Best of edition.cnn.com on Kiwi News
Most upvoted by Kiwi News readers
9 stories from edition.cnn.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 15 January 2024, with 13 upvotes and 6 comments in total. The latest was shared on 10 December 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- US plan requires visitors to provide social media information from last 5 years
US Customs and Border Protection has proposed requiring travelers from visa waiver countries to provide their social media history from the prior five years as part of the ESTA electronic application. The proposal, posted on the Federal Register, would also make phone numbers and email addresses from the prior five years mandatory, along with close family members' names, birth dates, birthplaces, residences and phone numbers. Social media information was added to the application in 2016 as an optional question, and the proposal is open for public comment through February 9.
- Navajo Nation’s objection to landing human remains on the moon
The White House convened a last-minute meeting on a private lunar mission, Peregrine Mission One, after the Navajo Nation asked that the flight be delayed because it carries cremated human remains for a lunar burial. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said placing the remains on the moon would be an affront to many indigenous cultures that revere it. Celestis, whose Tranquility Flight carries 66 memorial capsules, CEO Charles Chafer rejected the claim that the mission desecrates the moon. Navajo Nation officials, including Justin Ahasteen, doubt they can stop the Monday launch.
- Trump says Bill Gates asked to meet in apparent message to Musk
President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that Bill Gates had asked to come to Mar-a-Lago, in a message that appeared intended as a private communication to Elon Musk. A person familiar with the talks told CNN that Gates had reached out to the Trump transition about a possible meeting, but it was unclear whether the two would meet. The message appears to reference Musk's son, X Æ A-Xii, whom Musk calls X, as Musk faces criticism from loyal Trump supporters over his support of a visa program for highly skilled foreign workers.
- Executives sucking up to Trump now have to factor in the ‘first buddy’
Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly seeking an "active role" in shaping tech policy in the incoming Trump administration, according to a CNN report by Clare Duffy, a shift from a New York Times account from September describing him as disillusioned with politics. The article argues that executives now feel pressure to flatter Trump, since he can sink a company's stock or spark a boycott with one social media post. Elon Musk, described as a "first buddy" in Trump's inner circle, reportedly acts as a gatekeeper for executives seeking access to the president-elect, per the Wall Street Journal. Companies are also rolling back DEI programs, with Walmart ending its racial equity training, a trend the article links to the decline of stakeholder capitalism.
- Musk publicized government employees he wants to cut, terrifying federal workers
Elon Musk reposted X posts naming and criticizing federal employees in four relatively obscure climate-related government positions, drawing a flood of negative attention toward them, according to CNN. The posts, each viewed tens of millions of times, included a partial screengrab of one employee and her location, and at least one of the four women has deleted her social media accounts. The American Federation of Government Employees' president, Everett Kelley, said the tactics are "aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees." Former NHTSA adviser Missy Cummings, who was targeted by Musk in the past, said she received death threats and that Musk's plan "to some extent, is working."
- Americans are losing millions to scammers at crypto ATMs
CNN's investigation finds that US crypto ATM companies profit from scams while doing too little to stop them, a claim the companies strongly dispute. Its review of more than 700 criminal cases and complaints found the firms often mark up cryptocurrency prices by 20% to 30% or more, and the FBI reported about $240 million in losses to crypto ATM scams in the first six months of the year. The FTC found fraud losses involving the machines rose from about $12 million in 2020 to $114 million in 2023. Bitcoin Depot said scams account for only a very small share of its transactions.
- Meta donates $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund to mend relationship
Meta has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund, the company confirmed to CNN. The donation comes two weeks after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met privately with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and it was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. CNN has reported that Zuckerberg is seeking a more active role in shaping the incoming administration's tech policy, a major reversal from Meta's 2021 decision to ban Trump from its platforms after the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
- Telegram founder Pavel Durov transferred from police custody to court
Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been placed under formal investigation in France and barred from leaving the country, according to a French prosecutor's statement released Wednesday night. The investigation covers suspected offenses including complicity in illegal gang transactions, laundering of crimes in an organized gang, and refusal to communicate information to authorities. He must remain under judicial supervision with bail set at $5.56 million (5 million euros) and report to police twice a week. The formal investigation does not imply guilt, and he has not yet been formally charged.
- Mercury could have an 11-mile underground layer of diamonds, researchers say
Researchers report that a layer of diamonds up to 18 kilometers (11 miles) thick could lie beneath Mercury's surface, possibly formed soon after the planet coalesced about 4.5 billion years ago. The team, including Bernard Charlier of the University of Liège and Yanhao Lin of the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Beijing, recreated the conditions in an anvil press experiment, subjecting a graphite capsule to temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Celsius and pressures almost 70,000 times Earth's surface pressure. Charlier attributes the diamond formation to Mercury's high sulfur content, which lowered the melting point and kept the magma ocean cooler than expected. Outside scientists Sean Solomon and Felipe González say the findings are plausible but depend on assumptions about Mercury's interior, and the BepiColombo mission, expected to reach Mercury's orbit in December 2025, may help test them.