Good morning. I hope you had a wonderful holiday break and used up your last hours of PTO (if it doesn’t carry over). As we look forward to 2025, let’s inject one last edition of NextGen News into our veins. Happy New Year, and enjoy today’s newsletter.

International

South Korea installed its second president in two weeks

South Korea really has it out for its presidents right now. Less than two weeks after the country's previous leader, Yoon Suk Yeol, was ousted, lawmakers in South Korea decided on Friday to impeach the acting president, Han Duck-soo.

In order for the court to rule on the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, Han had to fill three open high court seats. However, he refused to do so and was impeached as a result.

Change in leadership

Han had to fill three open high court seats which were required for the country’s Constitutional Court to rule on former President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment. Han stopped the opposition Democratic Party from appointing the judges.

Opposition MPs then successfully moved to impeach Han, claiming this was a show of loyalty to Yoon.

• After the vote to impeach Han, the ruling People’s Power Party argued the vote was invalid and accused the parliament of engaging in “tyranny”.

• In Yoon’s case, there was a massive public outcry calling for his removal, and he was impeached after declaring martial law earlier in December.

  • The former president claimed “anti-state” forces, including from North Korea, were taking hold within the country.

As South Korea deals with its first impeachment of an acting president, significant political and legal issues are brought up by the situation and Han’s removal will likely heighten the already tense political landscape and feelings of uncertainty within the country.

Looking forward: Following the unprecedented impeachments, Choi Sang-mok, the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister is now the nation's second acting president in the last two weeks.

6,000 prisoners escape from Mozambique prison

The prison break comes amid protests over the nation’s disputed election. Mozambique authorities say at least 6,000 inmates broke out of a high-security facility on Christmas Day. Post-election violence has continued to ravage the nation, as riots have fueled rebellion that has engulfed the country, leading to the prison break and widespread violence.

Continual conflict

As Mozambique faces sweeping political unrest, the prison, which is just nine miles (14 km) from the country's capital, was one of four jails stormed on Wednesday. 29 convicted terrorists are among those who have escaped from prison, according to the police chief.

• Prisoners reportedly took weapons from guards and began freeing inmates along with protestors.

Why is this happening? The long-running Frelimo Party was confirmed to have won the nation's contentious October 9 presidential elections last week by the Constitutional Council. Weeks of violent protests followed.

• More than 250 people are thought to have died since the election.

• Infrastructure across the nation has been destroyed, with police cars and stations having been set on fire.

Additionally, the UN chief demands that the violence stop and that more should be done "to seek a peaceful resolution to the ongoing crisis."

Another problem: In the north of the country, Mozambique is battling an insurgency linked to ISIS that has claimed thousands of lives and been responsible for the evacuation or kidnapping of over 100,000 more.

Social

America is facing a homelessness problem

Homelessness has reached record highs in the US. This year, homelessness in the United States hit its highest level since the federal government started tracking statistics around 20 years ago.

The federal and state governments have been desperate to come up with solutions as high housing costs, inflation, and unprecedented migration have driven homelessness up a record 18% in the last year, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The numbers

The report (see here) cited several reasons for the increase, including high rent and housing costs, the repeal of pandemic-era policies, natural disasters, and a surge in migrants that have overrun shelters in large cities.

• In January, over 772,000 people were homeless on a single night, an increase of 18% from 2023, according to the HUD.

• This year, there was a 39% increase in family homelessness and 150,000 homeless children (a 33% spike from last year).

However, some figures have dropped due to assistance from federal programs and local homeless initiatives:

• Veteran homelessness decreased by 8% this year to about 32,000.

• Dallas saw a 16% decrease in homelessness between 2022 and 2024 after deciding to revamp its homelessness response system the year prior.

• Los Angeles also saw a decrease in 2023, with the rate dropping 5% after the city provided more shelters for the homeless.

It may be worse than we think: Although the US has seen homelessness reach a record high, the number is still likely even higher, according to Adam Ruege, a US Department of Veterans Affairs data analyst. Since the annual count is taken at a single point during the year, it is “fundamentally an undercount”, according to Ruege.

Grab Bag

OpenAI will start the new year by becoming for-profit

The world’s leading AI company is taking the “new year, new me” motto pretty seriously. On Friday, the massive artificial intelligence company OpenAI announced its long-awaited restructuring plans, stating that it will become a public benefit corporation with a nonprofit division.

According to the tech giant, the action would balance the interests of the public and shareholders while enabling it to get the funds required to support its enormous computing demands.

A more attractive model

As the herald of the AI revolution, OpenAI has increasingly needed more money to fuel its objectives to create “advanced digital intelligence,” and a non-profit nametag isn’t necessarily appealing to investors.

Changing the structure opens the company to greater investment, which has already had an effect:

• The company recently closed a $6.6 billion funding round that values the company at $157 billion.

Under the new changes, the non-profit board will no longer control the company and will instead get a minority ownership position. Additionally, CEO Sam Altman will receive an equity stake of ~7%, worth around $11 billion.

Conflicting views

Many believe transitioning to a for-profit company contradicts the startup’s primary goals and intentions, so much so, that only two of the original 11 members have stayed with OpenAI (one of which is Altman), mainly leaving due to conflicting views about the company’s mission statement.

Others outside of the company have also brought forward concerns that it has its priorities backwards, and is putting profit ahead of safety:

• An early investor in OpenAI (and CEO of competitor xAI), Elon Musk, said the move violates its founding principles and brought a lawsuit against the company.

  • More recently, Microsoft was added as a defendant and an AI safety non-profit joined the lawsuit.

• Meta, Facebook’s parent company, also urged the California attorney general to block the restructuring, siding with Musk.

Looking forward: Since its founding in 2015, OpenAI has claimed its non-profit structure allowed it to "benefit all of humanity”. Despite transitioning to a for-profit benefit company (see overview here), it remains to be seen if the new model will derail the startup’s original mission.

Let’s go through the best of 2024

2024 was an interesting year, so let’s take a look at what it had to offer. So much has happened this year, from Boeing’s door plug incident to the presidential election and everything in between.

What we discovered

This year was host to a plethora of innovations, inventions, and—let’s be honest—idiots. Leaving the last one out, let’s go through a list of the best things humankind has discovered and made throughout 2024.

Milestones

Human progress, while it might not have felt like it at times, has been trending forward toward a bright future:

• Space exploration is a frontrunner for the coolest topic of the year, but Earth exploration has a place too. Here are the best of both, courtesy of NASA.

  • Since there were so many, here are a few more space highlights from 2024, thanks to PhysicsWorld.

• Here is a slice of what medical breakthroughs (that actually passed large trials) we’ve managed to accomplish this year, according to Scientific Discovery.

• Although we might hate it, math has its place too. Here are the coolest math discoveries of this year, by Scientific American.

• Many scientific accomplishments found their home in 2024. Take a look at the biggest ones, put together by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Developments

From sunglasses that double as a computer to a humanitarian water filter, humans have made quite a splash in the world of innovation. Let’s see what this year had to offer:

• The 200 Greatest Inventions of 2024 by Time Magazine.

• The top 50 innovations of the year, selected by Popular Science.

• Smithsonian Magazine selected the top eight inventions from this year's Consumer Electronics Show (including a need-to-pee monitor).

• Take a look at the best tech innovations, according to digitaltrends.

What we consumed (metaphorically)

While inventions and creations are cool and all, who doesn’t love a little entertainment? Well, I certainly do, which is why I’m including the best media of the year along with humanity’s greatest accomplishments and discoveries. Deal with it.

• Movies: The Rotten Tomatoes Awards Leaderboard.

• TV: Rolling Stone’s picks for the 10 best shows of 2024.

• Games: GQ’s best video games of 2024.

• Music: The best songs of the year, per the NYT.

• Podcasts: The top 26 podcasts of the year, according to Esquire.

• Books: Goodreads Choice Awards for best books of the year.

Ideally, these lists will give you something to distract you from the New Year’s resolutions that seem to constantly remind you that you haven’t been doing anything about them. Happy 2025!

Fast Facts

Buying Butter: Poland sold around 1,102 tons of frozen butter through an auction, drawing from its (get this) national butter reserve because the country's supply was so limited.

Scary Shrimp: Deep in an underwater trench, scientists found a new carnivorous amphipod—a kind of crustacean closely related to shrimp—and called it "Darkness." Not worrying at all.

Rise and Fall: Last year, life expectancy rose to its highest point since the pandemic in the US. On the flip side, fertility rates hit an all-time low.

Bumble-Bye: Murder hornets, which are the largest of their kind and decapitate honey bees, have finally been eradicated in the US after their first sighting in 2019.

Madden Matters: The Athletic claims that Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, nixed a wide receiver trade last offseason due to the player's Madden video game rating.