Axios

The Israeli security cabinet on Friday approved the opening of the Kerem Shalom border between Israel and southern Gaza to allow aid trucks to enter the enclave, the prime minister's office said.

Why it matters: Coming after two weeks of strong pressure from the Biden administration, this is a significant policy shift by Israel, which had refused to allow any aid to enter Gaza through its territory since the Oct. 7 attack.

The U.S. State Department said Friday that it is "deeply concerned" about the wellbeing of imprisoned Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, after his lawyers said they haven't seen him in more than a week.

Driving the news: "We have communicated to the Russian government that they are responsible for what happens to Mr. Navalny in their custody, and they will be held accountable by the international community," a State Department spokesperson told Axios.

The Sun sent out a monster solar flare of high-energy radiation that NASA captured on Thursday in what NOAA Space Weather said was "likely one of the largest" such events ever recorded.

Why it matters: These powerful bursts of energy "can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts," per a NASA statement. Radio frequency blackouts were reported across the U.S. after this one.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday held his first end-of-year news conference since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The big picture: During the four-hour event, Putin ruled out ending Russia's war, suggested global support for Ukraine was flagging and spoke for the first time about detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

A former FBI special agent in charge of counterintelligence at the bureau's New York Field Office was sentenced to 50 months in prison on Thursday in connection to working with a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

Driving the news: Charles McGonigal, 55, pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of his 2021 agreement to provide services to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

The Biden administration has sent messages to the Houthi rebels in Yemen via several channels recently warning them to stop their attacks on ships in the Red Sea and against Israel, two U.S. officials said.

Why it matters: The Houthi attacks have created tensions in the region and are posing a growing threat to ships navigating one of the region's main commercial shipping routes.

Israel's war in Gaza needs to "transition to the next lower intensity phase in a matter of weeks, not months," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the war cabinet in a meeting on Thursday, according to two U.S. and Israeli officials.

Why it matters: The Biden administration has backed the Israeli response to the Oct. 7 attack and says it supports Israel's stated goal of ousting Hamas in Gaza, but the White House is under mounting international and domestic pressure to tell Israel to end the war.

Heat waves, floods and wildfires dominated the news cycle this year with climate-change related disasters, and global average temperatures, on the rise.

Why it matters: Every month since June has been the hottest such month on record, and the rapid warming is playing out in the form of deadly extreme events worldwide.

With November ranking as the warmest such month on record, NOAA is projecting greater than 99.5% odds that this year will be the world's warmest since instrument records began in the 19th century.

Why it matters: The record, a result of both human-caused climate change and an El Niño event in the tropical Pacific, demonstrates how quickly and significantly the world is heating up.

Chileans on Sunday will vote on whether to adopt a new constitution that was mostly written by a right-wing party and likely faces an uphill battle.

State of play: The current constitution was written during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who was in power from 1973 to 1989, and is considered outdated and inflexible.

When the Biden administration recently proposed a ban on outbound investments to China, it focused almost exclusively on private tech deals.

What's new: Congress is coming for most everything else.

French media and entertainment group Vivendi said that it's weighing a split into three separate businesses.

Why it matters: This would be a strategic reversal for the conglomerate, which has been seeking to tighten bonds between businesses that remained after Vivendi spun off Universal Music Group via IPO in 2021.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday that U.S. and Russian officials are in a "dialogue" to secure the release of two Americans that Russia has wrongfully detained, the BBC reports.

Why it matters: Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan have been wrongfully imprisoned by Russia since March 2023 and December 2018, respectively.

Central banks in Europe and the U.K. kept interest rates at historically high levels on Thursday, while officials pushed back on expectations that borrowing costs would be lowered anytime soon.

Why it matters: That stance contrasts with that of the the Federal Reserve, which all but declared the rate hiking cycle over and signaled cuts would be ahead in 2024.

The historic climate agreement reached at COP28 in Dubai will have ripple effects throughout the global economy, but they are unlikely to play out quickly, or be immediately obvious.

The big picture: The non-binding climate deal is part of the broader 2015 Paris Agreement. It exists in a zone of international law where its obligations are enforced via peer pressure, national laws and political and social movements.