5 things you need to know Monday
FAA wants you to register your drone
If you own a drone, from Monday you must register it with the Federal Aviation Administration. The drone owner – whether it's a new purchase, say, for Christmas, or a drone that's been flying for years — will have to register a name, a physical address and email address. The registry, which will allow the FAA to track drones in instances of collisions or airspace violations, also aims to reinforce the rules for flying.
Monday's winter solstice marks our longest night
Here comes the dark. The winter solstice — marking the longest night and shortest day of the year — is Monday night. The solstice occurs at the same instant everywhere on Earth, according to earthsky.org. It happens Monday evening at 11:48 p.m. ET, 10:48 p.m. CT, 9:48 p.m. MT and 8:48 p.m. PT. The solstice marks the precise moment at which the Northern Hemisphere is tilted as far away from the sun as it will be all year. It's the astronomical beginning of the winter season (though meteorologists define the beginning of winter as Dec. 1, the start of the coldest three months in the Northern Hemisphere).
All eyes on Pope Francis' Christmas greeting to the Curia
Pope Francis gathered the Roman Curia — the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See — to deliver his traditional Christmas greeting Monday. Usually it's a jovial affair. He urged Vatican bureaucrats to show more honesty, humility and sobriety as he issued a Christmas-time “catalog of virtues” for his collaborators to follow after having excoriated them last year for a host of sins.
ISS astronauts ready for spacewalk
International Space Station astronauts will perform a spacewalk on Monday to move a work platform stuck on rails outside the orbiting research complex. NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra will exit the station for a spacewalk likely to last at least three hours. Kopra recently arrived at the station with Great Britain's Tim Peake and Yuri Malenchenko of Russia.
FIFA's Blatter, Platini banned
Two of world soccer's most powerful men were banned from the sport for eight years on Monday in an ongoing ethics scandal. Suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter and the man who was once slated to succeed him, Michel Platini, were punished by FIFA's ethics court in relation to an investigation of a $2 million payment Blatter approved for Platini without telling his executive committee colleagues. Blatter, 79, and Platini, 60, have already promised to appeal.
And, the essentials:
Weather: It's going to be a soggy day for much of the country.
Stocks: U.S. stock futures were little changed Monday.
TV tonight: Wondering what to watch tonight? TV critic Robert Bianco looks at Saturday Night Live Christmas and The Great Holiday Baking Show.
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