Thursday Morning Briefing: Schools work to restore routine to children of lost Paradise

United States

For two dozen third-graders who survived the massive wildfire that largely obliterated Paradise, California, school is now the small home of their teacher, Sheri Eichar: Reading center on the couch, math in the kitchen nook, language in the corner. At least 88 people have been killed and 196 people are listed as missing three weeks after the deadliest wildfire in California history torched a small mountain community leaving it in smoldering ruins, authorities said.

Exclusive: The Trump administration is considering new background checks and other restrictions on Chinese students in the United States over growing espionage concerns, U.S. officials and congressional sources said. Any changes would seek to strike a balance between preventing possible espionage while not scaring away talented students in a way that would harm universities financially or undercut technological innovation, administration officials said.

Women earned roughly half the income of men in the United States over a 15-year period, taking into account time off for family or child care. This is according to a report on women’s income from 2001 to 2015 released by the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which found the pay gap is far greater than has commonly been assumed.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has scrapped plans for a high-speed passenger tunnel under the Westside of Los Angeles but is moving ahead with a similar proposal across town designed to whisk baseball fans to and from Dodger Stadium.

World

Since initial reports of Ebola in 1976, the virus has caused 44 more outbreaks, killing more than 13,000 people according to CDC. The current outbreak, the third largest Ebola epidemic in the history of Africa, is in an area of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that, along with large areas of sub-Saharan Africa, is a natural home to the Ebola virus.

Special Report: China is accused of incarcerating hundreds of thousands of Muslims in detention camps. A Reuters analysis of satellite images of 39 of these facilities show they are expanding at a rapid rate. A U.N. panel has accused China of turning its far-flung western region of Xinjiang 'into something that resembled a massive internment camp.' Beijing, which for months denied their existence, now says they are vocational training centers.

Two Ukrainian Azov Sea ports, Berdyansk and Mariupol, are effectively under blockade by Russia as vessels are being barred from leaving and entering, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Volodymyr Omelyan, said. Omelyan said 18 vessels were awaiting entry into the Azov Sea, including four to Berdyansk and 14 to Mariupol.

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Commentary: As Donald Trump heads off to Buenos Aires for his second G20 summit, it’s time for him, and for much of the world that once counted America as a firm and true partner - to turn the corner, writes David Andelman, former foreign correspondent and visiting scholar at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School.

 

Two @Reuters journalists have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 353 days. See full coverage: https://reut.rs/2Qc7QFT

4:56 AM - 29 Nov 2018

Germany

Around 170 police officers, prosecutors and tax inspectors searched six Deutsche Bank offices in and around Frankfurt over money laundering allegations, the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Germany’s antitrust authority has launched an investigation into whether U.S. ecommerce giant Amazon is exploiting its market dominance in its relations with third-party retailers who use its website as a marketplace.

Oil

Exclusive: Russia accepts need for oil cuts, bargains with Saudi on details - sources

Russia is becoming increasingly convinced it needs to reduce oil output in tandem with OPEC but is still bargaining with the producer group’s leader, Saudi Arabia, over the timing and volume of any reduction, two industry sources told Reuters.

4 min read

Oil falls, heading for biggest monthly slide since 2008

Oil fell, bringing losses for the month so far to 23 percent, marking its largest one-month fall since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008.

3 min read

Blockchain platform goes live for North Sea crude oil trading

Oil majors and trading firms can start finalizing crude oil deals on a live blockchain-based platform for the first time, in a move that could revolutionize the market.

3 Min Read

Pressure mounts to bury carbon emissions, but who will pay?

When countries gather on Sunday to hammer out how they will enact pledges to cut carbon emissions, a Norwegian-led oil consortium will offer a solution: pump some of your excess carbon dioxide to us and we could store it for you.

8 min read

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