☕Good Tuesday morning! Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,190 words ... 4½ minutes.
☕Good Tuesday morning! Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,190 words ... 4½ minutes.
Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios
China will end 2020 as the only major country to see its economy grow, not shrink, Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon reports.
By the numbers: China's economy is projected to grow by 2% in 2020 and by 8.4% in 2021. By the end of next year, its economy is expected to be 10.6% larger than it was at the beginning of this year.
The big picture: China managed to become a post-COVID economy within months of the virus striking.
China's factories are operating above their designed capacity, Sinovation Ventures CEO Kai-Fu Lee tells Axios from Beijing:
The bottom line: China has never been stronger. It will take all of Biden's charm and diplomatic savvy to put together a coalition capable of constraining China.
President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris in Wilmington yesterday. Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
President-elect Biden, who has vowed to be clear-eyed and straight about the pandemic, plans a renewed warning in remarks on COVID-19 in Wilmington today, a transition official tells me.
Why it matters: Although Americans have been getting blunt talk from their governors and from doctors on TV, President Trump has been AWOL on COVID since the election.
With a bluntness that has been missing from this administration, Biden talked Dec. 14 about "this dark winter of the pandemic," then said last week: "Our darkest days in the battle against COVID are ahead of us, not behind us."
Anthony Fauci, who'll be Biden's chief medical adviser on COVID, on Sunday repeated his grim "surge upon a surge" prediction for post-Christmas cases.
What we're watching: Straight talk is easier when it's on Trump's watch. Biden's test will be to be just as blunt after he takes the oath.
President Trump golfs yesterday at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Photo: Marco Bello/Reuters
A couple of days ago, it looked impossible that $2,000 COVID relief checks — up from the $600 checks for individuals in the package President Trump signed Sunday — could pass the Senate.
It's still an uphill battle. But Republican senators are feeling more pressure from constituents — pumped by Trump — to do more.
Senators to watch: Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — with one or two other spending hardliners needed.
🥊 A Wall Street Journal editorial (subscription) today calls the president's push for $2,000 checks "a Donald Trump in-kind contribution to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden."
What's next: Senate consideration of $2,000 checks is unlikely to begin before Friday.
📄 Go deeper: New highlights from the package.
A full moon rises last evening behind people standing on the Edge, the observation deck at Hudson Yards in Manhattan.
Banner hung by anti-eviction protesters in New York City in August. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The New York Legislature convened an unusual special session between Christmas and New Year's to pass one of the country's most comprehensive anti-eviction laws, which will ban landlords from evicting most tenants for at least another 60 days, the N.Y. Times' Dana Rubinstein reports.
The big picture: "Nationally, an estimated 7 million to 14 million households are at risk for eviction, according to Stout’s database. They are thought to be short between $11 billon and $20 billion in rent."
A drone lifts off from the roof of a UPS truck during testing in Lithia, Fla. Photo: Scott Audette/Reuters
Small drones will be allowed to fly over people and at night in the U.S., the FAA said yesterday — a significant step toward use for widespread commercial deliveries, Reuters' David Shepardson reports.
"Vaxxies" — selfies taken while getting the COVID vaccine — appeared in the N.Y Times for the first time Sunday, per the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said, which tracks words' debut in The Times. (hat tip: The Morning)
A fast-food eatery in Pompeii — a "thermopolium," frozen in time with the eruption of 79 A.D. — has been excavated, revealing dishes that were popular with citizens of the ancient Roman city, AP's Frances D'Emilio writes from Rome.
Images of two upside-down mallards and a rooster likely served to advertise the street-fo0d menu.
A duck bone fragment was found in one of the containers, along with remains from goats, pigs, fish and snails.
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