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Daily Briefing

Israel orders people out of swaths of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip, temperatures in parts of Siberia plummet to minus 50 degrees Celsius, and McDonald's bucks Western firms' derisking trend in China.

Plus, a selection of our oddest photos of the year.

By Kate Turton

Today's Top News

A Palestinian boy carrying a baby stands at a site of Israeli strikes. December 4, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

ISRAEL AND HAMAS AT WAR

Israel ordered people out of swaths of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip as it pressed its ground campaign deep into the south, sending desperate residents fleeing even as bombs fell on areas still described as safe.
View a selection of Reuters photographs that tell the grim story of the first weeks of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Warning: this gallery includes graphic images.
Listen to White House Correspondent Jeff Mason on the Reuters World News podcast discussing why the US is issuing increasingly stark warnings to Israel about its war in Gaza, and the number of Palestinians being killed.

IN OTHER NEWS

Temperatures in parts of Siberia plummeted to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) while blizzards blanketed Moscow in record snowfall and disrupted flights as winter weather swept across Russia.
Eleven climbers were found dead in Indonesia following the eruption of the Marapi volcano in West Sumatra, a rescue official said, as a search to find 12 more missing was temporarily halted over safety concerns.
China's military said a US Navy ship illegally entered waters adjacent to the Second Thomas Shoal, a disputed South China Sea atoll that has recently seen several maritime confrontations.
Money pledges are grabbing the spotlight at COP28 in Dubai as delegates turned their focus to the yawning gap in how much climate finance is needed and what's on tap. Announcements are expected on trade policy, carbon markets and ways for financing projects to protect nature.
Venezuelan voters back President Nicolas Maduro's claim on a huge swath of land in neighboring Guyana. Listen to Julia Symmes Cobb explain the backdrop to the referendum and what it means for the region.

Business & Markets

A woman sitting next to a statue of ''Ronald McDonald", the McDonald's company mascot. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

The decision by McDonald's to take greater control of its China business and expand aggressively in the face of a consumer slowdown and geopolitical tensions seems risky - but the potential pay-off is great, analysts say.
Music streaming giant Spotify said that it will lay off around 1,500 employees, or 17% of its headcount, to bring down costs, after letting 600 of its staff go in January, and 200 more in June.
Bitcoin has broken above $40,000 for the first time since May 2022 as it rides a wave of momentum on broad enthusiasm about US interest rate cuts and as traders bet on the imminent approval of US stock market-traded bitcoin funds. Sign up for the Reuters Crypto Wire newsletter.
Alaska Air said it would acquire Hawaiian Holdings for $1.9 billion, including debt, placing a bet on a troubled airline with lucrative routes as US antitrust regulators fight consolidation in the sector.
Roche agreed to take over obesity drug developer Carmot Therapeutics for $2.7 billion, joining a list of global contestants seeking to challenge the dominant makers of weight-loss drugs Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

Western start-ups seek to break China's grip on rare earths refining

Raw rare earth ore waiting to be processed at Vital Metals in Saskatoon. REUTERS/Nayan Sthankiya/File Photo

Start-up tech firms are racing to transform the way rare earths are refined for the clean energy transition, a push aimed at turbocharging the West's expansion into the niche sector that underpins billions of electronic devices.

The existing standard to refine these strategic minerals, known as solvent extraction, is an expensive and dirty process that China has spent the past 30 years mastering. MP Materials, Lynas Rare Earths and other Western rare earths companies have struggled at times to deploy it due to technical complexities and pollution concerns.

Rare earths are metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion for electric vehicles, cell phones and other electronics

And Finally

An installation in preparation for the reopening of the Borderless museum in Tokyo, Japan. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Scroll through a gallery of our top odd and unusual photos in 2023.

More year in review: Showbiz in 2023

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