In his first press conference in six months, President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday got into a sparring match with CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Trump refused to respond to repeated questions from Acosta because he works for CNN, which on Tuesday published an article detailing a report from U.S. officials that Russia might possess incriminating information that could potentially be used to blackmail the president-elect.

While multiple news organizations — including CNN — stated that the corresponding intelligence dossier contained unverified information, BuzzFeed News on Tuesday night chose to publish the document in full. The dossier was allegedly provided by a British intelligence source that U.S. officials deem credible, but was not published by CNN with its initial report as its contents were unconfirmed. Still, by breaking the news, CNN apparently drew Trump's ire, and the news organization issued a statement Wednesday after Trump's press conference to stand by its "carefully sourced reporting":

And as Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Epstein noted, Trump wasn't the only target of CNN's statement. Kimberly Alters

Taylor Swift is moving on.

The singer revealed on Monday that she will be switching record labels, from Big Machine Label Group to Universal Music Group and Republic Records. She will also now own her master recordings for any future music. Part of the deal included helping other artists receive money for their Spotify streams. "I see this as a sign that we are headed towards positive change for creators – a goal I'm never going to stop trying to help achieve," Swift wrote in an Instagram post.

The condition on UMG's Spotify shares: "any sale of Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable," means that benefits from Spotify sales shares do not go against an artist's debt, said The Guardian. Music lawyer Gregory Pryor told The Guardian that although the agreement is not radical, Swift using it as an opportunity to help other artists is.

Swift has been an advocate for streaming services paying artists before. In 2015, Swift wrote a letter refusing to put her album 1989 on Apple Music. She asked the company to pay artists during their three month free trial period, which Apple Music eventually agreed to do.

Her last album, reputation, was her last under contract with BMLG, her label since 2006. BMLG was heavily negotiating to keep Swift signed on, Billboard wrote in August. Swift's sales and streaming account for 34.6 percent of BMLG's revenue, and her masters reportedly could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars over their lifetime. BLMG founder Scott Borchetta discovered Swift in a cafe in Nashville before he had even started the label. In her announcement, Swift thanked Borchetta "for believing in me as a 14-year-old and for guiding me through over a decade of work." Emma Henderson

Could House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) actually be in danger of losing her bid to become House speaker?

That possibility became a bit more real on Monday when 16 Democrats released a letter formally saying they would not vote for Pelosi. While these Democrats say in their letter they are "thankful to Leader Pelosi for her years of service," they say they are "committed to voting for new leadership," arguing that "Democrats ran and won on a message of change," The Washington Post reports. The letter is signed by 11 current members of Congress and five members elect, although two of them haven't won their races yet, and one of them, Ben McAdams, is currently losing to his Republican opponent, Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah).

Assuming Democrats end up with 233 seats in the House as expected, Pelosi could afford to lose 15 Democratic votes, as she needs a total of 218 to become speaker. There are some additional Democrats who haven't signed the letter but may vote against Pelosi, HuffPost reports. But if McAdams loses his race, and no one else votes against Pelosi other than the Democrats who signed this letter, she would win.

At the moment, there isn't currently a formal challenger to Pelosi, although Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) is considering it. Fudge did not sign the letter. Read more at The Washington Post. Brendan Morrow

The Republican Party is officially backing up President Trump's Sunday criticism of a retired Navy admiral — and abandoning a central tenet of its platform in the process.

In an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace that aired Sunday, Trump declared Adm. William McRaven's mission to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden should've happened "a lot sooner." He also called the former Navy SEAL commander a "Hillary Clinton fan." And after Trump repeated his charge in a Monday tweet, the Republican Party stepped in to share some facts about McRaven it felt were "worth noting."

McRaven did author a Washington Post op-ed challenging Trump to revoke his security clearance in defense of former CIA Director John Brennan. But what his dislike for Trump has to do with killing the man largely responsible for 9/11 is unclear.

Robert O'Neill, the man who actually shot bin Laden and has since not been shy about his conservative views, has a different message. After tweeting yesterday that "McRaven was born to lead this mission," he affirmed Monday that "the mission to get bin Laden was bipartisan." Kathryn Krawczyk

Two turkeys will step up to President Trump's chopping block this Tuesday. Only one will survive.

The White House's two candidates for a traditional Thanksgiving presidential pardon arrived at the White House on Monday. They are five months old and adorably named Peas and Carrots. They have detailed life stories and aspirations. "And you get to decide which turkey [Trump] pardons," the White House website ominously states.

Will you end Peas' life, in which his greatest joy has been watching planes with the hope of learning to fly?

Or will you opt to squelch Carrots' "strong and confident" gobble before he reaches his goal of meeting the Virginia Tech HokieBird?

The choice is yours. But fear not, anyone with a soul. The White House website mentions "the turkeys" — plural — "will make the journey to Virginia Tech's 'Gobblers Rest' exhibit" and hang out for the rest of their predictably short lives. Kathryn Krawczyk

It seems no one's more upset about George R.R. Martin's inability to finish the next Game of Thrones book than George R.R. Martin himself.

While promoting a new book that he actually has completed, Fire and Blood, Martin told Entertainment Weekly that getting the history of House Targaryen done was "emotionally a big lift" for him. After all, he said, he's "mad" about the fact that he's still toiling away on The Winds of Winter.

"I've had dark nights of the soul where I've pounded my head against the keyboard and said, 'God, will I ever finish this?'" he said. "The show is going further and further forward and I’m falling further and further behind. What the hell is happening here? I've got to do this.'"

After initially starting as an adaptation of published material, the past two seasons of Game of Thrones have covered events beyond Martin's existing books, the last of which came out in 2011. Considering Martin plans for his series to consist of at least two more books, the ship has sailed on him finishing it before HBO, meaning he won't be the one to bring the ending he has been planning for decades to life.

Martin sounds motivated to get the material done to the point that The Wall Street Journal reports he is "in hiding" and doing his writing at an undisclosed "remote mountain hideaway." But he also recently told The Guardian that he is "struggling" with the book and that writing it is "very, very challenging," leaving fans fearful that winter may never come again. Brendan Morrow

President Trump is sure he beat out every branch of U.S. intelligence in figuring out Osama bin Laden wasn't such a great guy. He most certainly did not.

In a Monday tweet, Trump doubled down on his Sunday insistence that the Navy SEAL who commanded the bin Laden raid should've tracked the former al Qaeda leader down "a lot sooner." After all, Trump said Monday he "pointed [bin Laden] out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center."

It's true, Trump did give bin Laden a brief mention in "The America We Deserve," published in 2000. In fact, he suggested bin Laden was just "a shadowy figure with no fixed address" and not America's "public enemy No. 1."

Just as Trump mentioned in his book, American warplanes had already taken aim at bin Laden because he'd been indicted for bombing U.S. embassies in 1998, per The Washington Post. CNN also reported in 1999 that U.S. officials feared bin Laden was planning a terrorist attack.

Still, Trump's Monday comments reflect a claim he'd made throughout the 2016 campaign: that America should've found bin Laden before 9/11, and if he'd been in charge, it would've. Trump failed to concede that perhaps bin Laden's lack of a fixed address complicated things. Kathryn Krawczyk