Trump says he will go
Outgoing US president Donald Trump said he would leave the White House if the Electoral College certifies Joe Biden’s victory when it meets on 14 December. Trump said it would be “a very hard thing to concede” defeat and repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Trump would not say if he would attend Biden’s inauguration on 20 January. Sources: DW, Financial Times, NPR, Reuters and Washington Post.
Maradona mourned
Thousands of Argentinians lined the streets of Buenos Aires to bid farewell to the football legend Diego Maradona. Argentina is holding 3 days of national mourning after Maradona died of a heart attack, at the age of 60, on Wednesday. Sources: DW, The Guardian, NPR and Reuters.
Covid ‘eliminated’ in Victoria
The Australian state of Victoria (where Melbourne is located) has gone 28 days without any new locally transmitted coronavirus cases or deaths. Sources: ABC, The Age and Reuters.
Vaccine analysis questioned
Astrazeneca and Oxford University’s covid-19 vaccine candidate reached its 90% effectiveness rate in trials thanks to an early dosing error, raising questions about the reliability of the results, per the Financial Times, The Guardian and Reuters. The drugmaker’s CEO defended the data, but said the company would likely run fresh trials, per CNBC, Reuters and Seeking Alpha.
Latest Luxembourg covid-19 update
Out of 12,845 PCR tests conducted on 25 November, 773 Luxembourg residents were positive for the coronavirus. That is a rate of 123.46 per 100,000 inhabitants (compared to 98.39 the previous day). The Rt effective reproduction rate was 0.81, below the targeted threshold of 1.00 (compared to 0.97 the previous day). There were 223 patients in hospital (down from 225), including 44 in intensive care (up from 53). Six people died, bringing the national total to 294. Source: Health ministry.
Budapest & Warsaw stay firm in EU budget standoff
The leaders of Hungary and Poland said they would reject the next EU budget, including the covid-19 recovery fund, over ‘rule of law’ requirements. Sources: DW, Euractiv, Financial Times and Politico.
Ski holidays debate
European leaders clashed over ski resorts. France, Germany and Italy want lifts closed over Christmas, while Austria and Switzerland want them open. Sources: AFP, DW, The Guardian and Politico.
Paris policemen under investigation after beating
Three French police officers were suspended after being filmed beating a Black music producer at his studio. Sources: BBC, France 24, The Guardian and Reuters.
Paris to reconsider police filming ban
The French prime minister Jean Castex ordered a review of a controversial bill that would restrict the ability of citizens to film and publish images of police officers. Sources: AFP and Euronews.
Security guards to aid Lux police in capital
The City of Luxembourg has hired a private security firm to assist police with patrolling the City-Centre and Gare districts between 1 December and 31 January. Sources: L’essentiel and Paperjam.
Grand Ducal budget set for 2021
Luxembourg’s royal household will receive €17.5m in public money next year. Sources: Delano and L’essentiel.
ArcelorMittal USA sale gets OK
The planned $1.4bn sale of ArcelorMittal USA to Cleveland-Cliffs has received American antitrust approval. Sources: Cleveland Business Journal, Seeking Alpha and S&P Global Platts.
Blackrock contract questioned
The EU ombudsman said the European Commission did not properly assess possible conflicts of interest when it appointed Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, as advisors on ESG financial regulations. Sources: Bloomberg, Delano and The Guardian.
Bitcoin down sharply
The value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies plunged on Thursday on speculation over coming regulations. Sources: Bloomberg, CNBC and Financial Times.
Amazon giving bonuses
Frontline staff at Amazon in the UK and US will receive a one-time holiday bonus of £300 or $300 for full-time employees and £150 or $150 for part-timers. Sources: BBC, CNBC and Financial Times.
Amazon monitored social movements
Vice’s Motherboard tech news site reported on leaked internal memos from 2019 outlining how Amazon’s security unit monitored the social media accounts of European activists. “Amazon intelligence analysts appear to gather information on labor organizing and social movements to prevent any disruptions to order fulfillment operations,” Vice wrote. The internal reports also detailed several cases of employee theft. It is unclear if any of the allegations represent illegal activity. But one activist said the company employed “questionable practices”. Amazon confirmed that it has an “internal investigations team”.
Goodyear to reorganise Lux production
The tyremaker Goodyear said it would reassign roughly 100 staff at its Colmar-Berg site as certain production is shifted to other European sites. Sources: Delano, Paperjam and Tageblatt.
Ikea in real estate acquisition mode
Ikea’s investment arm is in talks to snap up a portfolio of prime European retail properties. Source: Reuters.
Google and Facebook to face UK scrutiny
Britain will set up a new agency to monitor the competitive practices of digital giants such as Facebook and Google. Sources: CNBC, The Guardian and Reuters.
Tiktok deadline extended
Washington gave the Chinese tech firm Bytedance another week to finalise its sale of Tiktok’s US operations to Oracle and Walmart. Sources: CNBC, The Register and South China Morning Post.
Here are 5 science & technology stories you may have missed
Archaeology: Researchers speculate that the Native American artists who drew in a cave in Southern California 500 years ago “were all using psychoactive compounds”, per Science magazine. Archaeology: Bored Panda has a gallery of intriguing fossils, and they’re not all dinosaurs. Astrophysics: Researchers confirmed that at least some ‘fast radio bursts’ (high energy radio waves that are not well understood) come from magnetars (highly magnetized neutron stars) and not aliens, per MIT Technology Review. Covid-19: The US public health agency CDC is reportedly considering reducing the quarantine period for people exposed to the coronavirus from 14 days to 7 or 10 days, per CNBC. Health: No, you really need 8 hours of sleep a night, researchers said in this Popular Science article (from 2017).
Helicopter crew spot statue in the middle of nowhere
Wildlife officials discovered a metal monolith, which resembles one seen in the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, deep in a Utah desert, per the BBC and CNN.
Takeaway pizza debate
I always thought the plastic stool in pizza boxes was meant to keep the top from crushing the pie. But Tiktok user @sebweb67 argues that it “is actually there to stop you touching other slices”. More: Daily Star and Ladbible.
Today’s breakfast briefing was written by Aaron Grunwald