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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
1. Congress approved a plan to keep the government funded into January — while kicking fights over issues like immigration and surveillance into the new year.
And Republicans are gearing up for what are likely to be bruising midterm elections in November. Midterms are inevitably referendums on the party that controls the White House, and President Trump has the lowest approval rating of any modern president this early in his tenure.
The tax bill has given Republicans a victory to talk about, but Democrats are up in polls and donations.
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2. In an act of defiance against the Trump administration, the U.N. General Assembly condemned the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Despite President Trump’s threat to cut aid to the resolution’s supporters, the largely symbolic measure was approved by a vote of 128 to 9.
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3. In Catalonia, separatist parties were poised to hold on to a narrow majority in elections for a regional parliament, according to nearly complete official results. Above, the vote count.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain called the elections hoping to reshuffle the political deck, calculating that Catalan voters would punish the secessionist leaders who had provoked the country’s worst constitutional crisis in decades.
That gamble appeared not to have paid off.
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4. Decades after the Ford Motor Company tried to tackle sexual misconduct at two Chicago plants, new allegations of abuse raise questions about the possibility of change.
On “The Daily,” we talk to our reporter Catrin Einhorn, who spent months interviewing women who had experienced sexual harassment in Ford factories. And we hear from one of the women she spoke to.
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5. Dozens of major U.S. employers — including Amazon and Goldman Sachs — placed recruitment ads on Facebook that were limited to particular age groups, an investigation by ProPublica and The Times found.
The practice raises concerns about discrimination against older workers. “Once you reach your 50s, you may as well be dead,” said Mark Edelstein, above, a 58-year-old job hunter.
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6. Grisly news from Asia and Australia: A fire that appeared to have started in a parking garage consumed an eight-story building in Jecheon, South Korea, killing at least 29 people. Most of the dead were trapped in a public sauna on the second floor.
And in Melbourne, Australia, 19 people were injured by a man who drove an S.U.V. into a crowd. The authorities are searching for a motive, and said the suspect had a history of mental illness and drug abuse.
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7. Could a metropolis of 30 million people end up underwater?
Experts say it’s only a matter of time for Jakarta, Indonesia’s fast-sinking capital, which must contend with man-made troubles and mounting threats from climate change. This is the latest article in our series “Changing Climate, Changing Cities.”
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8. Would you like NASA to fly a drone across Saturn’s largest moon, or to send a probe to collect samples from a duck-shaped comet?
From a dozen proposals to the agency’s New Frontiers competition — not unlike an interplanetary “Shark Tank” for a forthcoming robotic mission — NASA announced those two as finalists.
Each team will get $4 million and about a year to flesh out its idea. NASA will decide in mid-2019 which one to build, and the launch is expected by the end of 2025.
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9. One more question: Is that cute Christmas toy a spy?
Many manufacturers are promoting internet-connected gadgets for kids this holiday season. But once a device is online, it is potentially exposed to hackers who can gain access to sensitive information via microphones and cameras.
“Parents need to be aware of what they are buying and bringing home to their children,” a cybersecurity researcher said.
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10. Finally, Samantha Bee discussed the evangelical Christians who pushed for the White House to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. She showed footage of one evangelical leader saying that the president had signaled end times.
“Of course, Armageddon is the one thing that Trump happens to get done with absolute precision,” she joked.
Have a great night.
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