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Good morning,

Happy New Year! We missed you 🙂 

It turns out that January 1 also happens to be Public Domain Day, when certain artistic creations become available annually for all of us to use as older copyrights expire. The latest entry to the public domain: the first ever Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. What does that mean?

Thousands of copyrighted works from 1928, along with sound recordings from 1923, are now free for all to copy, share, and build upon. Winnie the Pooh entered the domain last year.

But, you can only creatively reuse OG Mickey Mouse from the 1928 Steamboat Willie film (above). Not the 1940s Mickey Mouse from Fantasia or the softer, cuddlier Mickey and Minnie from today.

(Anyone interested in a Mo News mug ft. Mickey? Though, we will have to clear it with our attorneys given how litigious Disney is 🧐)

Have a good one!

Mosheh, Jill, & Lauren

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Shop our Mo News mugs, hats, t-shirts, children & baby gear, fleeces, notebooks, stickers, and more. Stay informed and stay stylish, friends.

🗞 FROM POLITICIANS TO ROYALTY: WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE EPSTEIN DOCS

Hundreds of sealed court filings related to the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein are set to be made public as early as today. We expect to learn new details about how friends and associates like Britain's Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton were connected to Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The deadline for objections to the unsealing of names passed at midnight. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled in December to unseal the names of more than 150 "John and Jane Does" mentioned in the records.

REWIND
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, after she was convicted of sex trafficking and procuring girls for Epstein. He died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The originally sealed documents now being revealed aren’t from either of those cases. They are actually from a 2015 civil lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell. Giuffre said she was sex trafficked by Maxwell and Epstein starting at age 16.

• Giuffre accused Maxwell of facilitating sexual abuse — including with Prince Andrew and several other prominent men.

  • Prince Andrew, Epstein and Maxwell settled lawsuits with Giuffre.

While that case was settled, a number of names from documents remained redacted. In 2018, the Miami Herald fought to have the names made public and won the case. They have been gradually releasing names over the last 4 years.

BACKGROUND ON NAME RELEASE

Epstein, a financier who left behind an estate worth $600 million, once told New York Magazine, “I invest in people — be it politics or science. It’s what I do.“

Most of the prominent names that appear in the documents are already linked with Epstein: having worked with him, flown on his planes, visited his homes, or for allegations of wrongdoing. Visitor and flight logs and other documents have been released publicly through the years.

• The judge said two of the three people whose names will remain sealed — J. Does 58 and 124 — are not connected to the events. The third, Doe 133, was mistakenly identified in a photo.

• Thirteen people fought unsuccessfully to keep their names secret.

• Some of the individuals named will include sex abuse victims and people with only a passing connection to the scandal.

• Judge Preska listed 187 "J. Does" on the court documents and ruled many of them should be "unsealed in full."

DOE 36 AKA BILL CLINTON
ABC News reported that Clinton was identified as "Doe 36," who is mentioned in more than 50 of the redacted filings. We know that Giuffre has made no allegations of wrongdoing by Clinton, and there is no indication that the sealed records contain evidence of illegal conduct by the former president.

• Clinton was at the heart of a contentious issue in the litigation: Giuffre claimed she met Clinton on Epstein's private Caribbean island and wanted him deposed to talk about Maxwell. Clinton denies ever having been to the island. And while personal flight logs kept by one of Epstein's pilots showed that Clinton had flown on Epstein's jet to places like Paris, Bangkok and Brunei in 2002 and 2003, he is not listed as having traveled to the island.

• Notably, Clinton’s attorneys had a chance to fight the release of his name in the documents and chose not to. Clinton has said he cut off ties with Epstein in 2005. Notably, Maxwell attended his daughter Chelsea’s wedding in 2010.

OTHER ANTICIPATED NAMES
Judge Preske said many of the names are already public and others were not salacious and should not be kept sealed. The court documents to be unsealed are the eighth, and likely final, round of unsealing records from the case.

• Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of the Limited and Victoria’s Secret, tried unsuccessfully to keep his name redacted, according to the Miami Herald.

• Some names were mentioned during Maxwell's 2021 criminal trial. In some instances, the only appearances of the names are in potential witness lists or in proposed terms for searches of electronic records.

Previously released documents show that Epstein was associated with prominent politicians, executives and celebrities:

• Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and onetime Harvard University president; Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist and LinkedIn co-founder; Woody Allen, the Oscar-winning movie director; Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister; and Terje Rød-Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat.

• To give you a sense of Epstein’s contacts, here are a few people he met with just on September 8, 2014

  • Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder; Leon Black, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management; Thomas Pritzker, chairman of Hyatt Hotels; and Mort Zuckerman, a billionaire real-estate investor and media owner.

⏳ SPEED READ

🚨NATION

📌 Gender-neutral toy aisles, blackout license plates, anti-book bans: New laws for 2024 (AXIOS)

📌 Missing foreign exchange student found safe inside tent in Utah in 'cyber kidnapping' (ABC NEWS)

📌 Driver strikes, injures 8 people on sidewalk blocks from Times Square while trying to escape police (CBS NEWS)

📌 Haley, DeSantis both say they will pardon Trump if they are elected president and the former president is convicted (WASHINGTON POST)

📌 To avoid New York rules, hundreds of migrants dropped off in New Jersey (NY TIMES)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

📌 Israel to begin withdrawing troops from Gaza, but warns war will last most of year (CBS NEWS)

📌 Israel’s top court strikes down key part of judicial overhaul, in ruling that could reignite divisions as war rages (CNN)

📌 South Korean leader stabbed in neck by attempted assassin (GUARDIAN)

📌Powerful quake rocks Japan, nearly 100,000 residents ordered to evacuate (REUTERS)

📌 Chinese leader threatens Taiwan will "surely be reunified" with China (AXIOS)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

📌 Over 657,000 infant formula cans recalled over potential bacteria contamination (ABC NEWS)

📌 Respiratory virus activity is high and rising across the United States, CDC data shows (CNN)

📌 Beer drinking in America falls to the lowest level in a generation (NBC NEWS)

📌 Covid slashed consumer choices. This is why they’re not coming back: (WSJ)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

📌 Michigan's goal line stand in overtime beats Alabama 27-20 to win Rose Bowl (THE ATHLETIC)

📌 Nigel Lythgoe denies abusing Paula Abdul as sexual assault lawsuit looms (BBC)

📌 Powerball jackpot reaches $810 million to start 2024 (THE HILL)

📌 Ex-cycling world champion Dennis reportedly charged after Olympian wife killed by vehicle (ABC NEWS)

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🗓 ON THIS DAY: JANUARY 2

• 1920: Raids in 33 cities resulted in the arrests of 3,000 people accused of being foreign anarchists, communists, or radical leftists. Part of the Palmer Raids, led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, they were viewed as the climax of that era's Red Scare.

• 1960: Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts launched his successful bid for the presidency.
  

• 1969: The Beatles convened in the studio to record their 12th and final album, Let It Be.

• 1974: President Richard Nixon signed a 55 mph national speed limit into law as a way of conserving gasoline in the face of an OPEC oil embargo.

  • The 55 mph limit was effectively phased out in 1987; federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.