Today is Thursday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2025. There are 20 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 11, 1978, nearly $6 million in cash and jewelry were stolen from the Lufthansa cargo terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport; the ‘Lufthansa Heist,’ the largest cash robbery in history at the time, was immortalized in the film “Goodfellas.”

Also on this date:

In 1816, Indiana was admitted to the Union as the 19th U.S. state.

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In 1936, Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, became King George VI.

In 1946, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.

In 1972, Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan guided lander Challenger to a touchdown on the moon, where he and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt would become the last two Apollo astronauts to walk on the lunar surface. They returned to Earth three days later with astronaut Ronald Evans, who remained aloft in the command module.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental “Superfund” to pay for cleaning up hazardous chemical spills and toxic waste dumps.

In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth’s greenhouse gases.

In 1998, majority Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pushed through three articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, over Democratic objections.

In 2008, former Nasdaq chairman Bernie Madoff was arrested, accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out the life savings of thousands of people and wrecked charities. (Madoff died in April 2021 while serving a 150-year federal prison sentence.)

In 2020, the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, ending an attempt to get legal issues that were rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Rita Moreno is 94.
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is 82.
Singer Brenda Lee is 81.
Singer Jermaine Jackson is 71.
Rock musician Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue) is 67.
Actor-comedian Mo’Nique is 58.
Hockey Hall of Famer Daniel Alfredsson is 53.
Rapper-actor Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) is 52.
Author Colleen Hoover is 46.
Actor Rider Strong is 46.
Actor Alexa Demie is 35.
Actor Hailee Steinfeld is 29.

Minnesota rebounded from a disappointing double-overtime loss to No. 7 Maryland on Sunday by hammering an overmatched nonconference opponent on Wednesday, an 82-44 victory over Alabama A&M at Williams Arena.

Minnesota guard Mara Braun (10) shoots during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Alabama A&M Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Redshirt junior Mara Braun scored eight points to surpass 1,000 career points.

Tori McKinney had a game-high 13 points to go with four assists and a pair of steals, and Brylee Glenn added 11 points and a game-high eight rebounds for Minnesota.

Makena Christian came off the bench to score 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting from 3-point range for Minnesota (7-3 overall, 0-1 Big Ten), which had 27 assists on 34 made baskets. The Gophers used a 16-0 run in the second quarter to build a 47-23 halftime lead, and a 7-0 run to go up 64-32 with a minute left in the third.

Minnesota outrebounded the Bulldogs, 33-30, and turned the ball over just five times while forcing 16 turnovers, 11 of them steals. Rakiyah Beal was the only Alabama A&M player in double figures, scoring 12 points for the Bulldogs (3-7 overall, 0-0 SWAC).

The Gophers are host to Wyoming on Sunday at Williams Arena. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m.

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Head coach Niko Medved had a sneaking suspicion the Gophers men’s basketball team was going to get Purdue’s best after the former top-ranked Boilermakers suffered an uncharacteristic home loss to Iowa State on Saturday.

“I thought Iowa State played terrific, and if Purdue was being honest, they missed a lot of plays that they normally make,” Medved told the Pioneer Press on Tuesday. “I’m fairly confident we will see and ‘A’ effort from Purdue on Wednesday.”

That top letter grade came to the forefront in the second half as No. 6 Purdue used a 21-0 win to cruise to a 85-57 win over Minnesota at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.

The Gophers (5-5, 1-1 Big Ten) had a strong close to the first half — a 17-5 run to trail 35-32 at the break — and it teased the potential for consecutive upsets after knocking off No. 22 Indiana at Williams Arena last Wednesday.

“They went on that run and we just could not find a way to stem the tide,” Medved said on the KFAN postgame show. “I thought they just kind of broke our spirit, which you don’t want to see happen and unfortunately, Purdue, we’re not the only team and the last team they are going to do that to.”

The Boilermakers (9-1, 2-0 Big Ten) showed why they were picked to win the Big Ten and were ranked No. 1 until the 81-58 loss to now-No. 4 Iowa State last weekend.

“Purdue was preseason No. 1 in the country and playing like the No. 1 team in the country for a reason: They’ve got an elite culture, an elite coach, veteran players who have played together and know what it’s like. (They) got a great system,” Medved said. “They’ve got all the pieces to play at the highest level.”

The Boilermakers emphasis in the second half was getting the ball in the paint and exploiting their size advantage. In the game, they had 40-24 advantage in points in the paint and doubled Minnesota up on the glass, 46-23.

“They wore us down,” Medved said. “We are pretty small and thin down there and you’re in foul trouble. So when you are trying to engage those guys down there, it makes it pretty difficult. You don’t really have anyone to go to necessarily off the bench. Maybe we could have double teamed a little bit in the post in the second half, but they really stretch you out with their spacing. This is the No. 1 offense in the country for a reason.”

The Gophers continue to be shorthanded without two starters — point guard Chansey Willis Jr. (foot) and center Robert Vaihola (knee) — and two backups BJ Omot (leg) and Chance Stephens (illness).

Similar to the Indiana game, Minnesota continued to deal with extensive foul trouble. Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, Isaac Asuma, and Grayson Grove each had four fouls with eight minutes left in the game. Langston Reynolds also dealt with foul trouble in the first half.

Crocker-Johnson paced Minnesota with 11 points, including three treys, in the first half. He finished with 17.

Point guard Braden Smith, a Big Ten player of the year candidate, led the way for the Boilermakers with 15 points and 12 assists.

Purdue’s quality was on display in the first half, too, and the Gophers were down 27-15 with six minutes to go. But Minnesota started to hit shots and ended the half with a big run to make it a one-possession game at the break.

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By Nilesh Christopher, Los Angeles Times

People aren’t lovin’ it.

McDonald’s was forced to pull down an AI-generated Christmas commercial from YouTube after some consumers said the AI-slop-filled tongue-in-cheek take on the holidays was distasteful.

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The ad, titled “It’s the most terrible time of the year,” was a satirical take on holiday realities. It showed a series of short, chaotic clips of people braving the winter, tripping while carrying overloaded gift bags, getting stuck in tangled lights, burning homemade cookies or starting an unexpected cooking fire during a family gathering.

The ad agency TBWANEBOKO collaborated with film production company Sweetshop, whose Los Angeles-based directing duo Mark Potoka and Matt Spicer shot the film. The 45-second ad was created for McDonald’s Netherlands.

It ends with a call to ditch the madness and hide out in McDonald’s till January. The ad, meant to spread cheer, irked viewers.

“Even without all the ai slop this ad feels incredibly odd,” said one comment on the commercial posted on YouTube. “Ditch your family and hide in mcdonalds because christmas sucks???”

Some said the ad was a sloppy move by one of the world’s largest advertisers.

“The McDonald’s ad emphasizes all that is negative about the holiday season, and the suggestion that McDonald’s is a respite from such negative experiences is not credible,” said David Stewart, emeritus professor of marketing at Loyola Marymount University. “It is likely that a very unhappy human came up with the idea of denigrating the holiday experience, even if AI was used to create part of the ad.”

After the McDonald’s backlash, the Sweetshop said it used AI as a tool for the commercial but a lot of human effort went into it as well.

“We generated what felt like dailies — thousands of takes — then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production,” the company said in a statement. “This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film.”

McDonald didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mainstream brands are gradually embracing AI-generated ads. Last month, Coca-Cola released a holiday ad in which a Coca-Cola truck drives through snow and forests, awakening animals and lighting up trees, then pulls up to a town square.

This is the second year in a row Coca-Cola has dropped an AI holiday ad despite widespread artist pushback.

“AI is gaining traction for the creation of ads because it is viewed as a way to save costs,” Stewart said.

More brands, including Google, Toys R Us and Under Armour, have produced synthetic ads. Proponents of AI ads see them as a change from traditional advertising.

“Whether we like the ad itself, McDonald’s is making a statement with this campaign: AI has changed the playbook. As one of the largest consumer brands on the planet, McDonald’s is reading the tea leaves of what’s to come for brand marketing and is aggressively indexing its brand for the new generative decision funnel,” said Justin Inman, chief executive of Emberos, a platform that monitors how brands appear inside major AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

AI-powered search could influence $750 billion in revenue by 2028, and half of consumers now use chatbots to discover brands, according to McKinsey & Co.

Such an association with AI may even boost McDonald’s visibility inside chatbots, surfacing its brand name ahead of others.

“Love it or hate it, expect to see more of it,” Inman said. “McDonald’s getting thousands of people to prompt McDonald’s + AI will greatly benefit their overall brand visibility.”

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.