking two sensor-laden stunt doubles in ice water, will be released as a National Geographic special in February.

Read: Bill Gates’s annual letter. (Gates Notes)

Sounds good: Here’s an interactive explanation of how sound works.

Communication is tricky: To help you navigate social situations, here are talking points for life.

Really bad opening lines: Here are the responses to a contest that asked people to write atrocious opening lines to the worst novel ever written.

Threat level midnight: If there’s one thing hackers love, it’s the holiday season—when everyone is on vacation. IT Brew’s latest guide has the tips IT managers need to keep their data safe.

Word search: How can you not try a Word Search with the title “Celebrity Santas”? Play it here.

*Narrator voice* trivia

Remember back in ninth grade English when you had to identify what type of narrator was telling the story in a book? Omniscient? Unreliable?

Sorry to bring back bad memories. Anyway, today’s trivia is all about narrators. We’ll give you a character who narrates a famous book, and you have to guess the book.

1. Nick Carraway
2. Scout Finch
3. Holden Caulfield
4. Offred
5. Charles Marlow
6. Ishmael

Dreading upcoming performance reviews? Morning Brew’s latest course, Difficult Conversations at Work, will help you handle them with ease. Register today to reserve your spot.

On The Crazy Ones, hosts Alex, Sophia, and Jesse brainstorm ideas for making extra $$$ in the new year, and explain how to come up with your own side hustle concepts. Listen here.

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