Read along with us and join the conversation all month on our Instagram account, @GMABookClub, and with #GMABookClub. **********************************************************PROLOGUEThe fire peels Notre-Dame like an illuminated manuscript soaked in water, its layers separating, releasing their secrets. Later, in the still-smoldering ruins, researchers will find more intimate human traces: names and fingerprints left in ancient mortar. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster. Audio read by Alexa Davalos and Michiel Huisman from the forthcoming audiobook \"SKYLARK\" by Paula McLain, to be published by Simon & Schuster Audio, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Used with permission from Simon & Schuster, LLC.

From old man locker room nightmares to literally seasoning dinner with a Christmas tree, this episode proves we should’ve stayed on vacation. Welcome back to The Rizzuto Show, your favorite daily comedy show, and yes — Day Two back from vacation hit exactly as hard as we warned you it would. Not working out… just being trapped in locker rooms full of aggressively naked elderly men who fear neither towels nor shame. As if that wasn’t enough, the gang dives into why today is the official “Take Down Your Christmas Tree” day — and why you might want to consider eating it instead. Laugh, cringe, question humanity — and maybe don’t eat your Christmas tree.

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And Trump’s decision to turn the American arsenal back on the Western Hemisphere recalls the very long, frequently dark history of American-led regime change closer to home. Trump isn’t even talking about democracyDefending democracy has long been a stated, if sometimes unbelievable, goal of recent US-led regime change, but Trump does not appear particularly interested in it. As soon as the Spanish were gone, we changed our minds and decided we wanted to rule Cuba,” Kinzer said. Setting aside values like democracy and human rights, Kuperman said US-led regime change accomplishes its goals about half the time. Taking out Maduro could be a step to regime change in Cuba.

Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, says she has not spoken to United States President Donald Trump since October last year, even as she fulsomely lauds his administration’s brazen military actions in Venezuela. “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said of Machado. The opposition leader told Hannity she plans to return to Venezuela “as soon as possible”. “I dedicated it to President Trump because I believed, at that time, that he deserved it,” Machado told Hannity. Machado seemed to welcome this idea, telling Hannity that Venezuela would transform into an “energy hub” for the US.

And that core problem: The lack of trust in the media, appears to be at the center of Bari Weiss’ reinvention plans at CBS News. It isn’t because they’re crazy,” Weiss told CBS News staff in a Christmas Eve memo defending her (now widely-discussed) decision to hold a 60 Minutes segment. Or will she attempt to steal viewers from Fox, CNN or ABC, given the zero-sum nature of TV viewership? The result of that experiment was some loyal CNN viewers leaving, and few if any new viewers tuning in. This year the question of trust in the media and the future of the media business will be more intertwined than people think.

Axios: “Some Democrats are grumbling at their party’s largely oppositional stance to President Trump’s raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, saying privately that their colleagues should be celebrating.”“These lawmakers argue it could be a major political miscalculation if the party fails to applaud the downfall of a brutal dictator with sufficient volume, even given grave concerns about the operation’s legality and longer-term ramifications.”Dan Pfeiffer: “Once again, Democrats are overcomplicating the simple—and therefore missing one of the easier layups in recent political history.”

NFL coaches firings The NFL’s Black Monday is the day after the regular season ends, when the axe comes down on many head coaches. ABC’s Lara Spencer has the details on who’s staying and leaving.

“Our government has not just normalized Jan. 6, it has radicalized the events into a loyalty test for top government officials,” she said. Trump himself continues to lie on a near-daily basis that he won the 2020 election, regardless of the venue. “The election was rigged in 2020,” he said at a Dec. 14 White House Christmas party. Harry Dunn, another former Capitol Police officer, said Trump supporters are trying to whitewash what happened. Fanone, though, said the fact that Trump is back in the White House suggests that the battle for accountability has already been lost: “As my kids would say, ‘We’re cooked.’”

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Tracking freezing rain and ice accumulation from the Upper Midwest to the Northeast; heavy snow in the Cascades and rainstorms hitting the Midwest

Everything you need to solve 'Connections' #940. The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult to solve if you love gambling. If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today's Connections solution. Here's a hint for today's Connections categoriesWant a hint about the categories without being told the categories? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

And so, on Oct. 6, Khan drove to downtown Los Angeles for her routine immigration check-in and found herself caught up in Trump’s deportation surge. AdvertisementEaton fire survivor Masuma Khan, 64, right, with her daughter Riya Khan and husband Isteak Khan after bring released in December. She said agents denied her access to a lawyer and a phone until she signed deportation papers. ‘Incredibly traumatized’In August 1997, Khan was living in Bangladesh with her husband and their 9-year-old daughter, Riya. The officer denied the application, and later she was unaware of a notice to appear before an immigration court, since it had been sent to the scammer’s address.

Dear Miss Manners: My birthday is a few days after the new year. Shortchanging a child on holidays is mean, and Miss Manners finds it sad that it has left you dissatisfied with the birthday acknowledgments you get now. Dear Miss Manners: My mother just earned her Ph.D. She holds many other professional titles, as well. New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com.

U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican who represented a vast swath of rural Northern California, died while undergoing emergency surgery Monday evening, authorities said. He also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California. AdvertisementLaMalfa’s death also came as a shock to school superintendents in rural Northern California who worked closely with him to restore the Secure Rural Schools Act. Beans last saw LaMalfa on Dec. 9, when the rural schools act was renewed in a 399-5 vote. “When you talk about Washington, D.C., you don’t think of the name Congressman Doug LaMalfa, but, boy, did he work behind the scenes for kids and for rural America, and especially rural California.