Flagship

Trump picks RFK Jr for health sec

US President-elect Donald Trump nominated longstanding vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr as his health secretary, to the alarm of public health experts. Kennedy once said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and warned parents not to follow federal vaccination guidelines. After some mainstream nominations to cabinet roles, such as Marco Rubio as secretary of state, Trump’s latest picks have disturbed political opponents and world leaders, as well as some Republicans. Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee for director of national intelligence, is “known for amplifying conspiracy theories [and] embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Politico noted: A member of the European Parliament called her appointment “really terrifying.”

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US economy dominates

The US economy’s persistent strength is leaving other nations in the dust and reshaping global markets. Comments by the Federal Reserve chair describing US growth as “by far the best of any major economy in the world” came as Goldman Sachs projected the country would outpace other rich nations for a third straight year. Traders reduced their bets that the Fed would cut rates next month. Meanwhile, slowing growth in Europe — coupled with the impact of potential Trump tariffs — drove forecasts for aggressive rate cuts in the eurozone. This has fueled a growing belief that the euro will fall to parity against the dollar. Overall, US stocks are outperforming their European peers by the most in 30 years, according to Bloomberg.

China’s economy reviving

China’s flagging economy showed signs of life, with analysts voicing hope that further stimulus may power renewed growth. Retail sales growth was higher than expected, house prices appeared to stabilize, and investment levels were steady, spurring ING economists to say they were “relatively less pessimistic on the 2025 outlook,” despite the looming threat of US tariffs. And while markets were largely disappointed by a bailout this month, the co-founder of the China-focused research firm Trivium argued that policymakers appeared to be readying more fiscal support as well as structural change to economic regulations. But he warned that “such major shifts in policy thinking can take years to translate into concrete policy actions.”

UK’s global vulnerability

Top British officials warned of the near-unique risk the country’s economy faced from global trade restrictions. New data showed UK economic growth has stalled, and the finance minister and central bank governor, speaking one after the other at a high-profile dinner, said Britain must urgently rebuild ties with the European Union given the implications of a Donald Trump-led Washington. A senior MP from the governing Labour Party, meanwhile, warned that Trump’s tariffs represented a “doomsday scenario” for the UK. “Even if the UK’s reliance on services shields it from the worst of any fresh tariffs,” the Financial Times noted, “the country remains vulnerable to global shocks in trade, business confidence, and the bond market.”

Inequality surges in India

India’s rapid economic growth — the fastest of any major economy — masks sharply worsening inequality. The top 1% of Indians now account for more than a fifth of overall income, a proportion higher than when India was a British colony, and more than 40% of all wealth. The widening divide is driven by the country’s fast-growing crop of millionaires and billionaires: Less than a tenth of Indians account for 60% of national consumption, while upwards of a billion people don’t make enough to have any discretionary spending, according to the venture capital firm Blume Ventures. The long-term risks are significant, CNBC noted, with huge numbers of Indians getting poor education and being forced into poverty because of health care costs.

Argentina ‘re-evaluating’ Paris

Argentina may withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. The country’s foreign minister told The New York Times that Buenos Aires is “re-evaluating our strategy” on climate change, a day after Argentina unexpectedly pulled out of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan. Argentina would be just the second nation to withdraw from the Paris accords, after the US during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term: Trump is widely expected to do the same again once he regains the presidency. The Times said there were concerns that, should Argentina leave, it would trigger a “domino effect” of other nations. President Javier Milei has previously called climate change a “socialist lie.”

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Sudan toll is underestimated

The death toll of the Sudan civil war is likely much higher than previously estimated, new research suggested. A report said that more than 61,000 people have died in Khartoum state alone, triple the previous UN estimate for the entire country: 26,000 of those were killed as a direct result of the violence, but the biggest cause of death was disease and starvation. The chaos in Sudan — millions have been displaced from their homes — means that there is no systematic record of deaths, and the nearly two years of war have created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to aid workers. Hundreds of thousands are at risk of famine.

Korean War casualties identified

The bodies of four British soldiers killed in the Korean War in 1951 were identified, allowing their now-elderly children to visit their grave for the first time. Sergeant Donald Northey died in the Battle of Imjin River, covering US and UK troops’ retreat, when his son Michael was a baby. Chinese forces removed casualties’ dog tags — 300 British dead in Korea remain unidentified — but one researcher’s six-year effort led to the realization that Northey and three others were buried in Busan, South Korea. “I’m ill and don’t have a lot of time left myself,” Michael Northey told the BBC. “I thought I’d never find out… I can’t describe the emotional release.”

The Onion buys Infowars

The satirical outlet The Onion bought Infowars, the far-right conspiracy theory website, in its owner Alex Jones’ bankruptcy auction. Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to families of the Sandy Hook school shooting after calling the 2012 massacre a hoax. The families of some victims agreed to forgo part of their payout to back The Onion’s bid, saying it would put “an end to the misinformation machine” that Jones operated. The Onion’s CEO told CNN that Infowars would continue “its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies.” Reports that this is the first funny thing The Onion has done since 2005’s “CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years” remained unconfirmed at press time.

Digital granny keeps scammers talking

An artificial intelligence grannybot is fighting scammers by keeping them talking. Digital scams are common, but elderly citizens are particularly at risk of phone scams. “Daisy” is an AI with the voice of a grandmother, developed for a British telecoms company: Using technology similar to ChatGPT Voice, it keeps fraudsters on the phone to “waste as much of their time as possible,” telling meandering stories about her family and handing out fake personal information. It has kept frustrated scammers on the phone for up to 40 minutes, and shows that like any new technology, AI is dual-use: While it will make scamming easier, it can provide tools for fighting it, too.

• Outgoing US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet at the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday.
• Mexico is expected to unveil its draft budget for 2025.
• The last supermoon of the year will light up night skies around the world.

The number of children suspended in a year in one California county for violating school cellphone bans. Orange County has banned all phones, even during break periods. The psychologist Christopher Ferguson asked for their suspension data: He said that suspensions worsen educational outcomes, so “hundreds of children [have] been directly harmed” by the bans, and cited a review of the literature saying “the evidence for banning mobile phones in schools is weak and inconclusive.” Florida has also banned phones in class. “Cellphone bans may feel intuitive to older adults, but do they actually work?” Ferguson asked.

The Brothers Grimm: A Biography by Ann Schmiesing. Though their tales have long been well-studied and appreciated — Ernest Hemingway cited them to a fiancée, W.H. Auden described them as foundational texts in Western literature — what is less fully appreciated is the role the pair played in building the idea of a united Germany. In her study of the brothers, described by The American Scholar as “a bravura performance, an archival marvel,” Schmiesing digs into their lives, as well as their impact on the eventual notion of a singular country. Buy The Brothers Grimm: A Biography from your local bookshop.

A lobbying group representing the tech industry is urging the incoming Trump administration to broadly review existing federal authorities and rules regarding artificial intelligence, writes Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant, to single out regulations that may be “unnecessarily impeding AI adoption.”