Ryan Coogler’s bluesy vampire thriller “Sinners,” the big screen musical “Wicked: For Good” and the Netflix phenomenon “KPop Demon Hunters” are all a step closer to an Oscar nomination. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released shortlists for 12 categories Tuesday, including for best song, score, international and documentary film, cinematography and this year’s new prize, casting.“Sinners” and “Wicked: For Good” received the most shortlist mentions with eight each, including makeup and hair, sound, visual effects, score, casting and cinematography. Both have two original songs advancing as well. For “Wicked” it’s Stephen Schwartz’s “The Girl in the Bubble” and “No Place Like Home.” For “Sinners,” it’s Ludwig Göransson, Miles Caton and Alice Smith’s “Last Time (I Seen the Sun),” and Göransson and Raphael Saadiq’s “I Lied to You.”The “KPop Demon Hunters” hit “Golden,” by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick, was another shortlisted song alongside other notable artists like: Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner for “Train Dreams”; John Mayer, Ed Sheeran and Blake Slatkin for the “F1” song “Drive”; Sara Bareilles, Brandi Carlile and Andrea Gibson for “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” from “Come See Me In the Good Light”; and Miley Cyrus, Simon Franglen, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “Dream as One” from “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Diane Warren also might be on her way to a 17th nomination with “Dear Me” from “Diane Warren: Relentless.”One of the highest profile shortlist categories is the best international feature, where 15 films were named including “Sentimental Value” (Norway), “Sirât” (Spain), “No Other Choice” (South Korea), “The Secret Agent” (Brazil), “It Was Just an Accident” (France), “The Voice of Hind Rajab” (Tunisia), “Sound of Falling” (Germany) and “The President’s Cake” (Iraq).Notable documentaries among the 15 include “My Undesirable Friends: Part I Last Air in Moscow,” “The Perfect Neighbor,” “The Alabama Solution,” “Come See Me in the Good Light,” “Cover-Up” and Mstyslav Chernov’s “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a co-production between The Associated Press and PBS Frontline.The Oscars’ new award for casting shortlisted 10 films that will vie for the five nomination slots: “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners,” “Sirt,” “Weapons,” and “Wicked: For Good.” Notably “Jay Kelly and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” did not make the list.Composers who made the shortlist for best score include Göransson (“Sinners”), Jonny Greenwood (“One Battle After Another”), Max Richter (“Hamnet”), Alexandre Desplat (“Frankenstein”) and Kangding Ray (“Sirt”).For the most part, shortlists are determined by members in their respective categories, though the specifics vary from branch to branch: Some have committees, some have minimum viewing requirements.As most of the shortlists are in below-the-line categories celebrating crafts like sound and visual effects, there are also films that aren’t necessarily the most obvious of Oscar contenders like “The Alto Knights,” shortlisted in hair and makeup, as well as the widely panned “Tron: Ares” and “The Electric State,” both shortlisted for visual effects. “Tron: Ares” also made the lists for score and song with Nine Inch Nails’ “As Alive As You Need Me To Be”.The lists will narrow to five when final nominations are announced on Jan. 22. The 98th Oscars, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will air live on ABC on March 15 at 7 p.m. ET.
Lindsey Bahr, AP Film Writer
Shares of publicly traded companies operating in the cannabis space continue to perform strongly as the Trump administration considers reclassifying marijuana.
Reports first emerged last week that the Trump administration might change marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, which would lessen restrictions on it.
On Monday, President Trump told reporters that he was considering the reclassification.
We are considering that because a lot of people want to see itthe reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that cant be done unless you reclassify, Trump stated, according to CNN. So, we are looking at that very strongly.
Prior to Trumps announcement, a White House official told Fast Company that the administration had yet to make a final decision about reclassification. We have reached out to the White House about its current plans and will update this post if we hear back.
Cannabis brands see their shares rise
The potential of a reclassification has been enough to bolster shares of cannabis companies since the opening bell on Friday. Below are just some of the impressive jumps to watch.
Tilray Brands Inc. (Nasdaq:TLRY)
Closing on Tuesday: 27.54%
Five-day growth: 71.97%
Premarket growth on Wednesday: 3.66%
Cresco Labs Inc (OTCQX: CRLBF)
Closing on Tuesday: 34.93%
Five-day growth: 123.11%
After-hours growth: -0.23%
Canopy Growth Corp. (Nasdaq:CGC)
Closing on Tuesday: 10.24%
Five-day growth: 61.49%
Premarket growth on Wednesday: 6.01%
Curaleaf Holdings Inc. (OTCQX:CURLF)
Closing on Tuesday: 23.18%
Five-day growth: 67.89%
After-hours growth: 0.38%
Trulieve Cannabis Corp. (CNSX: TRUL)
Closing on Tuesday: 12.58%
Five-day growth: 76.40%
After-hours and premarket: N/A
Each of these stocks are still significantly down from highs in early 2021, during the early Biden era, when marijuana reform excitement seemingly peaked.
Whats the difference between Schedule I and Schedule III?
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) defines Schedule I drugs as those with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Marijuana currently sits on this list alongside heroin, ecstasy, LSD, peyote, and more.
The DEA states that Schedule III drugs are those with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Right now, that list includes anabolic steroids, ketamine, Tylenol with codeine, and testosterone.
If the change occurs, marijuana would be considered less dangerous than Schedule II drugs, which have a high potential for abuse, such as Adderall, cocaine, fentanyl, and Ritalin.
Reclassifying marijuana would have no impact on its federal legality.
A federal judge said Tuesday he’s leaning toward denying a preservationist group’s request to temporarily halt President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, saying the organization failed to show that “irreparable harm” would be caused if the project moves forward.U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he could issue a final decision on the restraining order by Wednesday. But Leon said he plans to hold another hearing in January on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s request to pause the ballroom project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.In the meantime, Leon warned the administration to not make decisions on underground work, such as the routing of plumbing and gas lines, that would dictate the scope of future ballroom construction above ground. If that were to happen, Leon said, “the court will address it, I assure you of that.”Trump, speaking Tuesday night at a Hannukah event, thanked the judge for the “courage in making the proper decision.” He also described the ballroom as costing $400 million, though its previously listed price tag was $300 million.Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust, said it remained “fully committed to upholding the interests of the American people and advocating for compliance with the law, including review by the National Capital Planning Commission and an opportunity for the public to provide comment and shape the project.”Trump went ahead with the ballroom construction before seeking input from a pair of federal review panels, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. Trump has stocked the planning commission with allies, including the chairman, Will Scharf, who recently said he expected to receive the ballroom plans sometime this month.Leon made a couple of references during the hearing to the administration having just two weeks to submit the plans. Adam Gustafson, the principal deputy assistant attorney general, said the administration had “initiated outreach” to the panel to do just that, but no date had been set.Trump recently dismissed all members of the fine arts panel. He has yet to name replacements.Gustafson argued at the hearing that the Trust has no standing in the case to sue and that underground construction must continue for national security reasons that were not outlined in open court. He also said Trump is exempt from federal laws the Trust said he has failed to follow.Gustafson said the Trust cannot show “irreparable harm” because the ballroom plans have not been finalized and construction above ground was not scheduled to begin until April at the earliest.Tad Heuer, the attorney representing the Trust a private, nonprofit organization said that with every day that construction is allowed to proceed absent the independent reviews, the government gets to say “wait and find out” what the ballroom will look like.“It’s not about the need for a ballroom. It’s about the need to follow the law,” Heuer said of the case.The White House announced the ballroom project over the summer and by late October, Trump had demolished the East Wing of the White House to build in its place a ballroom that he said will be big enough to fit 999 people at an estimated cost of $300 million in private funding.
Darlene Superville, Associated Press
More than any other Apple product, the Vision Pro is stillto quote Bob Dylan by way of Steve Jobsbusy being born. Announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 5, 2023 and shipped the following February, the $3,500 spatial computing headset has evolved some since its first release. This year brought a meaty operating system upgrade and a slightly revised version of the device sporting Apples powerful new M5 chip.
But much of the progress the Vision Pro has made hasnt stemmed from the routine tick-tock of software and hardware updates. Apple has also been throwing itself into the equally vital work of getting third-party developers and creators to build experiences that will help the rest of us understand what, exactly, its headset is good for. That was the goal of a Vision Pro developer event the company held at its Cupertino campus in late October.
Unlike the sprawling, online-first WWDC confab, this gatheringpart of an ongoing series called Meet with Applewas intimate and focused. Yes, a worldwide audience tuned in via livestream, and Apple later posted videos from the event on YouTube. But in-person attendees got to mix, mingle, and witness onstage presentations in the Apple Developer Centers Big Sur theater, a 200-seat venue named after the 2020 MacOS release. And every minute of the two-day meeting was devoted to sharing best practices about the art and science of creating immersive media for the Vision Pro.
This years Vision Pro has Apples latest M5 chip and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. [Photo: Courtesy of Apple]
The fact that there are best practices to share reflects Apples own growing confidence as a creator of experiences for its own device. We’ve seen a lot of great momentum over the last several months with third-party creators, says senior director of Apple Vision Pro product marketing Steve Sinclair. And a lot of that is steeped in learnings that we’ve had over the last 12 to 18 months of making this type of content.
Such advances are essential to the Vision Pros future. In August, Bloombergs Mark Gurman argued that the headset was stuck in a catch-22 situation. Without a sizable base of Vision Pro customers, Apple wasnt incentivized to release vast quantities of content in Apple Immersive Video, its format for 3D 8K video with spatial video. But the lack of such content made the Vision Pro a less tempting purchase, even for people with a spare $3,500 to spend on it.
Gurman did say that third-party creators might help increase the amount of available content. He also noted the release of two products from Blackmagic Design: its $33,000 Ursa Cine Immersive camera and a new version of the DaVinci Resolve video editor capable of handling Apple Immersive Video. They will help independent creators tackle immersive production, a process that has historically involved, as Blackmagic business development manager Dave Hoffman puts it, rigs that were bespoke and really kind of science projects.
Blackmagic Designs Apple Immersion Video-ready Ursa Cine Immersive camera [Photo: Courtesy of Blackmagic Design]
At Apples event, I spoke with filmmakers and developers who are already producing Apple Immersive Video and other forms of Vision Pro content. (The terminology can get tricky: Not everything on the headset thats immersive and/or video is Apple Immersive Video, a specific technical specification.) Given the venue, its not shocking that they spoke highly of the assistance the company has given them. Yet they also talked about the adventure of diving into a medium thats still finding its way.
Figuring out immersive storytelling has kind of felt like sailing off into the unknown and drawing the map as you go, says cinematographer Ben Allan, the author, along with his wife, writer-director Clara Chong, of a book about Apple Immersive Video filmmaking. For now, there arent that many content consumers along for the trip. But if it some eventual version of Apple Vision becomes a mainstream hit, the pioneers currently adopting the medium will share in the credit.
In music video, in documentaries, and scripted content, there are things that are working extremely well and that [can] be used as a template for the future, says Victor Agulhon, the CEO of Targo, whose Vision Pro interactive documentary app D-Day: The Camera Soldier, produced in collaboration with Time magazine, was an Emmy and Apple App Store Awards finalist this year. How much time it’s going to take to get to a hundred million users, we don’t know. But I do believe that the kind of experience you can get on these headsets today is definitely worth having by hundreds of millions of users.
Really, truly immersive
In the grand scheme of things, the Vision Pros new features scratch timeless itches. Certainly, the dsire to conjure up you-are-there experiences was foundational to movie-making as a medium. As VisionOS design evangelist Serenity Caldwell noted onstage at Apples event, audiences were thrilled by the realism of the Lumire brothers 50-second 1896 film showing a train arriving in a French station. (One contemporaneous reaction: It speeds right at youwatch out!)
By putting 23 million pixels of 3D video directly in front of your eyes, the Vision Pro can create effects the Lumires wouldnt have dared to dream about. Ultimately, though, the headsets twin Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) displays, eye-tracking sensors, front-facing cameras, and other technologies go only so far to shape the platform. Its still up to creators and developers to determine how to draw users into stories in ways that are inviting rather than off-putting or disorienting.
That involves a bevy of decisions, some of which Caldwell walked through during her talk. Should you keep the real world surrounding the user fully visible, dim it a bit, or block it out entirely? Is it better to unleash visual spectacle as quickly as possible, or to kick off an experience with more subtle effects? How do you use gestures to ensure that users feel like theyre in control?
Anyone creating Mac apps builds on more than 40 years of lessons about how to put users at ease; the iPhone, iPad, and even the Apple Watch are also mature platforms at this point. The Vision Pro is different. Immersion is a powerful tool for media experiences, but we have a responsibility as storytellers to consider the audience experience whenever we use it, urged Caldwell. Remember, this is still a new platform. Your app might be the first thing someone sees on VisionOS and the first thing they try, so it’s important to make sure that that experience is a great one.
Even if thats a sobering responsibility, it can also be an exciting opportunity. Filmmakers Allan and Chong saw it that way. We saw this technology at the early stages, and just went, Wow, this is going to be a thing, and we want to get in on it as soon as we can, recalls Allan. Each has around 30 years of movie-making experience and an appreciation for new tech. In the previous decade, theyd even made a family film projected on a wraparound 5:1 screen at Sydneys Taronga Zoo, a project Chong calls a really big head start in understanding the Vision Pros potential.
Allan and Chong have recently completed two Apple Immersive Video films: a five-minute documentary on the most Instagrammed cake in the world and a romantic drama. Both are far afield of the eye-popping extravaganza typical in early Vision Pro experiences. Indeed, their drama consists entirely of two characters talking to each other, something that can be a challenge to make compelling even in a non-interactive 2D movie. We thought, Well, if we can pull that off, you can do anything cinematically with this format, says Chong.
Director and photographer Anton Tammi had an eminently practical reason for getting into Vision Pro storytelling: Singer-songwriter The Weeknd asked him to. The two have worked together on music videos for years. I guess my style was something that the artist himself really felt that would make sense in the immersive format, muses Tammi.
Their video, for The Weeknds Open Hearts single, was released in November 2024. Because it was one of the very early-stage projects, I guess almost like an R&D project with Apple Immersive, I felt like I really was taken good care of by the Immersive team, says Tammi. I learned a lot. I almost went through this school of immersive filmmaking.
[The Weeknd, up close and personal in his ‘Open Hearts’ video. Photo: Courtesy of Apple]
The videos vibe isnt a radical departure from The Weeknd and Tammis previous collaborations. Its just that Apple Immersive Video both opens it up and brings it closer. Over three and a half minutes, it drops you into several worlds, featuring everything from majestic galloping horses to gritty Los Angeles cityscapes to a surrealistic conclusion I wont spoil here. You also get face-to-face with The Weeknd, who at times seems to be just millimeters away. (Right after removing the headset, I watched the same video on my iPad, where he looked trapped behind glass by compsarison.)
Despite totally feeling like a Weeknd video, “Open Hearts” required Tammi to rethink his filmmaking techniques and priorities. Because of the crazy attention span shortening that’s happening around us, music videos and social media stories and whatever have extremely fast-paced cutting, he explains. With Apple Immersive Video, You cant do that, and I dont think the viewers need that. He estimates that a previous Weeknd video he directed, “Blinding Lights,” includes 300 to 400 cuts. “Open Hearts” has around 30.
History via headset
Even unleashed on the Vision Pro, “Open Hearts” remains a music video in the classic sense. Targos D-Day: The Camera Soldier is tougher to nail down. Part app, part documentary, it painstakingly weaves together new and archival footage with still images, CGI video, and 3D artifacts such as WWII dog tags and medals. It’s a 20-minute experience, and there was a nine-month production, says CEO Agulhon.
Its easy to imagine the real-life story that inspired itinvolving a Connecticut woman learning about her fathers work as a combat cameraman during the Allies landing at Omaha Beachbeing told in a conventional documentary. But the Vision Pro both demands and rewrds attention in a way that differs from other media. If you look at the data of what people do when they watch TV, for instance, everyone’s actually on their phones and doing something else, says Agulhon. Not so once youve slipped on Apples headset.
Consequently, the 20-minute running length isnt a fluke. Targo has eight years of experience making interactive documentaries for platforms such as Meta Quest, ranging from 10 to 40 minutes. According to Agulhon, at 20 minutes, the time flies by for [viewers], but its still a very intense experience.
Targos D-Day: The Camera Soldier documentary app [Photo: Courtesy of Targo]
Targo built parts of D-Day using a game engine, but its not gamelike: Nothing the viewer does affects the flow of the narrative or its outcome. Instead, the app has some of the feel of an uncommonly rich museum exhibit, where touching some of the itemsif only virtuallyis not only allowed but a defining feature.
One concept we leaned into was that we could transform moments of time into places that people can explore, says Agulhon. That’s an effect that only immersive can bring to you.
Another immersive media studio, Rogue Labs, leaned into an entirely different use for the Vision Pro: Helping people learn to fly helicopters. (Not coincidentally, its founder also owns a helicopter flight school.) Released in November, its app, Flight Sight, melds Apple Immersive Video, CGI helicopters and scenes, and flat videos and maps. To recreate real-world instruction, Rogue staffers shot POV video by strapping a Blackmagic Ursa Cine Immersive camera into the seat where a student pilot would sit. Since helicopters arein Rogue creative and technical director John Racines wordsgiant vibration machines, the filmmakers had to both stabilize the camera and perform additional stabilization in post-production.
Flight Sight isnt a flight simulator or an FAA-accredited way to log training hours, but that isnt the point. It’s more of a supplemental tool that will help you become familiar with the helicopter, hopefully more quickly, and hopefully help you save some money from time that you would spend in the helicopter watching your instructor do some of these maneuvers over and over again, says Rogue Labs president Cory Hill.
The company also hopes to grow the community of helicopter pilots by sparking the imagination of Apple Vision owners. Everybody we show it to, whether they’re full-on pilots or someone who’s never been in a helicopter before, they watch it, and they instantly say, This makes me want to learn how to fly a helicopter, which is what we want to do, says Racine. That said, Rogue is also filming additional content in scenic locales, such as Catalina Island and Channel Islands National Park, whose splendor might draw in those of us who are happy to keep our ‘copter piloting strictly virtual.
A helicopter takes off in Flight Sight. [Photo: Courtesy of Rogue Labs]
Even the coolest single immersive video or app wont silence all doubts about the Vision Pro being a sufficiently enticing consumer product to lead to bigger things for Apple. But a flurry of recent announcements involving high-profile names might help. In September, the company unveiled a new slate of Apple Immersive Video shows with partners such as the BBC, CNN, CANAL+, and Red Bull, ranging from classical music concerts to a documentary about emperor penguins. A month later, it revealed that select Los Angeles Lakers 2025-2026 season games will stream live, courtesy of Spectrum SportsNet.
Ultimately, as with every new Apple platform before it, the odds are decent that the Vision Pro will end up being defined not by items the company had an active hand in willing into existence, but rather ones nobody saw coming. There are a lot of stories that people want to tell, and they’re seeing that the immersive capabilities of Vision Pro and the toolsets that we offer, and some of our partners offer, really give them a chance to tell those stories in new ways, says Apples Sinclair.
And some of those new ways are yet to come, Take longer-form immersive narratives, which Blackmagic Designs Hoffman contends nobody has yet mastered.
From my perspective, the tools are there now, and I know there’s a couple of people that are trying to figure out what the challenges are, he says. How do we work out situations where you used to do cross shots and closeups and mid-range shots and all that kind of stuff? That dialogue is going on right now, and someone’s going to hit it. Some filmmaker is going to be like, Yeah, this is how we do it. A few more of those epiphanies, and the Vision Pro might eliminate any residual sense that its uncharted territory for storytellers.
Ice cream lovers rejoice: Ben & Jerrys has something new and exciting to introduce to the world.
The Vermont-based ice cream company announced that it will add ice cream bars to its lineup. The new ice cream bars will be available in these five flavors:
Caramel Blondie
Chocolate Fudge Brownie
Cookie Dough
PB Pretzel
Strawberry Cheesecake
A December 10 company news release noted that each ice cream bar features decadent ice cream, plenty of chunks and swirls, dipped in a chocolatey coating with cookie pieces.
[Photo: Ben & Jerry’s]
The new product line will be available at retail stores as soon as January 2026. Each box will feature four ice cream bars. The company will also offer single Cookie Dough ice cream bars, which will be sold at convenience stores beginning next spring.
How can I try the new flavors?
Ice cream lovers dont have to wait until the new year to try the new ice cream bar flavors.
To celebrate the news, Ben & Jerrys will be doing a free ice cream “bar drop” at 150 Ben & Jerrys Scoop Shops nationwide.
The bar drops are happening today: Wednesday, December 17, 2025, in shops from Los Angeles to New York. More than 20,000 ice cream bars will be given away for free, according to the company.
To find out whether your closest Ben & Jerrys Scoop Shop will be participating in the event, check out the brand’s interactive store locator map, and do the following:
Enter your city
Make sure “Free Bar Drop Shop” is selected
A list of participating shops will populate
Ben & Jerry’s urges customers to “Get ’em before they’re gone!”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr will face Senate questioning Wednesday for the first time since he pressured broadcasters to take ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air, a stance that drew bipartisan criticism and raised concerns about government interference in the media.Carr will appear before the Senate Commerce committee for an oversight hearing that will also include the FCC’s two other commissioners, Olivia Trusty and Anna M. Gomez. It will be the first Senate Commerce oversight hearing with all FCC commissioners since 2020, though there are two vacancies on the five-member panel.Since being tapped by President Donald Trump last November to lead the nation’s top broadcast regulator, Carr has closely aligned with the administration’s aggressive posture toward media outlets it views as hostile. He has launched FCC investigations into ABC, CBS and NBC News, in addition to some local stations.Trump in his second term has sued The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and, most recently, the BBC. And at Trump’s urging, Congress this summer approved eliminating $1.1 billion allocated to public broadcasting.Earlier this year, Carr came under fire from lawmakers in both parties after he denounced Kimmel’s comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. He called Kimmel’s remarks “truly sick” and warned broadcasters, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Hours later, ABC announced Kimmel had been suspended indefinitely.Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, who scheduled the hearing last month, was among the Republicans who criticized Carr’s remarks at the time.“I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying,” Cruz said on his podcast, calling Carr’s comments “dangerous as hell.”The hearing comes as Carr faces additional scrutiny from Democrats over media consolidation. Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen, a member of the committee, joined other Democrats this week in urging Carr to closely examine Nexstar Media Group’s proposed acquisition of rival broadcaster Tegna.In a letter sent Tuesday, the lawmakers warned the deal would further concentrate media power in the U.S. local television market.“Regulatory approval of the conglomerate would likely raise prices for consumers, accelerate job losses, and weaken the independence and news coverage of local TV stations,” they wrote.The transaction would require the FCC to loosen rules limiting how many stations a single company may own. Carr has said he is open to changing those ownership limits. Nexstar was one of two ABC affiliate owners that said they would preempt Kimmel’s show with local programming following his comments about Kirk.Kimmel’s suspension came after his monologue included a reference to Kirk’s shooting and compared Trump’s grief to “how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.” The show returned to air less than a week after the indefinite suspension was announced.
Joey Cappelletti and Matt Sedensky, Associated Press
It’s been a tumultuous year for U.S. stock markets. Investors have had their nerves rattled twice this year by government-related eventsPresident Trumps Liberation Day tariffs in the spring, followed by the longest U.S. government shutdown in history this fall.
Thats on top of an economy already hit hard by inflation and declining consumer confidence.
Yet despite this, there have still been several high-profile and successful initial public offerings throughout the yearespecially in the AI and fintech spaces.
And now, an IPO this week is set to dwarf all others that have come before it this year. Heres what you need to know about Medline Inc.s initial public offering.
What is Medline?
Medline Inc. is a maker of medical supplies. The company is based in Northfield, Illinois, and was originally founded in 1966 by brothers Jim and John Mills.
According to the companys S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Medline makes approximately 335,000 different medical and surgical productseverything from wheelchairs to masks to scalpels.
It manufactures this extraordinary portfolio of products at 33 global facilities and has customers in more than 100 countries. As of the end of 2024, Medline employed more than 43,000 workers worldwide.
For the nine months that ended on September 27, Medline reported $20.6 billion in net sales so far this year. Its net income for the nine-month period was $977 million. For the same period a year earlier, Medline reported $18.7 billion in net sales and net income of $911 million.
Medline has a history of public offerings and private equity
Despite its IPO this week, this isnt the first time Medline has publicly listed its stock. As Reuters reported, Medline originally went public in 1972. But just five years later, in 1977, the Mills brothers took the company private again.
The company grew massively over the next several decades, ultimately attracting the attention of private equity.
As noted by the Financial Times, a group of private equity investors, including Blackstone, Carlyle, and Hellman & Friedmans, acquired a majority stake in the medical supply maker in 2021 for a staggering $34 billion.
At the time, it was the largest leveraged buyout since the 2008 financial crisis.
And despite Medlines IPO this week, this isnt the first time in 2025 that Medline was expected to go public. The company had been considering an IPO earlier in 2025, but then Trumps Liberation Day tariffs hit.
Medline was one of the companies that stood to be hit hardest by tariffs, as the majority of its products are made in Asian nations that faced some of the steepest tariffs.
Despite this earlier delay, Medline will once again become a publicly traded company after 48 years.
When is Medlines IPO?
Medline priced its shares on Tuesday. It expects to list its shares today: Wednesday, December 17, 2025.
What is Medlines stock ticker?
Medlines shares will trade under the stock ticker MDLN.
What exchange will Medlines shares trade on?
Medline shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
What is the IPO share price of MDLN?
The initial public offering price for MDLN stock is $29 per share. Thats at the higher end of the IPO share price range of $26 to $30 per share that was expected.
How many MDLN shares are available in its IPO?
Medlines press release states that 216,034,482 shares of its Class A common stock were available in its IPO.
How much will Medline raise in its IPO?
Medline raised $6.26 billion in its IPO. According to Reuters, this makes Medilines IPO 2025s biggest first-time share sale globally.
How much is Medline worth?
At its $29 IPO price, Medline is now valued at around $39 billion.
Medline surpasses other IPO giants this year
Medlines $6.26 billion IPO haul makes it the biggest IPO of 2025. As noted by the FT, the offering comes in above the $5.3 billion that Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co raised in May.
Medlines $6.26 billion debut also dwarfs the largest U.S. IPO of the year, which was liquefied natural gas producer Venture Global (NYSE: VG). Venture Global raised $1.75 billion in that offering.
In late October, dozens of federal law enforcement officers flooded Canal street, a busy thoroughfare in Manhattan, arresting street vendors. Some officers donned full military uniforms; some wore plain clothes, baseball caps, and neck gaiters pulled over their faces. All were equipped with tactical vests of various styles and with a medley of identifying patchesHSI, Customs and Border Patrol, Federal Agent, or, simply, Police.
They wore markers of power and authority, but with little consistency across them. As news of the raid unfolded, the NYPD released a statement on X saying it had no involvement with the operation. So who, exactly, were all the people with Police emblazoned on their chests?
Every decade has its era-defining garments. Think spaghetti strap dresses in the 1990s, low-rise jeans in the 2000s, and athleisure in the 2010s. This year, one garment felt suddenly ubiquitous: the tactical vest. And its not just law enforcement wearing this gear; theres a growing consumer market for body armor and garments that resemble them. Theyve gone from technical gear designed for professionals to normalized accessories. Moreover, these objects have seeped into fitness in the form of weighted vests that are made by the same companies who produce tactical gear. Their form factor has become a chilling symbol of a political climate defined by fear.
How the plate carrier mainstreamed
These vests, also known as plate carriers, are military equipment designed to protect the people who wear them from bullets and other ballistics. Theyre garments with removable ceramic, steel, and composite plates, and are outfitted with nylon loops and Velcro that enables wearers to attach gear and accessories, a system known as MOLLE, an acronym for modular lightweight load-carrying equipment.
Counter protesters at the June 2025 No King demonstration in Houston, TX. June 14, 2025 [Photo: Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images]
What began as specialized garments created for active combat has been steadily infiltrating our cities for decades. The vests became more prevalent after the expansion of the 1033 program, which authorized the free transfer of surplus military equipment to local law enforcement for the War on Drugs in the 1980s and 1990s and counterterrorism post-9/11.
One interesting part of the business of these garments is that until the War on Terror, tactical clothing wasnt something military actively stocked in the same way as guns and ammunition, explains Charles W. McFarlane, a military fashion historian and author of the Substack Combat Threads.
A law enforcement agent’s vest in Chicago, IL. October 4, 2025. [Photo: Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty Images]
While body armor had been used since WWII, it took decades to create something that was protective but didnt interfere with movement. Patrol troops in Vietnam, for example, didnt regularly wear it because it was heavy, cumbersome, and trapped heat; however, troops in defense positions and on unarmored convoys did.
After Kevlar was invented, in 1965, protective vests became lighter and easier to wear as designers integrated the material into gear. In the 1980s, the U.S. army began issuing kevlar vests to some troops in the Middle East, Panama, and Grenada. Then in the 1990s, Army Rangers in Somalia wore vests with a combination of Kevlar and a hard plate.
In 1999, the military began issuing what most closely resembles the tactical vests of today, with removable plate inserts and the MOLLE system on the outside. But it wasnt until 2003 that all soldiers received one suit of body armor as a matter of policy. McFarlane notes that the CIA paramilitary officers who led Operation Jawbreaker, the agencys highly secretive first mission to Afghanistan in 2001, bought their gear at REI. They look like they’re dads on a fishing trip, McFarlane says.
As a new market for this gear opened, private companies began to develop specialty products that they sold to the military and the public, too. Brands like Crye Precision, 5.11 Tactical, and Safariland provide gear to the government and consumers. According to Research and Markets, the military PPE marketa categor that includes body armor, tactical vests, and combat helmets among other productsis expected to see an annual growth rate of 8.2%, rising from $19.4 billion in 2024 to $29 billion in 2029.
[Screenshots: FC]
This stuff has just become so much more available, and if you wanted to buy a plate carrier that is standard issue for the military or one that is used by Special Forces, you can go to the same companies and buy it, with some exceptions, McFarlane says.
There are few sales restrictions on tactical gear. At the federal level, its illegal for people with felony convictions to buy plate carriers or body armor, but sellers say enforcement is lax. Some states have stricter rules, like New York, which passed a law in 2022 barring sales to anyone who isnt in law enforcement or the military.
A protestor in Portland, OR. October 04, 2025. [Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images]
McFarlane links the growing consumer market for this gear to gun culture. Men who are in their thirties, who grew up watching the global war and terror on TV and also probably played a lot of video games like Battlefield or Call of Duty, and it’s like, Oh, I can own a version of that gun in real life. I got the gun. I kind of want the gear now too, and I think it builds out from there. It’s like collecting action figures.
A man works out in a plate carrier. [Photo: serejkakovalev/Adobe Stock]
Incidentally, 5.11 Tactical, which makes plate carriers and weighted fitness vests, partnered with EA Games on Battlefield 6 to design more realistic combat uniforms and bring an unparalleled level of authenticity to players, said Kyle Peterson, Senior Director of Brand for Battlefield in a news release; co-branded merchandise is also part of the deal.
An ununiform uniform
Tactical vests are evasive objects. Because immigration enforcement agents often wear civilian clothing, the tactical vest becomes a stand-in for a governmental authority. Remove the vest and youve got a pretty ordinary looking guy, which presents a problem since militias and vigilante groups have adopted the same attire. Theres not much visual difference between a January 6th rioter, far right protesters, ICE agents, or a Call of Duty fanatic. Sometimes, the visual uncertainty has had dangerous consequences. The FBI recently issued a warning about people impersonating ICE in order to commit violent crimes.
Federal agents and law enforcement stand outside of 26 Federal Plaza, New York City. October 21, 2025. [Photo: Adam Gray/Getty Images]
Naureen Shah, the Director of Government Affairs, Equality Division at the American Civil Liberties Union, says that the menacing attire that makes it difficult to identify agents erodes public trust and opens the door to civil rights abuses. The Trump Administration wants us not to know who [the agent] is because it wants to intimidate the public, Shah says. We don’t know if it’s ICE or the FBI or the ATF or the DEA or the National Guard. You really dont know whos behind that vest. I think that’s calculated chaos designed to instill fear, not just in immigrant communities, but in all of us.
ICE has a long history of impersonating local police officers, a practice known as ruses, in order to gain accessto spaces and information without furnishing a warrant. This includes wearing tactical gear that says Police and covering up badges that say ICE.
New York City, June, 2025. [Photo: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images]
Meanwhile, attorney generals in New York and Minnesota recently wrote a letter to congress urging them to pass a law that requires ICE agents to wear agency-identifying insignia and prohibits identity-concealing masks. In 2020, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in Southern California to stop this deceptive practice; in August a settlement was reached that requires ICE field officers in Los Angeles to have visible ICE identifiers whenever they use the phrase Police on their uniforms.
If you’re going to be policing the public, then you wear a uniform for that sense of accountability to the public, Shah says.
Federal Agents in Broadview, Illinois. September, 2025. [Photo: Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu/Getty Images]
The morale of the story
The use of military gear, like the tactical vest, in law enforcement represents its own type of psychologyone that projects power instead of the safety and competence that a police officers uniform was designed to do. This distinction is apparent in the ways ICE agents decorate their vests.
The same Velcro that brings functionality tactical vests also makes it easier to add flair, or what would be considered a morale patch. As McFarlane explains, the military has been using morale patches since WWI, but they had to be stitched on before the velcro, courtesy of the MOLLE system on tactical vests, became common.
Patches with a Superman logo, the Punisher, and slogan from Deadpool have been spotted on tactical vests. The Punisher logo, in particular, has become a co-opted symbol by far right groups. The superhero theme is telling. The way its presented in these stories is that they operate outside of the law, but to a higher purpose, McFarlane says.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking the DHS’ use of hate symbols, which has included white nationalist and anti-immigrant imagery and language within recruitment ads. ICE is currently on a hiring spreeit plans to hire 10,000 agents by 2026and it makes sense that the cohort who responded to those messages would wear those symbols as literal badges of honor.
“Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, several top DHS leaders and immigration advisers were drawn directly from hate groups making up the organizedanti-immigrant movement. Agents sporting patches with hard-right emblems follow this disturbing trend,” says Travis McAdam, the manager of research and analysis in the Intelligence Project at SPLC.
McAdam notes that the organization has seen an increase in ICE and other federal agents attaching patches to their tactical gear with iconography favored by hard-right movements.
One example is the Punisher symbol thats long been a favorite of Three Percent militias, which feature it widely in their logos and merchandise, he says. While its used outside this antigovernment context, agents adopting it is consistent with the Department of Homeland Securitys use of hard-right imagery and language to both recruit employees and celebrate the arrest of Black and Brown people. (Incidentally, DHS made Dean Cain, an actor who played Superman an honorary ICE officer this year.)
McFarlane is not impressed with the comic book nods. I think it shows a lack of discipline, he says. That’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t really fly in the U.S. military. You’re not going to see someone with a Superman patchor at least they’re going to have the sense to take it off when there’s a camera or superior around.
These tactical vests, as well as the words, phrases, and iconography that appear on them, reveal a shocking dissonance between the people wearing them and the situations they are in: sledgehammering through the car windowing of an asylum seeker, arresting a pregnant citizen, and slamming a senior to the ground. Who really needs protection in these situations?
One Columbia psychologist has developed a theory called enclothed cognition, which argues that what we wear affects the way we think and behave. Military-coded garments evoke a combat-ready sensibility and the fact that menacing vests are ubiquitous is frightening.
Were not supposed to have federal officials who are designed to terrify people, Shah says. Thats not supposed to happen in a functioning democracy.
There is a strange gravitational pull in the AI ecosystem right now. Every founder wants to raise a monster round. A $50 million seed. A $200 million Series A. The kind of fundraise that makes headlines, melts your inbox, and gets your parents to finally understand you have a real job.
Ive raised both kinds of rounds. A $12 million one that looked incredible in TechCrunch. And recently, an intentionally small but oversubscribed pre-seed for my new company, Empromptu.ai, where investors fought for allocation like we were handing out Taylor Swift tickets. Having lived on both sides, here is the truth no one in AI land wants to say out loud: A mega round might be the fastest way to screw up your company.
The perfection problem
When I raised $12 million at my last startup, CodeSee.io, I thought I was winning. Fewer than 30 Black women have ever raised that much venture capital. I thought big money meant big validation. And yes, years later, it was validating. CodeSee.io was Cursor before Cursor was cool. But what people forget is that everything had to be perfect. Perfect product, perfect engineering, perfect marketing, perfect sales, perfect timing. You are signing up for perfection with capital that large. And the second you fall short, the clock starts ticking on the next round, your runway, and your teams morale.
Here is what no one tells you until you are already living inside the pressure cooker.
A mega round is a contract with the future, not a celebration of the present. You are promising you will grow like a weed even while the world is chaos. In AI especially, half the market is noise and the other half is vaporware. You are still finding product-market-something, but your fundraising number tells the world you are already at product-market-fit. Now your job is not to build truth. It is to build momentum.
Markets change, timing changes, and your optimism doesnt pay your investors back. Big rounds push you toward optics instead of output. You start building for the board instead of the customer. The louder the round, the more deafening the expectations that follow. Before chasing a headline-sized round, you need to ask yourself hard questions:
Based on your actual GTM enginenot the one you hope to havehow much return can you realistically deliver?
Do you have the sales pipeline, category dynamics, and team structure to grow 10 times or even 20 times the capital you want to raise?
If an external shock hitsan economic downturn, an AI bubble burst, or a sudden shift in whatever latest metrics investors care aboutdoes your business have the frameworks and adaptability to survive it and still justify your valuation?
Raising the stakes
Most founders dont run these numbers honestly. We romanticize optimism. But fundraising is not about what you believe your company could be worthits about whether you have the machinery to make that valuation real in the harshest version of the future. A mega round multiplies every assumption you make. Every risk. Every blind spot.
And ego makes it even harder. Getting told your company is worth $50 million at the idea stage is intoxicating. Its human nature to want to believe the flattering version of your story. But the best founders know how to put their ego on the shelf long enough to look at their business objectively. Investors dont care how good the number feels; they care whether you can return their fund.
Most importantly: AI is changing too fast for giant commitments. Todays hype cycle is tomorrows graveyard. You do not want to be the founder forced to keep shipping an outdated strategy because that is what you raised money for. Momentum is a blessing only if you are pointed in the right direction. If you are not, it becomes an anchor.
With Empromptu, we kept the round intentionally small and tight, at least for now. We chose discipline over dopamine. And here is the secret: Small money gives you big freedom. You can pivot. Experiment. Say no. Build weird things. Build the right things. Build your company instead of your investors portfolio theory.
Raising less does not mean thinking smaller. It means thinking smarter. You do not need a mega round. You need real progress, real customers, and real clarity.
And if you still want the $100 million round, at least go in with your eyes open. Sometimes the most powerful thing a founder can do is grow at the speed of understanding instead of the speed of capital.
As autonomous AI agents increasingly browse, compare prices, and complete purchases on behalf of consumers, one challenge is becoming unavoidable for merchants: trust.
On Wednesday, Akamai Technologies announced a strategic collaboration with Visa aimed at addressing that problem. The partnership integrates Visas Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamais behavioral intelligence, allowing merchants to authenticate AI agents, link them to real consumers, and block malicious bot traffic before it ever reaches sensitive systems.
The move comes as agent-driven traffic floods the internet. According to Akamais 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report, AI-powered bot traffic surged more than 300% over the past year, with the commerce industry alone seeing more than 25 billion AI bot requests in a two-month period.
We all continue to be excited about the proliferation of agentic AI use cases, said Patrick Sullivan, CTO of security strategy at Akamai. Were seeing billions upon billions of requests coming from agentic AI use cases.
When AI becomes the intermediary
For decades, digital commerce has been built around a simple assumption: A human is on the other end of the transaction. Agentic commerce breaks that model.
Instead of navigating a merchants site directly, consumers increasingly rely on software to search, compare, and sometimes buy on their behalf. For instance, whereas previously buying a new suitcase might involve exploring a dozen retailer’s sites, soon you might have AI do the legwork for you. That shift introduces a new intermediaryone that can be helpful, harmful, or fraudulent.
Theres a new entity thats now sitting in between the merchant and the consumer, said Rubail Birwadker, Visas global head of growth. Things could go wrong.
From a consumer standpoint, that raises questions about refunds, disputes, and chargebacks. Whose fault is it if you asked for a black bag and received a dark blue one by mistake? From a merchant perspective, it creates uncertainty around intent, legitimacy, and risk.
If youre a merchant, and youre thinking about your website, there are a lot of changes coming your way, Sullivan said. You built your website originally in the era where there was going to be a human on the other end.
Now, discovery may happen through an AI-powered chat interface. Browsing may be conducted by an autonomous agent. Even the browser itself may be software acting on behalf of a user.
We need to make sure that its still on behalf of the right human and its not a fraudster taking advantage of some new evolution in technology, Sullivan said.
Proving both the agent and the human
At the center of the VisaAkamai partnership is a dual-identity problem: verifying not just who the human is, but who the agent acting for them is.
Its important for us to always know who the human is, Sullivan said. But then, as we see these agentic use cases emerge, its important for us to get signal from Visa of who that agent is in that interaction.
Visas Trusted Agent Protocol provides authentication signals indicating whether an agent is authorized and whether it intends to browse or pay. Akamai reads and reinforces those signals using behavioral intelligence, often before traffic reaches a merchants core systems.
Youre going to see traffic before it ever reaches a merchant system, Sullivan said. That allows us to build a trusted user profile so we can understand that Jim is actually Jim.
Because Akamai sees end users repeatedly across the internetshopping, banking, reading newsit can establish consistency and spot anomalies early in the transaction flow.
That allows us to very, very early in the transaction reduce attempts at fraud and impersonation, Sullivan said.
Scale changes the threat model
The surge in AI-driven traffic has raised concerns about whether volume itself becomes a security risk. Sullivan argues scale cuts both ways.
Weve seen AI bot traffic surge 300 plus percent this year, he said. But while the numbers are in the billions, thats still sort of a rounding error for the overall traffic that we see.
Still, Sullivan expects automation to accelerate abuse over time.
Anything that can be automated, its just so much more profitable for attackers, he said. If you can automate your attack, you can pull off more attacks.
Thats why both companies emphasize operating at global scale. Visa processes transactions across nearly 200 markets, while Akamai manages traffic and bots at internet-wide levels.
These are two companies that operate at massive scale, Sullivan said. Its companies like ours that we think will stand up to the pace of these automated processes.
Why merchants matter most
While consumers may benefit immediately from smoother discovery and purchasing, Birwadker said the heaviest lift lies with merchants adapting their infrastructure.
A large amount of change really lies on the acceptance side, on the merchant side, Birwadker said. Their infrastructure needs to keep up with all the changes that are happening.
Merchants will need to decide what information agents can access, how pricing and inventory are exposed, and how loyalty and personalization work when an AI, not a browser, is driving the interaction.
This is just keeping up with changes to consumer behavior, Sullivan said. Theyre having an AI agent do something on their behalf.
A compatibility play for the future
Neither Visa nor Akamai claims to know exactly what agentic commerce will look like three years from now. But both frame Trusted Agent Protocol as a compatibility layerone that allows commerce infrastructure to evolve without losing control.
Our goal is just to make sure that our ecosystem remains compatible with the agentic world, Birwadker said. Its more about compatibility than about almost anything else.
As AI agents move from novelty to necessity, that trust layer may determine whether merchants embrace agentic commerceor shut it out altogether.
