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Today's episode is brought to you by the podcast, Techmeme Ride Home, a daily news roundup of tech news in minutes.

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All the news stories mentioned in today's episode are listed with links below, so you can spend as much -- or as little -- time as you want perusing the latest happenings...

Shutdown Looms:  Parts of the government will shut down at midnight on Friday unless Congress passes a short-term spending bill. President Trump wants $5 billion, but Democrats still say nope. If the government shuts down, non-essential services will close and hundreds of thousands of government employees might have to go without pay.
Read more: AP, CNN, FOX News

Russia Reports:  Two new reports confirm that Russia used social media to stir conflict in America and influence the 2016 election. We're talking text, images and video posts tailored to sway voters. One report also found an effort to target black Americans. The NAACP is now calling for a week-long boycott of Facebook and Instagram.
Read more: The Washington Post, NYT, The Hill, NAACP

Stocks Drop: The Federal Reserve kicks off a two-day meeting today and is expected to raise interest rates for a fourth time this year. Investors are nervous. Major U.S. stock indexes fell yesterday to their lowest levels in more than a year.
Read more: WSJ, CNBC, AP

Student Debt:  According to a report from Bloomberg, student debt in the U.S. has set a new record, doubling to $1.465 trillion since the Great Recession.
Read more: Bloomberg

No Payout for Ex-CEO:  CBS's ex-CEO Les Moonves will not be receiving the $120 million severance package he had hoped for. CBS says Moonves violated company policy and did not cooperate with investigations into sexual harassment and assault allegations. An attorney for Moonves called the claims “baseless.”
Read more: Variety, CNN, AP
 
A.I. Faces:  It’s kind of scary to see how real these faces look! The Verge features a comparison between what A.I. was able to create in 2014 – grainy black-and-white – and in 2018 – full-on human. Questions of how this might impact society are already beginning.
Read more: The Verge
 
Google’s $1 Billion Campus:  Google is building a new campus called “Google Hudson Square,” which will cost $1 billion. It will also bring jobs: at least 7,000 over the next decade. Google isn’t alone; Amazon and Apple have recently announced expansions, too.
Read more: Business Insider, NBC News
 
Amazon Shipping Deadlines:  Make your list and check it twice! If you’re not an Amazon Prime member, then today is the final day to order with free shipping if you want it to arrive by Christmas. See the full breakdown of deadlines here.
Read more: Digital Trends
 
Best Places to Live: As in the best city to live in --  in each of the 50 states. For this list, factors like cost of living, housing, schools and weather were taken into consideration.
Read more: Money (find your state)

Worst Passwords: There's also a list of the year's 'worst passwords.' The data looked at 5 million passwords leaked online in the last year:
#1: "123456"  
#2: "Password"
Oh -- and  #23: "Donald" 
Read more: The Verge, Mashable