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What to watch for today
India remains on edge. Protests are spreading to schools across the country, following a weekend of demonstrations against a new citizenship law. In the capital, protesters torched vehicles, while police used tear gas and stormed the Jamia Millia Islamia University campus to make arrests.
Boris Johnson welcomes new lawmakers. The UK prime minister will address 109 new Conservative lawmakers elected last week, in preparation for what he hopes will be the final attempt to get his Brexit bill passed before Christmas. Talks to revive Northern Ireland’s legislature, inactive for three years, will also begin.
Decision time for Boeing. The aircraft manufacturer is considering an announcement that it is suspending or cutting back production of the 737 MAX, according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall). The jet has been grounded since a pair of deadly crashes, and last week US regulators said the company set expectations too high about when it might fly again.
Over the weekend
Markets rose as trade tensions fell. Stocks around the world jumped on Monday after Chinese authorities announced that duties on some US goods meant to take effect Sunday would be suspended. That followed the US saying it will not hit China with any new tariffs and will slightly reduce existing ones.
UN climate talks ended in disappointment. The COP25 talks in Madrid failed to produce bold pledges from major nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly, despite the meetings running two days longer than planned.
Goldman Sachs said it would stop financing oil drilling in the Arctic. The Wall Street bank also said it won’t support any new thermal coal mines around the world. The new environmental policy, published on Sunday, was praised by environmental groups as a good “first step.”
A Premier League star was censured by China. Mesut Özil, a German of Turkish descent who plays for Arsenal, spoke out against China’s mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims on social media. The soccer club distanced itself from his comments, but Chinese broadcasters responded by cancelling a live broadcast of Arsenal’s high-profile match against Manchester City on Sunday.
PewDiPie took a timeout. Felix Kjellberg, the 30-year-old Swedish YouTube star known as PewDiePie, told his 102 million subscribers that he will take a break from the platform. “I’m feeling very tired,” he said, after a year that included accusations of racism and anti-Semitism.
Quartz obsession
Ten years ago, Hallmark aired its first holiday movie marathon. The network’s “Countdown to Christmas”—brimming with predictably cheesy, always snowy, overwhelmingly white holiday cheer—consistently catapults Hallmark to become the most-watched and highest-rated US cable channel in November and December. That success has bred an explosion of new holiday movies, and a slew of questions about representation. Tune in with the Quartz Obsession.
Matters of debate
Can US Democrats learn a lesson from British voters? Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist policies were more to blame than Brexit for his party’s landslide defeat.
Startups often start with the wrong people. Founders have to be willing to fire them if they can’t keep up.
“Lab-grown meat” by any other name wouldn’t sell. Industry executives can’t agree on what to call their product.
Surprising discoveries
Scorned creditors want a crypto CEO’s body exhumed. Gerald Cotten apparently took a vast sum of money to his grave last year—but some suspect he faked his own death.
Two drinks a day is too much. Just in time for the holidays, Australian health officials said adults should have no more than 1.4 alcoholic drinks a day, down from previous guidance of up to two a day.
Hermit crabs face human-like inequality. The distribution of the best shells follows a similar pattern to the distribution of human wealth.
Taylor swift called out “the unregulated world of private equity.” The pop queen singled out financiers who buy and sell artists’ catalogues “as if it’s an app or a shoe line.”
A Lithuanian airport made a contraband Christmas tree. Security personnel used confiscated knives, scissors, lighters, and nail clippers to make the sharp decoration.
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