Reuters
Boeing is struggling to mend relations with the regulators it needs to win over to get the grounded 737 back in the air. The company also needs to regain trust with passengers and airline customers as it faces what is widely seen as the worst crisis in its history.
Chairman David Calhoun will take over as CEO and president, effective from Jan. 13, Boeing said.
“The Board of Directors decided that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the Company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders,” it said in a statement.
Reuters
(Reuters) - Electric vehicle startup Rivian said on Monday it closed a $1.3 billion investment round, led by fund manager T. Rowe Price but also including existing investors online retailer Amazon.com Inc and No. 2 U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co.
The investment round, which also included BlackRock Inc, is the fourth this year for Rivian and positions the Plymouth, Michigan-based company as one of the better-financed players in a crowded EV manufacturing market where Tesla Inc is the most established player.
“This investment demonstrates confidence in our team, products, technology and strategy,” Rivian Chief Executive R.J. Scaringe said in a statement.
The Guardian
Saudi Arabia has been accused of engaging in a mockery of justice by shielding the alleged masterminds of the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, after a court effectively exonerated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s inner circle of involvement in the murder.
The gruesome killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 stunned Saudi Arabia’s western allies, plunging the kingdom into its worst diplomatic crisis since the 9/11 attacks.
Five of the 11 unidentified men on trial were sentenced to death and three more were handed a combined 24 years in prison, the deputy public prosecutor, Shalaan bin Rajih Shalaan, told reporters in Riyadh on Monday.
The investigation also concluded that Saud al-Qahtani, one of the crown prince’s most trusted advisers, was investigated and found to have no proven involvement in Khashoggi’s death, Shalaan added.
The findings contradict the conclusion of the CIA and other western intelligence agencies that Prince Mohammed directly ordered Khashoggi’s assassination, an allegation the kingdom has strenuously denied. Qahtani, along with 16 other Saudis, was sanctioned by the US last year for his alleged role in the killing.
The Guardian
Baba Ram Dass, who in the 1960s joined Timothy Leary in promoting psychedelic drugs as the path to inner enlightenment before undergoing a spiritual rebirth he spelled out in the influential book Be Here Now, died at home on Sunday. He was 88 years old.
“With tender hearts we share that Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert) died peacefully at home in Maui on December 22, 2019 surrounded by loved ones,” according to his official Instagram account.
“He was a guide for thousands seeking to discover or reclaim their spiritual identity beyond or within institutional religion.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and the late Beatles star George Harrison were among those who were inspired by Ram Dass.
The Guardian
In December 2018, weeks after the Democrats’ conquest of the House, the soon-to-be speaker arrived for a White House meeting with Donald Trump. The subject was a government shutdown but the subtext was a showdown between the most powerful woman in American politics and the president of the United States.
In the extraordinary, televised exchange that followed, Trump sought to undermine Nancy Pelosi, whom he repeatedly addressed as “Nancy”, by reminding his audience in the Oval Office – and those watching at home – that she had yet to secure the 218 votes needed to reclaim the speakership and was “in a situation where it’s not easy for her to talk right now”.
Her response was sharp and sure. “Mr President, please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting.”
It was the first test of a new power dynamic in Washington and when it ended, there was little disagreement over who had won.
Pelosi emerged from the White House wearing a now-famous burnt-orange coat, sunglasses and the triumphant smile of a woman who has never forgotten the advice imparted to her by the late Louisiana congresswoman Lindy Boggs: “Darlin’, know thy power and use it.”
Al Jazeera
Turkey and international rights groups have led condemnation of a Saudi court verdict over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying it failed to deliver justice.
Five people were sentenced to death on Monday over the brutal killing of the writer by a team of Saudi agents inside the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul last October, but two top aides to powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) - the de facto Saudi leader - were exonerated.
The Saudi prosecutor's office said a total of 31 people were investigated in connection with the killing, and that 11 people were charged. Three were handed jail terms totalling 24 years and the rest were acquitted. None of the defendants' names was immediately released.
Al Jazeera
Iran has unveiled a redevelopment of part of its Arak heavy water reactor in a move that did not breach international restrictions on its nuclear work, but showed it is developing the sector in the face of United States pressure.
Iranian state media said on Monday that technicians switched on a secondary circuit at Arak, a plant built to produce the heavy water used as a moderator to slow down reactions in the core of nuclear reactors.
"Today, we are ... starting a noteworthy section of the reactor," the head of Iran's atomic agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in remarks broadcast live on state T.V.
DW News
Germany's federal police force said on Monday that 11 migrants were freed from a refrigerated truck at a service station in Bavaria.
The migrants boarded the truck in Serbia and were found at a highway service station on Saturday. Police said that the migrants were aged 14 to 31, came from Afghanistan, and were taken into police custody.
Read more: Children on the Move: Refugees and experts reassess the future of young migrants
Officials found the people when the driver pulled over near the southern town of Passau, adjacent to the Austrian border in Bavaria, after hearing knocking sounds coming from the truck's trailer. The passengers said they were having problems breathing and were starting to suffer headaches.
DW News
The EU should enact "climate tariffs" against the US in response to sanctions against the bloc for the construction of the deep sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, an economist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), a German think tank, says.
Climate tariffs are necessary to prevent gas extracted through fracking, an ecologically harmful process, from being exported from the US to Germany and the EU, environmental economist Claudia Kemfert told Germany's Handelsblatt on Monday.
Kemfert, who leads the energy, traffic, and environment department at DIW, characterized US sanctions against the EU as an "aggressive instrument of a fossil energy crisis." Both Russia and the US are using natural gas as a "political weapon," she said, adding that the intention behind the sanctions is to sell US gas to Germany and the EU at the highest possible cost.
DW News
Following criticism of his climate policy by climate activist Greta Thunberg, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said "I'm not here to impress people overseas." Over 200 fires are still raging across Australia.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended Australia's climate policy and coal industry on Monday as 200 wildfires raged on with little sign of abating.
His words come a day after teen Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg condemned the lack of political action by the Australian government.
"We still fail to make the connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events and natural disasters," Thunberg wrote on Twitter.
DW News
Christians in the Palestinian territory of Gaza will be permitted to enter Jerusalem and the West Bank for Christmas, Israel's government said on Sunday.
The announcement comes just two days before the Christian holiday. Gaza has been under a tight blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant group Hamas took control of the territory in 2007.
All residents require permits to leave the territory and in previous years, Israel has granted it to Christians who wish to visit religious sites and spend time family.
But this year, it was unclear if permits would be extended for the Christmas holiday. The uncertainty drew backlash from Christian leaders in Jerusalem, who had said had said they would appeal to Israeli authorities to lift the ban.
On Sunday, the Israeli agency responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, announced the Christmas permits on Twitter, saying they would be issued "in accordance with security assessments and without regard to age.''
AFP
Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez said Sunday the South American country is in virtual default and compared the situation with the 2001 crisis -- the worst in its recent history.
The country is in recession and has suffered 18 months of economic crisis sparked by a currency crash. Its economy is expected to shrink by 3.1 percent in 2019.
"It is not the same as 2001, but it is similar. At that time poverty was at 57 percent, today we have 41 percent poor people; then we had a debt default, today we are in virtual default," Fernandez said in an interview with TV program La Cornice.
The center-left president came to power on December 10 after defeating liberal Mauricio Macri in the presidential election, and has previously expressed his willingness to pay creditors.
But on Friday the government unilaterally postponed until August paying some 9 billion dollars in maturities, which resulted in the country's debt being downgraded by rating agencies Fitch and S&P, who consider it in selective default.
The Guardian
Argentina’s wine-growing province of Mendoza, renown for its inky red Malbec varietal, has erupted in protest against the surprise overturning of a 2007 water protection law that had successfully kept water-intensive mining projects out of the province.
Thousands of people joined demonstrations on Monday outside the office of provincial governor Rodolfo Suarez in the capital city, also called Mendoza, after he overturned the law, known as 7722 late last week.
The peaceful protest turned violent on Monday afternoon, as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd in response to stone-throwing by angry demonstrators.
BBC
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell says he has not ruled out allowing witnesses to testify in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.
Congressional lawmakers are wrangling over Senate trial rules, with Democrats demanding witnesses be called so what they term a fair trial can take place.
Mr Trump was formally impeached by the House last week for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The Senate trial is expected to begin next month, after the holiday break.
The president is accused of pressuring the Ukrainian president to start an investigation into his political rival, Democratic presidential front runner, Joe Biden.
Mr Trump is accused of doing this by withholding military aid and making a White House visit contingent on co-operation.
President Vladimir Putin has heralded the opening of a railway bridge to the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula by posing in the driver's cab and praising construction workers.
But the opening of the railway was immediately condemned by the European Union as "another violation" by Russia of Ukraine's sovereignty and territory.
Russia's 19km (12-mile) bridge to Crimea first opened in May last year.
President Putin marked that occasion by driving a lorry over it.
On Monday he asserted that millions of cars had already crossed the bridge and said the rail link "was a big deal as well", with plans to carry 14 million passengers and 13 million tonnes of freight in 2020.
NPR
Michigan motorists were taken aback on Friday by an alarming image lurking just off the highway: a mysterious green liquid oozing from the walls of Interstate 696, spilling onto the road's shoulder.
"It certainly is an impressive sight," said Jill Greenberg, spokeswoman with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.
Soon after, state and federal environmental officials descended on the interstate just north of Detroit, and it did not take long to trace the green liquid's source.
Just up the hill from the road sits the now-shuttered Electro-Plating Services Inc. The owner of the industrial site was prosecuted for operating an unlicensed hazardous waste storage facility. Last month, the man, Gary Sayers, was sentenced to a year in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.4 million to clean up the plant.
NPR
Hunger once seemed like a simple problem. Around the globe, often in low-income countries, many people didn't get enough calories.
But increasingly, hunger exists side-by-side with obesity. Within the same community, some people are overweight while others don't have enough to eat.
And the tricky part: You can't "fix" hunger by just feeding people empty calories. You've got to nourish people with healthy, nutrient-dense foods, so they don't become obese.
A new report published in The Lancet shines a spotlight on this paradox. The dual problems of undernourishment and obesity — often referred to as the double burden of malnutrition.
For example, people can begin life not getting enough calories and become stunted — below average height for age — but by adulthood can become overweight due to an abundance of cheap calories.
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I hope everyone had a satisfying Festivus Day!