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Here’s what you need to know
Novavax’s vaccine advances. As US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci worries about a Covid-19 surge following holiday travel, the latest vaccine is the fifth to begin phase three clinical trials stateside.
Bitcoin breaks through $28,000. The cryptocurrency reached a record $28,365 over the weekend before retreating. Its price has tripled in 2020.
China jails a journalist who covered Covid-19. Citizen reporter and former lawyer Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison after her videos cast doubts on the government’s official account of the outbreak in Wuhan.
Europe’s vaccination begins with a few hiccups. With more than 12 million shots expected before Jan. 1, mishaps have included overdosing healthcare workers in Germany and inadequate storage.
Tesla is coming to India? The country’s transportation minister said Tesla will start with sales in India, and may eventually look at assembly and manufacturing there.
What to watch for
On Monday, the US Environmental Protection Agency finalized its first ever rules targeting airplane CO2, which accounts for about 3% of total global emissions. Just one problem: The new standards are more than a decade obsolete. And now that the rules are finalized, it will be harder for president-elect Joe Biden to improve upon them.
When the pandemic brought much global air travel to a halt, the climate breathed a sigh of relief: Global carbon emissions from aviation fell 75% during peak lockdown, and are still 40% below last December’s levels. But when people take to the sky again, emissions will jump back, especially if there’s no pressure on carriers to embrace more efficient designs or lower-carbon fuels. Thankfully, a number of electric airplane startups are getting tantalizingly close to commercial breakthroughs.
Charting fashion’s consolidation
In 2021, the gap between fashion’s winners and losers is set to widen even further, creating the conditions for a wave of consolidation. Shoppers are expecting to spend less on clothing, and companies with healthy balance sheets are trimming product ranges and hunting for smaller upstarts and floundering rivals to scoop up.
But like a good pair of jeans, consolidation is never out of vogue. Even before 2020, a shrinking group of fashion companies was generating all the industry’s profits.
Post-Covid power dynamics
“We know that just more face time, more exposure, tends to breed liking” and a more “positive assessment” of an employee’s work ethic, says Mark Mortensen, a professor of organizational behavior. “More face time with the boss means I’m going to come up top of mind for new projects. That means when it comes time for performance evaluations, the boss has more time with me.”
Working remotely before Covid-19 often meant proving that you were actually being productive. That’s a manifestation of proximity bias—a phenomenon that favors office workers who have regular, face-to-face contact with their colleagues. While the pandemic temporarily wiped a lot of these problems away, the threat of an uneven playing field is rearing its head as workers start getting called back to the office. Jackie Bischof looks at how companies and managers will need to adapt to this tricky new power dynamic.
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Surprising discoveries
Even Pompeii had fast food. Archaeologists discovered a thermopolium, or street food and hot drinks counter, within the city’s ruins.
This isn’t a movie plot. Yoozoo Games executive Xu Yao is suspected in the poisoning death of Netflix producer (and Yoozoo founder) Lin Qi.
There’s a new theory behind the origin of life. A simple compound could have knit together the earliest strands of DNA.
North Korea has a new political star. Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of dictator Kim Jong Un, is making waves with her aggressive denunciations of defectors.
Japan’s new box-office champion is based on a manga series. Demon Slayer is Japan’s highest-grossing film ever, unseating Spirited Away with earnings of ¥32.47 billion ($313.9 million).
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, bitcoin, and new theories about the origin of life to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our iOS app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Oliver Staley, Lila MacLellan, Jordan Lebeau, and Kira Bindrim.