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Good morning! Today is Friday, the 21st of November, 2025. In this issue, George looks at Elon Musk’s interesting comments at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum, where he essentially predicts the end of both work and money, and an unannounced change in policy concerning the previously debunked link between childhood vaccines and autism at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Protection.
Elsewhere in the world, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants U.S. President Donald Trump to bring peace to Sudan, while in the United States Mr. Trump tries to lower the cost of groceries by lowering more of the tariffs on food he recently raised by double digits. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, George reports that snow and ice have caused numerous accidents and motorway closures, leaving hundreds of drivers stranded inside their vehicles for many hours at a time.
George has good news to report on the Oita fire in Japan, namely that it was brought under control, and European Union is going to simplify the GDPR, which will make those annoying cookie popups go the way of an unrelated magazine – also named George – that was also founded by a publisher whose name began with the letter “J.”
Enjoy the remainder of your Friday, be careful driving in severe winter weather, and have a great start to your weekend. George will see you in our Weekend Edition.
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A stack of newspapers in Vienna’s Café Prúckel, each in an Original Wiener Zeitungshalter
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VOLUME V… № 1,622
@INTERMEZZO I Children and a dog
@IN DEPTH ON FRIDAY Musk’s Brave New World Without Money or Work
@INTERMEZZO II The BMW Welt in Munich
@IN BRIEF ON FRIDAY News That Matters
@INTERMEZZO III A street in Bolzano
@SAINT-EXUPÉRY Politeness or [[EXPLETIVE DELETED]] in the Skies
@INTERMEZZO IV Along the Adige
@RECENT DISPATCHES OF NOTE
@WEATHER ON FRIDAY Forecast for Major Cities in North America, Europe, and Asia
@ABOUT GEORGE
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A Tesla parked in Manhattan.
Speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum on Wednesday, Entrepreneur Elon Musk suggested that work will become “optional” in the future as artificial intelligence continues to develop. The forum is an international conference aimed at strengthening joint coöperation between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Mr. Musk’s analogies to this point led to head-scratching in some circles. “It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that,” he said. “In the same way you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you can grow vegetables in your backyard.” Mr. Musk added that, “[N]ow, between now and then, there’s actually a lot of work to get to that point.” He went on to predict that money will become irrelevant in this AI-infused future.
“My guess is, if you go out long enough, assuming there’s a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which seems likely, money will stop being relevant at some point…,” Mr. Musk said.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang , Mr. Musk’s fellow panelist, offered a more nuanced view: “Everybody’s jobs will be different, I think that’s for sure,” Huang said. “How students learn will be different. How people do their work will be different, obviously, because a lot of the things that we do mundanely or arduously or very difficultly, are going to be done very simply. So we’re going to be productive in that sense.”
“If your life becomes more productive and if the things that you’re doing with great difficulty become simpler, it is very likely because you have so many ideas you’ll have more time to go pursue things,” Mr. Huang continued. “It is my guess that Elon will be busier as a result of AI. I’m going to be busier as a result of AI.”
“We’ll see what happens long term. When currency doesn’t matter anymore, let me know right before,” Mr. Huang added in an aside to Musk.
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The new BMW Welt, the automaker’s brand and experience center, which was designed to complement the design of the original Olympiapark, or Olympic Park, in Munich
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Counter to decades of scientific evidence, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revived a debunked link between childhood vaccines such as the combined measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine and autism. The CDC webpage that previously stated that there is no link between autism and vaccines appears to have been recently updated to indicate that this particular claim was “not evidence based.” This updated page did not go through normal scientific clearance channels, it was made known, and the CDC department that typically manages the webpage was not involved in the decision to make the changes.
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At Saudi Arabia’s behest, Mr. Trump announced will seek peace in Sudan. It remains unclear what he will do to end a brutal civil war in which both sides are backed by U.S. allies; however, his statement that he will try to bring about a resolution has raised hopes for peace. Referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mr. Trump said, speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum: “His Majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan. We’re going to start working on it.”
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In the United Kingdom, video shared on social media shows what appears to be at least hundreds of autos with driver and passengers trapped as winter weather left numerous roads in treacherous shape and prone to a high number of accidents, this around North York Moors and elsewhere. Since the start of the week, the Met Office has issued a string of snow and ice alerts across the country as the inclement weather brought ice and snow to some areas. On Monday, a huge section of the M40 – one of the country’s most dangerous roads – between Junction 8A and Junction 6 was closed due to an accident between an automobile and a tanker, creating a nine-mile (14.5-km) -long diversion that took drivers hours to clear. Winter weather brought up to almost 9” (20 cm) of snow in some 47 areas of the country. A spokesman for National Highways said: “Plan ahead, you may wish to re-route or even delay your journey.”
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The number of pedestrians killed by motor vehicles in the United States has surged in recent years, this due to a lack of investment to make the country’s busiest streets safer and automobiles less deadly. Between 2010 and 2023, annual deaths caused by cars and trucks striking pedestrians rose 70%, The Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, city officials complain that vehicles on American roads have grown bigger and heavier, and those with tall front ends such as large SUVs have been shown to be more deadly for pedestrians, not less, according to an analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
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Some roads in the United States experience extreme jumps in risk as winter road conditions can cause a vehicle’s tires to lose adhesion when temperatures precipitously fall before roadway surface treatments can compensate. On certain sections of I-80 in Iowa, the accurate rate jumps wildly in such instances, this by 625%. On I-80 in Wyoming, the rate is 450%, on I-40 in Arkansas, it’s 400%, on the New Jersey Turnpike/I-95 in New Jersey, it’s 230%, and on I-90, the New York State Thruway, across upstate New York, the increase is 117%.
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The largest urban fire in Japan in nearly 50 years is now under control, officials in the city of Oita on the southwestern island of Kyushu said. At least one person was killed and 170 buildings were damaged. The head of the city’s fire department, Harada Koji, said that the fire was confirmed to be under control in the district of Saganoseki as of 11 a.m. local time. Oita is in the district of Saganoseki. The fire apparently started there around 5:45 p.m. local time and strong winds at the time caused it to spread quickly.
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Websites with annoying cookie pop-ups could relating to the General Data Protection Regulation soon become a thing of the past. The European Commission on Wednesday announced a relaxation of some of the rules originally implemented with the GDPR The GDPR is an EU regulation on information privacy that, among other things, governs the transfer of personal data outside the European Union and Europea Economic Area. It became law throughout the bloc on 25 May 2018. Going forward, users will be able to indicate their cookie consent – or lack thereof – with a single click, and those preferences will be saved through the preference settings in browsers and operating systems. In addition to the aforementioned, the EC’s proposal allows personal data to be used to train artificial language large language models without express consent, simplifies cybersecurity reporting, and improves access to data through simplified rules.
Interior of Ibirapuera Auditorium in São Paulo, Brazil
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Groundbreaking research about Long Covid and published in Nature Communications reveals significant new insights into the direction the condition is taking. The research revealed that there were distinct subgroups of patients experiencing different recovery paths. For some, there was a rapid recovery within months, while others exhibited persistent or fluctuating symptoms that continued well beyond a year. This suggests that what is called Long Covid is a collection of potentially overlapping syndromes with differing underlying mechanisms, versus seeing Long Covid as a monolithic condition. The study provides far greater insights as to how Long Covid symptoms evolve over time. It also informs policy decisions and underscores the need patients to have access to comprehensive rehabilitative services that are integrated within national pandemic recovery strategies.
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DoorDash announced a “buy now, pay later” partnership with financial tech service Klarna, news that could only be said to foreshadow the decline and fall of civilization. The company said that the arrangement would allow customers to defer payments on orders such as takeaway food from restaurants and packaged goods such as makeup and electronics.
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The United States on Thursday eliminated tariffs on a large number of Brazilian agricultural goods, including beef and coffee. In an executive order, Mr. Trump dropped the steep tariffs he had imposed this summer as he publicly feuded with Brazil’s government and its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The country is a major exporter of foods to the United States including fruit juices and sugar: Out of the $42.3 billion worth of goods the United States imported from Brazil in 2024, ca. $8 billion was food products. The order effectively removes the 40% duty that had remained on those goods even after Mr. Trump lowered dropped Brazil’s 10% “reciprocal” duty on a long list of food products as part of a separate action last week.
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In Washington, D.C., the White House press secretary was forced to deny that Mr. Trump wanted to executive members of Congress, this after Mr. Trump accused six Democrats of sedition – “punishable by DEATH” – on Thursday after the lawmakers – all veterans of the military or intelligence community – called on service members to reject any illegal orders they may receive.
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A street in Bozen or Bolzano, Italy, in the Alto Adige or Südtirol
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Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exeupéry
The U.S. Department of Transportation wants passengers to help little old ladies cross the street at the corner and dress “with respect” for flights. OK, the first request didn’t come from the DOT but from the American Association of Retired Persons, but the second comes after several years of ever-rising poor comportment in the air. Another DOT request, to say “thank you” to flight attendants, was met with almost universal approval by… flight-attendant unions.
Meanwhile, while other requests – helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with bags, controlling one’s children, and saying “please” and “thank you” in general, might seem quaint to some, very few members of the flying public that @STEXUPERY polled were willing to go on record against these recommendations.
There were, however, a few whose opinions differed, with responses including profanities, expletives, vulgarisms, obscenities, execrations, epithets, and imprecations as well as coarseness, crudeness, bawdiness, and swearin’. Some used profanity, irreverence towards the sacred, although in mild form. The mild profanity “damnation!” can be made ever so much more mild with the use of the euphemism “darn.” The Commandment about taking the Lord’s name in vein is taken in vein by “fer Crissakes” or finessed by the blurring of the word “Jesus” to a much more innocent sounding “gee whiz.”
Profanity is no substitute for obscenity. As Justice Potter Stewart never said, “I know a pornograph when I see one.”
Former President Richard Nixon is credited with helping to popularize the term “expletive deleted,” which became a national catchphrase after Mr. Nixon’s administration released edited transcripts of White House tapes during the Watergate scandal. Mr. Nixon ordered the transcripts, which were a substitute for the subpoenaed recordings, to have all profanity removed and replaced with “[EXPLETIVE DELETED]”. This censoring of mild profanities like “hell” and “damn” actually made the conversations seem harsher and more shocking than they were, turning the phrase into a widely used joke.
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Città Antica along the Adige, the second longest river in Italy.
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Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday travel season, American Airlines released statistics that it delivered industry-leading on-time departures and arrivals among the three major U.S. network carriers since 9 November 2025. Now that the partial government shutdown is over, American said it will operate its full schedule over Thanksgiving and framed the period as a stress test of its overall recovery from the Department of Transportation mandated cuts in flying.
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Archer Aviation it will acquire the master ground lease for Hawthorne Municipal Airport in Los Angeles and repurpose it as a strategic air-taxi network hub and artificial-intelligence testbed. The lease will run through 2055. The public-use airport was built in the 1920s and is also known as Jack Northrup Field, named after Northrop Aircraft’s founder. It is within walking distance from the C Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system and close to multiple downtown attractions.
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Queen Elizabeth had her famous handbag, typically carrying a customized version of Launer London’s Travita style. She “never felt fully dressed without her handbag,” Gerald Bodmer, the CEO of Launer, told the BBC after her death. Princess Diana made the Dior “Chouchou” bag so famous that Dior renamed it in her honor, and Grace Kelly, the princess of Monaco, famously used an Hermès bag to hide her pregnancy. The Baroness Thatcher is unquestionably the politician most famous for having carried a handbag, which became an iconic symbol of her power and fierce style. The handbag was often seen as an extension of her authority, leading to the verb “to handbag” which means to treat someone ruthlessly. Now, in the biggest political handbag since Margaret Thatcher entered No. 10 Downing Street with her boxy Launer London purse, Sanae Takaichi, the new prime minister of Japan, is making a big statement with her big Hamano Grace Delight Tote, a leather bag large enough to fit several A4 files. A simple rectangle with a neat silver clasp at the top and handles long enough to carry over one shoulder or in the crook of an arm, a bag that exudes professional elegance and practicality, a refined, understated design, a clean silhouette, supple leather, and its quiet luxury aesthetic.
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Curaçao became the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup. The constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea, has a population of approximately 185,000. In a tight match, Jamaica and Curaçao draw 0-0 at Independence Park, in the sixth round of the World Cup Qualifiers, allowing Curaçao to proceed to the next round.
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Salzburg at night
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George presents important news and events of the day clearly and concisely in a format better suited to the modern reader’s limited time and focus, without forsaking the founders’ traditional commitment to fact-driven news, commentary, and dispatches – all prepared by curious thinkers, for curious thinkers.
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Jonathan Spira, Tim Perry, Alexander Khusid, Christian Stampfer, Kurt Stolz, Anna Breuer, and Paul Riegler contributed to this issue of George.
The mark “George,” the tagline “A daily newspaper…,” and all of the newspaper’s content, images, photographs, and associated material are subject to copyright law.
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