2024 may be even hotter than the "gobsmackingly" hot 2023, which featured extreme — and often deadly — weather and climate events around the globe.

• Why it matters: A hotter '24 would lend credence to the hypothesis that global warming is accelerating, Axios climate expert Andrew Freedman writes.

🖼️ The big picture: The combination of human-caused global warming from the burning of fossil fuels for energy, along with deforestation — plus other factors like a naturally occurring El Niño — have boosted 2023's record warmth, stunning many in the scientific community.

• Disasters from deadly flooding in Libya and Greece to never-before-seen global average temperatures, along with record-shattering ocean heat, have occurred this year, for example.

Studies have tied many of these events directly to climate change.

• This has led to a debate among some climate scientists regarding the rate of global warming, which began accelerating in the 1970s, and may be speeding up now.

But there are skeptics. "During the typical first year of an El Niño, we see a global temperature spike in the last few months of the year followed by very warm conditions during the first months of the following year," said Robert Rohde, a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent group that tracks global temperatures.

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U.S. merger and acquisition activity fell 6% to $1.36 trillion in 2023 — the lowest total since 2017, Axios Pro's Mike Flaherty writes from London Stock Exchange Group data out this morning.

• Why it matters: A slow M&A market can strain companies seeking growth or financing.

Three bright spots:

1. U.S. activity rose in each consecutive quarter of '23, as economic worries began to recede.
2. The global M&A market was much weaker than the U.S., falling 17% to $2.87 trillion.
3. All five of the world's largest deals were for U.S. companies, with U.S. acquirers.

Go deeper: Global M&A hits lowest level in a decade.

U.S. homebuyers are getting much older, Axios' Brianna Crane writes from a U.C. Berkeley study.

• Why it matters: For so many young people, homeownership is increasingly out of reach.

Homeownership is most delayed in California, where the majority of people don't own a home until 49, the study found.

• Compared to 1980, people are buying homes at least a decade later in life in California, Hawaii, New York, Nevada, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.

Iowa has the youngest buyers (29) — and experienced the least change from 1980 (two years).

• Alaska is the only state where homeowners are getting younger. The majority of Alaskans owned a home by 35 in 2021, compared to 36 in 2000.

🧠 What's happening: Median U.S. home values have nearly doubled in the last decade. But household incomes have only grown by 15%.

• Go deeper: Read the report.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) made the surprise announcement that she'll seek election in a solidly Republican House seat across the state, which would move her constituency from the Western Slope to the Eastern Plains.

Why it matters: The move is an acknowledgment of the tough reelection prospects the right-wing firebrand faced in her current seat, where she won by 500 votes last year, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

• Boebert's right-wing politics and bombastic personal style have hurt her back home. As a freshman in 2021, she made headlines for declaring her intentions to open-carry a firearm on the House floor.

Boebert made last night's announcement in a Facebook video, saying it's the "right move for me personally, and it's the right decision for those who support our conservative movement."

• Rather than running in her native 3rd district, which voted for Trump by about six points in 2020, Boebert said she'll run in the 4th district, a Trump +16 seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.).
• In a nod to the record-shattering fundraising of 3rd district Democrat Adam Frisch, Boebert said she wants to "[stay] in the fight," but that "Hollywood elites and progressive money groups" are trying to "buy" her district.

Boebert's brand took a hit this year when she was kicked out of a showing of "Beetlejuice" after security footage showed her and her date behaving inappropriately. Boebert filed for divorce from her husband in May.

• "Personally, this announcement is a fresh start following a pretty difficult year," she said. "I have made my own personal mistakes and I have owned up and apologized for them."

🕶️ What to watch: Boebert's announcement will likely make it easier for Republicans to hold the 3rd district, but her personal political prospects remain murky. A large field of credible Republicans has materialized to try to replace Buck in the 4th district.

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Apple won a temporary pause on the U.S. International Trade Commission's ban on sales of Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 models in the U.S.

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's interim order allowed Apple to resume selling the wearables while continuing to appeal the ban, Axios' Rebecca Falconer and Shauneen Miranda report.

"We are thrilled to return the full Apple Watch lineup to customers in time for the new year," Apple said.

• "Apple's teams have worked tirelessly over many years to develop technology that empowers users with industry-leading health, wellness and safety features and we are pleased the [court] has stayed the exclusion order while it considers our request to stay the order pending our full appeal."

Catch me up: In October, the USITC ruled in favor of Masimo, a medical device company that also produces fitness-tracking smartwatches. The company claims Apple's blood oxygen sensor included with some watch models infringed on Masimo's intellectual property.

Context: Apple is the world's largest smartwatch seller. Apple Watches accounted for nearly a third of all smartwatch purchases across the globe last year, per Counterpoint Research.

What's next: Apple expects the U.S. appeals court to hear its motion as soon as Jan. 15.

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Tom Smothers — the countercultural comedic icon, and half of the famed Smothers Brothers — died at 86 in Santa Rosa, Calif., after a fight with cancer.

His legacy: Smothers co-hosted a variety program on CBS with his brother Dick in the late 1960s that spawned both controversy and delight, the Hollywood Reporter writes:

• "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" blazed the trail for the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert by tackling drugs, politics and civil rights with slapstick humor and satire.

Tom Smothers is survived by the duo's other half — Dick Smothers, 84.

• More on Tom Smothers' life.

Former Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) died at 88 at home in Milwaukee after a brief illness.

His legacy: Kohl, a lifelong sports fan, owned the Milwaukee Bucks for nearly 30 years, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

• Kohl, notoriously quiet, plunged into politics in 1988 with a successful bid for Senate that he easily extended into three more terms.

More on Kohl's life.

The NBA approved the sale of billionaire Mark Cuban's majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the families that run a Las Vegas casino company.

• The NBA announced that the families of Miriam Adelson and Sivan and Patrick Dumont, who run the Las Vegas Sands Corp., will now have controlling interest in the Mavericks, Axios' Shauneen Miranda writes.

Between the lines: The deal, estimated at around $3.5 billion, allows Cuban to retain oversight of the team's basketball operations, and could enable the Vegas family to build a new arena.

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Just over six years after Yoshinobu Yamamoto watched a playoff game from the raucous Dodger Stadium stands and decided he absolutely had to play in the major leagues one day, the right-hander pulled on his white No. 18 jersey and a blue cap in the center field pavilion, AP's Greg Beacham writes.

• Why he matters: The consensus best pitcher outside North America joined the L.A. Dodgers on a 12-year contract that's the largest and longest ever guaranteed to a major league pitcher.

While he plays alongside Shohei Ohtani with his star-studded new club, Yamamoto, 25, also intends to inspire any dreaming youngsters in the Dodger Stadium stands.

• "I will stop simply admiring the players that I have looked up to, but rather strive to become the player that others want to become," Yamamoto said through an interpreter.

Being there: "Yamamoto's introductory news conference in Dodger Stadium resembled the one announcing Ohtani's 10-year, $700-million deal two weeks ago," the L.A. Times reports, "with about 100 media members in attendance — Ohtani had 300 — and fans watching Yamamoto don his blue-and-white No.18 Dodgers jersey on live television in the U.S. and Japan."

• Keep reading ... Go deeper: Biggest pitching contracts.