Ukraine's technology woes

North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature rejected a proposal to repeal a state law restricting bathroom access for transgender people, which has drawn months of protests and boycotts by opponents decrying the measure as discriminatory.

This holiday season, Wall Street is partying like it's 2006. Just don't tell anyone.

Around the world

Ukraine thought that millions of dollars' worth of U.S.-supplied drones would help in its war against Russian-backed separatists. They were wrong.

German police arrested four people who had been in contact with a Tunisian suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack that killed 12 people, according to media reports.

Thousands of Syrian rebels and fighters are still waiting to be evacuated from their last bastion in Aleppo, but harsh weather was complicating the final phase of the operation, said a spokesman for them. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported yesterday that the last remaining fighters had fled, giving President Bashar al-Assad control of the city.

Around the country

President-elect Donald Trump took credit for extracting a promise from Boeing that the cast of replacing Air Force One would not exceed $4 billion. A couple of weeks ago, he tweeted that the plane was too expensive without providing evidence that it would actually cost more than $4 billion. 

Quote of the day

"We’re going to get it done for less than ($4 billion), and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens," Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing CEO.

Trump named economist and author Peter Navarro, whose books include "Death by China: How America Lose Its Manufacturing Base," to head a new group called the White House National Trade Council.

Digit of the day: 8

Maine became the eighth state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

Around Wall Street

Gulf Coast oil refiners are cashing in on rising fuel demand from Mexico, shipping record volumes to a southern neighbor that has failed to expand its refining network to supply a fast-growing economy that has driven up demand for energy.

Uber shut down its self-driving car program in San Francisco after the California DMV revoked the registration of 16 of the vehicles because they didn't have the proper permits.

Northern Dynasty Minerals, a small Canadian miner, is optimistic that Trump's victory will also be a win for its Alaska copper and gold project, which regulators have stalled almost three years to protect the world's biggest sockeye salmon fishery.

(reuters.com)