Stimulus Deal Close

Congressional leaders closed in on a roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief deal that includes another round of direct payments to households, according to lawmakers who aimed to pass the aid package before the week’s end, as the WSJ reports.

U.S. and Pfizer Negotiate Deal

The Trump administration is negotiating a deal to use its power to free up supplies of raw materials to help Pfizer produce tens of millions of additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine for Americans in the first half of next year, as the NYT reports.

Charlie Hebdo Killers Found Guilty

A panel of French judges on Wednesday found all 14 defendants guilty of involvement in the 2015 attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket on the outskirts of Paris, as the Washington Post reports.

WHO-led team expected in China in January to probe COVID-19 origins

An international mission led by the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to go to China in the first week of January to investigate the origins of the virus that sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, as Reuters reports.

CSIS Executive Education

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Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Data Unpacked,” Testify,” “What's Happening,” “Preview,” and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

45

Between April and September, one of the most tumultuous economic stretches in modern history, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded U.S. companies turned a profit.

Source: Washington Post

Critical Quote

“We should celebrate the fact that the science has come through, but it is not over yet. We have a ways to go.”

— Dr. Anthony Fauci

iDeas Lab

Concerns about widespread human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, including forced labor, in Xinjiang, China have escalated in recent years. This report explores policy options for the US and like-minded countries.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and multimedia.

Optics

(Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell heads to the senate floor after a meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for ongoing talks for the COVID-19 relief bill.

This Town Tomorrow

Tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m., join the CSIS Korea Chair to discuss the nexus of China, South Korea and North Korea relations.

Then, at 11:00 a.m., CSIS will explore the lessons learned from a policymaker's humanitarian experience and how they apply to decision-making at the local, state, and federal levels.

And, at 12:00 p.m., the CSIS Scholl Chair in International Business is hosting a conversation with eight former United States Trade Representatives, who will share wisdom from their own experiences and discuss what a positive trade agenda should look like for the Biden Administration.

Video

The CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccines and Misinformation held the first conversation on a series about building trust in Covid-19 vaccines in the United States. Watch the full video here.

Podcasts

The latest Smart Women Smart Power episode said goodbye to 2020, and hello to 2021, but do the same challenges lie ahead? Tune in for more on foreign policy challenges in the upcoming year.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

I love this clip from “The Old Grey Whistle Test,” a British television that ran on the BBC from 1971 to 1988 and was devoted to music that wasn’t the “Top 40” or “Top of the Pops” genre. In other words, album rock. What we now call “classic rock.” At the beginning of the clip, host Bob Harris interviews Robert Plant about pop music and Little Feat and then turns to a recording they produced of Little Feat live. I had no idea Robert Plant was into Little Feat! Then again, anyone who knows anything about great music is into Little Feat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIOGL-Fu0c4&list=RDmIOGL-Fu0c4&start_radio=1&t=158.

I invite you to email me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @handrewschwartz

The Evening is my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day. It is composed with the External Relations team: Emma Colbran, Caleb Diamond, and Kendal Gee.