Good morning.
Here’s what you need to know:
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• Nearly a year into his presidency, President Trump has transformed the world’s view of the United States.
His anger at NATO, awkwardness with allies and friendliness with autocrats have taken the U.S. from being an anchor of the international order to something more inward-looking and unpredictable.
Here’s a detailed accounting of Mr. Trump’s unorthodox approach.
Above, the first lady, Melania Trump, and Mr. Trump, in Beijing with President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in November.
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• The long-simmering conflicts in Afghanistan and Yemen took strikingly bloody turns this week.
In Afghanistan, above, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at a Shiite cultural center in Kabul that killed at least 41 people. It was the latest in a series of mass-casualty attacks against Shiite targets.
Continue reading the main storyAnd in Yemen, airstrikes on a market and a farm killed at least 68 civilians, including eight children, the U.N. said. The two attacks occurred on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest days for civilians so far in the country’s civil war.
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• As Venezuela loses its regional allies and finds itself in need of money, it is drawing closer to China and Russia.
The state-owned oil company, once a cash cow, is on the verge of collapse. And Venezuela’s leftist president, Nicolás Maduro, is increasingly regarded as a despot.
With its oil, Venezuela is likely to be an attractive, if risky, long-term gamble for Beijing and Moscow. But Mr. Maduro, above center, is negotiating from a position of weakness, a former diplomat said.
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• In much of the world, people are stressed about the potential job-destroying rise of automation. But not in Sweden, where robots are just another way to make companies more efficient.
As employers prosper, Swedes have consistently gained a proportionate slice of the spoils — a stark contrast to the U.S. and Britain, where wages have stagnated even while corporate profits have soared.
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VideoDo Australians Need a Sugar Intervention?
Since 1990, the number of obese adults in Australia has tripled. Can a region built on the sugar industry turn down the sweets?
By KASSIE BRACKEN, JONAH M. KESSEL and TAIGE JENSEN on Publish Date December 28, 2017. . Watch in Times Video »• The latest installment of our Planet Fat series is a documentary exploring whether Australia, where the number of obese adults has tripled since 1990, can turn down the sweets.
In sugar-producing places like Mackay, on the Queensland coast, sugar isn’t just part of the culture, it’s a source of pride. But health experts say it’s contributing to a national health crisis.
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• In the U.S., Alabama certified Doug Jones’s Senate victory, brushing aside a legal challenge from Roy Moore. Mr. Moore, who has been accused of sexual misconduct against teenage girls, has refused to concede the race.
We asked 615 men about how they conduct themselves at work. About a third said they had done something within the past year that would qualify as objectionable behavior or sexual harassment.
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Business
• China offered a tax break to U.S. businesses thinking of taking their profits out of the country. There’s a catch: To be eligible, foreign firms must invest in industries encouraged by Beijing.
• The price of Bitcoin tumbled after South Korea announced that it would no longer let people buy or sell virtual currencies anonymously.
• Let the hunt for loopholes begin. The tax bill signed last week by President Trump is likely to display the abundant creativity of U.S. businesses in interpreting the tax code.
• Yesterday, we told you about all the ways technology failed over the past year. Here’s a look at what went right.
• Most U.S. stocks were higher. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
In the News
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• A Tibetan filmmaker made a “risky” escape from China to the United States. He had been jailed and was living under police surveillance. [The New York Times]
• Prosecutors in Japan indicted the Mongolian-born former sumo grand champion Harumafuji for assaulting a junior wrestler. [Reuters]
• In Liberia, George Weah, a former soccer player, won the presidential election, according to provisional results. [The New York Times]
• A U.S. deal to provide antimissile systems to Japan was criticized by Russia as a violation of an arms-control treaty. [CNN]
• A group of 50 Pulitzer Prize winners urged Myanmar to release two Reuters reporters arrested in Yangon earlier this month. [The Irrawaddy]
• China denied reports that it is violating U.N. sanctions by secretly selling oil to North Korea. [South China Morning Post]
• A yachting victory overturned: Comanche has been declared the winner of the Sydney to Hobart race after Wild Oats XI was penalized for breaking race rules. [ABC]
Smarter Living
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
• Here are five New Year’s resolutions to protect your technology.
• And eight ways to have a better relationship in 2018.
• Recipe of the day: Try something new on pasta night, like Bolognese without the tomatoes.
Noteworthy
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• China’s passion for drones was on display at an air show in Wuhan last month, where jets and planes were upstaged by the unmanned flying machines.
• In “The Lives They Lived,” our magazine remembers some of the artists, innovators and thinkers we lost in the past year.
• In Pakistan, the city of Rabwah has become home to about 70,000 members of the Ahmadi sect. Its veneer of calm, even affluence, is at odds with the growing hatred against the group elsewhere in the country.
Back Story
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Each year on New Year’s Eve, millions of people in the U.S. and around the world turn their attention to Times Square for the annual ball drop.
It all began at a New York Times party on Dec. 31, 1904. The newspaper had just moved its headquarters from Lower Manhattan to a 24-story tower in Longacre Square, at the intersection of 42nd Street, Seventh Avenue and Broadway.
Mayor George McClellan renamed it Times Square, and the publisher, Adolph S. Ochs, celebrated by putting on a New Year’s Eve party with a live band and fireworks.
“No more beautiful picture was ever limned in fire on the curtain of midnight,” the newspaper reported on Jan. 1, 1905.
The tradition lived on, but in 1907, the fireworks were replaced by a ball drop. The idea came from Western Union Telegraph Company in Lower Manhattan, which did a ball drop every day at noon. (Time balls had been used to tell time for decades.)
The paper moved out of the building in 1913, but the ball drop continued, except for two years during World War II. A Times electrician, Thomas P. Ward, was in charge of it from 1907 to 1957.
For more on the ritual, check out this article by our in-house historian, David Dunlap.
Karen Zraick contributed reporting.
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