Axios

A cybersecurity firm is working with the Vatican to defend its priceless collection of digitized writings from hacking efforts.

Why it matters: Digitizing library archives can provide an invaluable backup should the originals be lost or destroyed, but they're also vulnerable to cyberattacks. Without stout defenses, digital libraries can be looted or even vandalized.

South Korea on Saturday reported its highest daily COVID-19 case count since the pandemic got underway, with 950 new cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

By the numbers: South Korea has a total of 41,736 coronavirus accumulated cases and 578 confirmed deaths, and the number of daily cases has been increasing since November.

European Union leaders have agreed to cut net carbon emissions at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030, European Council President Charles Michel announced on Friday.

The big picture: The agreement eased concerns among Eastern European countries, including Poland, that rely heavily on coal, while putting the EU on a path toward its goal to be climate-neutral by 2050.

ByteDance is closing in $2 billion in new funding co-led by KKR and existing backer Sequoia Capital at a $180 billion valuation, per Reuters.

Why it matters: This would cement China-based ByteDance as the world's most valuable VC-backed company, worth 3X the next-largest unicorn, and comes despite the U.S. government's efforts to force its divestiture of TikTok.

A fallout between President Trump and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led to the breakthrough that resulted in the Morocco-Israel normalization deal, sources briefed on the matter told me.

Why it matters: Inhofe is Washington's most avid supporter of the Polisario Front — a Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara. He has travelled many times to Algeria for meetings with Polisario leaders.

AstraZeneca will begin trials to test whether its experimental coronavirus vaccine can be successfully combined with Russia’s Sputnik V shot, the company announced on Friday.

Why it matters: Both AstraZeneca's and Russia's vaccines have raised questions among experts around their separate trials. Russia has not completed advanced studies on the vaccine to ensure whether it is safe and adheres to scientific protocols. AstraZeneca's vaccine is reported to be about 62% effective, but some patients accidentally received a modified dosing regimen during trials.

Chinese authorities have detained Haze Fan, a Chinese national and Bloomberg News staff member working for their Beijing bureau, on suspicion of national security endangerment, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

The big picture: Chinese citizens working for Western media companies have been warned by officials to "watch their step," according to the Washington Post. Western media companies are facing worsening conditions in China, and many American journalists have been expelled from the country.

While Americans were fixated on the U.S. presidential election, another major political event was happening in China: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee’s crucial Fifth Plenum meeting.

The big picture: The plenum underlined a further consolidation of Xi Jinping’s political hold on the party, lauding Xi as China’s “great navigator and helmsman,” a term last used for Mao Zedong. It also approved the outline of China’s all-important next Five-Year Plan for 2021-2025, and set 15-year goals out to 2035.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy activist and critic of the Chinese Communist Party, has been charged on suspicion of "colluding with foreign forces" under Hong Kong's national security law, AP reports.

Why it matters: It's the most high-profile application yet of the draconian new law, which was brought into force over the summer as part of Beijing's crackdown on the city's pro-democracy movement.