Welcome to December, where everything is changing whether we asked for it or not. The St. George ferry route is taking its final bow in the most New York fashion possible: quietly, awkwardly, and with at least one person yelling, “If it ain’t broke, WHY are we fixing it?” into the cold harbor wind. Meanwhile, inside the halls of government, we’re counting down two weeks until City Hall hands over the keys like a family passing the remote—reluctantly, nervously, and with at least three arguments about who messed everything up. And just when you think that’s enough chaos for one journal entry… enter Elf on the Shelf. The tiny-eyed holiday informant perched in your home, collecting intel like he’s auditioning for the North Pole branch of the FBI. Is he a family tradition? A federal agent? A freelancer? We investigate. (Not really. But we have questions.) So buckle up: ferries are disappearing, administrations are shifting, elves are surveilling, and we’re here to document the entire mess—because someone has to.

In the headlines on #TheUpdate this Monday, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani posted a video to social media explaining immigrants’ right to refuse to speak to or comply with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, days after federal agents carried out a raid in Manhattan.

A 68-year-old grandfather was mowed down by a wrong-way moped driver as he crossed at a Queens intersection — just days before he was to bring his daughter home for Christmas.

And in Hawaii, survivors of the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor have long been the center of a remembrance ceremony held each year on the military base’s waterfront. But today only 12 are still alive — all centenarians — and this year none were able to make the pilgrimage to Hawaii to mark the event.