1. Hubertus hopeless mess?
Oops, the advertisement is about poverty: a pensioner pulls her trolley through a winter-gray city, rummaging through the trash cans for cans and bottles. A boy hands her a plastic bottle, and they smile at each other. In the end, the pensioner throws the bottle into the vending machine; instead of taking the deposit receipt, she presses "Donate". On the soundtrack, the singer Loi snorts: "Everwhere you go I follow." With the spot, the discounter Lidl advertises itself and the cooperation with the food bank. What kitsch! And at the same time: What a stroke of genius! Encouragement, indignation, reporting, everything achieved – almost like Edeka a few years ago with the lonely grandpa (more on that here).
Alas, politics is also about poverty, but not about pensioners, but about poor people who could work, but supposedly don't want to: Labour Minister Hubertus Hardliner Heil (SPD) wants to completely abolish the citizens' allowance for such "total refuseniks", for up to two months. He wants to save 150 million in this way. "Pure symbolic politics," says my colleague Rasmus Buchsteiner – with a total annual expenditure of more than 43 billion euros on citizens' money and job centers (here is the commentary). Some in the coalition are irritated.
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Minister of Labour Heil
Photo: Janine Schmitz / photothek / IMAGO
In addition, Heil's plan is "legally and financially dubious", reports my colleague Florian Diekmann – and that it does not change "perhaps the most annoying grievance in the system": If Jobcenter employees have a strong suspicion of illegal work, they can hardly do anything. But it is also true that even the most social humanitarians in the job centres would like to see more sanction options in order to deal with difficult cases. "On the whole, however, the problem of the 'total objectors' is a very small one; only a fraction of people are brazen, lazy and able to work," says Florian. It is at least as important to focus on helping the many decent people as it is on sanctioning the indecent few.
Read more here: The Gap in Heil's Shaky Citizen's Money Plan
2. There will be rain
What we need to live will turn against us / I think old age will stay relaxed, don't make waves / He jumps up and points to the sky says it's going to come from there / I'm trying to make out something, but I'm seeing too blurred / And then he turns to me and says you're going to live to see it /
And I ask him what/
there will be rain
I had to think of the ancient song of the Fantastic Four when reading the headlines: 2023 was particularly hot and particularly wet in Germany. 2024 is likely to be even worse. And the current flood situation does not seem to have eased everywhere: In Lower Saxony, the Bundeswehr is to support the emergency forces, as my colleague Marina Kormbaki reports. Several helicopters are to help protect the dike. (More here.)
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Flooding on the Ems on the Wednesday after Christmas
Photo: Lars Penning / dpa
Sometimes, when the climate crisis seems too dystopian to me, I try to console myself with the fact that things might not be quite so bad for a rich country like Germany. But even this selfish hope vanishes after I read the interview that my colleague Susanne Götze conducted with a dike expert: "Normally, the dikes should not break at these water levels," says the man. "Actually, they are designed exactly for such a flood situation. They are supposed to hold back the water during such events and protect houses and settlements. This also works for the larger dikes, such as those on the Rhine. They are still safe. At the moment, dikes on small and medium-sized rivers are often causing problems."
Read the full interview here: How dilapidated are the German dikes?
3. Do you take the moon for full?
At the end of the last situation in the evening this year, good news: Humans are striving for the moon again, as early as next year Americans could fly there again for the first time, but not yet land there, as my colleagues Christoph Seidler and Olaf Stampf report. On board the new Orion spacecraft, U.S. astronauts will orbit the celestial body and approach its surface.
"The Power of the Moon" is the title of the new SPIEGEL. You can get the issue here digitally and from Saturday at newsstands.
More than half a century after the "Apollo" flights, NASA is once again going on a neighborhood tour. And this time, the astronauts will not only visit the Earth's satellite, but also colonize it. The Chinese are also planning an outpost.
The circumnavigation in 2024 will be "the major scientific event of the year," write Christoph and Olaf. The first landing on 16 July 1969 was watched by 500 million people on their television sets. The coming ones will be watched and commented by billions on their phones. A big step for humanity, a small like for a human being?
Read the full story here: The Power of the Moon
News and background on the war in the Middle East:
Collision in Brussels: Berlin wanted to participate in the US operation in the Red Sea with an EU mission. According to SPIEGEL information, Annalena Baerbock and Boris Pistorius personally campaigned for it – in vain. Now Plan B is starting.
Federal Criminal Police Office reports drastically more anti-Semitic crimes 1100 offenses in just two and a half months: Since Hamas' attack on Israel, anti-Jewish offenses have increased in Germany, according to the BKA. This is mainly about damage to property and incitement to hatred.
Israeli army publishes findings on accidental hostage killing: The three men were shirtless, waving a white flag, calling for help in Hebrew – and were shot: Israel has reconstructed the catastrophic operation in Shujaiya. Among other things, poor visibility and tank noise were to blame.
What else is important today
Massive Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine: Burning homes, dead and injured: Russia is attacking Ukraine from the air more fiercely than it has for a long time. President Zelensky speaks of around 110 Russian missiles. Explosions are reported from many cities.
Mayor Tschentscher sees Hamburg prepared for an emergency at Elbtower: Will the concrete skeleton of the Elbtower become a symbol of Hamburg's megalomania after the bankruptcy of the Signa Group? Mayor Peter Tschentscher is confident that the project will come to a good end.
Truck crashes into pedestrian group – mother and daughter killed: In the city centre of Passau, a truck hit a group of passers-by in the morning. A woman and her eleven-year-old daughter were killed, and several people suffered injuries.
My favorite story today: Cheers to the bubbly!
My favorite colleague, when she drinks, only drinks champagne. As a result, she was given only champagne for her last milestone birthday, 50 bottles I guess. I'm not sure how many of them are left for the upcoming New Year's Eve celebrations.
Traditionally, women rarely had a say in the production and sale of champagne. Actually, only if men let them take power, as my colleague Leo Klimm reports. The legendary widow Clicquot became world famous in this way. Today, there is often strategy behind it. Rows and rows of women are moving into management positions in the luxury sparkling wine business. They are intended to secure the future of one of France's most important exports.
Champagne is a wine that women particularly like, according to market research. "At the same time, it is loaded with countless sexist projections," Leo writes. "Starting with the legend that the classic, wide champagne glass was shaped after the bosom of the royal mistress Madame de Pompadour, continued with the bubbly seducer James Bond, to the advertising images of Moët & Chandon, in which Hollywood divas are lounging in bed sheets with champagne bottles."
Leo wanted to know what would change as a result. Is there even a new champagne feminism? Yes, he reports, "but only as long as it doesn't harm the business." All the women would have defended the clichés with which champagne is traditionally advertised. Carol Duval-Leroy, for example, head of the house of the same name, puts it this way: "I like to take advantage of men's weaknesses."
Read the full story here: The Champagne Feminists
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL+
Here's what the Maine and Colorado decisions mean for Donald Trump: Because of Trump's role in the storming of the Capitol, courts in several US states are dealing with the question of whether the former US president should be allowed to run in the primaries at all. The most important questions and answers .
How coffee before exercise boosts your performance: Caffeine is performance-enhancing and was even once on the doping list. And coffee? Studies show how athletes benefit from this in competition – and what amateur athletes should pay attention to.
What employees should know for 2024: Sick doesn't mean sick, and better negotiation doesn't mean more money: Which decisions of the year will also shape the coming months – and what they mean for employees.
This is how it goes on in René Benko's realm: The core companies of real estate mogul René Benko are insolvent. What does this mean for large-scale projects such as Hamburg's Elbtower? And is another insolvency at Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof imminent? The overview .
What is less important today
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Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa
Welcome them: The hobby name researcher Knud Bielefeld, 56, has once again compiled the ranking of the most popular first names. According to the study, parents again most often chose Emilia and Noah for their newborns. He told the dpa news agency: "Just like last year. Nothing has changed."
Mini Concave Mirror
Von tagesschau.de: "Nightly snowfall has led to road closures, cancellation of classes and train services in large parts of northern China."
Here you can find the whole concave mirror.
Cartoon of the Day
And on weekends?
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Photo: Paulo Gonçalves / 500px Plus / Getty Images
Could you pop the corks, whether it's champagne or sparkling wine or something non-alcoholic? My colleague Martin Schlak provides the small talk ammunition and explains why the champagne bottle pops when opened: "For a short time, the gas flowing out of the bottle breaks the sound barrier," he writes.
The colour of the steam also reveals a lot: "Because the gas mixture expands abruptly when it comes out, it cools down at the same time. For a short period of time, temperatures of up to minus 130 degrees Celsius can occur near the neck of the bottle." This is cold enough for CO₂ to form dry ice crystals. "Depending on the temperature, these crystals vary in size and scatter the light in a characteristic way." Therefore, the smoke from the bottle can take on different colors. (Read more here.)
Cheers New Year! I wish you a colourful and successful 2024.
Yours sincerely, Oliver Trenkamp, Editor-in-Chief