What happened
The United Nations–sponsored COP29 climate talks ended in Baku, Azerbaijan, yesterday with approval of a deal to provide $300 billion a year to fight climate change, focused on helping poorer countries manage the rise in global temperatures. Negotiators gather today in Busan, South Korea, to work on hammering out a landmark deal to manage the world's plastics crisis.

Who said what
Delegates from 175 countries are in Busan for the "fifth and ostensibly final" meeting to curb plastic pollution, but "lingering divisions cast doubts on whether a final agreement is in sight," Reuters said. The European Union and 66 countries are looking for a treaty to cap and reduce the amount of plastic produced, and the U.S. "raised eyebrows in August" when it agreed to back those caps.

"Then came the election of Donald J. Trump," The New York Times said. Now "few expect the United States to sign on to an eventual treaty at all," with Trump siding with the petrochemical companies and other plastic-producing nations that oppose reducing output. Microplastics are already in drinking water, fish and animals, and even human organs, but plastics companies at the summit argue that the goal should be reducing waste through reuse and recycling.

COP29's final deal "rescued the summit from near collapse," but it left "just about everyone frustrated," Semafor said. Even the "disappointing" $300 billion number will be hard to turn from dollars in a ledger into "hard cash in the hands of the most climate-vulnerable countries."

What next?
Many developing countries, already "angered by the modest deal on climate crisis financing," argued that an "ambitious" plastics treaty with holdouts is "better than a watered-down one signed by all," the Times said. The Busan summit ends Saturday.

What happened
"Wicked" earned an estimated $114 million in North American movie theaters its opening week, and $164.2 million globally, making it the No. 1 film at the U.S. box office and the highest-earning Broadway-to-screen adaptation debut yet. "Gladiator II" brought in $55.5 million in its first weekend in North America, bringing its global receipts to about $220 million.

Who said what
The combination of the two movies — promoted under the portmanteau "Glicked" — "breathed fresh life into a box office that has struggled lately, leading to one of the busiest moviegoing weekends of the year," The Associated Press said. Neither the synergy nor ticket sales were as strong as with last year's "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" juggernaut, but "Glicked" put Hollywood back where it "desperately hungers to be — at the center of global culture," The New York Times said. Still, "the bounce came at a steep price," as the studios spent tens of millions of dollars in monthslong, "no-expense-spared" marketing campaigns.

The "sold-out theaters" for the two movies largely "validated" the "all-out marketing blitz," The Wall Street Journal said, giving Hollywood and theater owners at least one more "weekend to channel the glory days, before Netflix, TikTok and pandemic quarantines" sapped them of their "cultural dominance."

What next?
"This weekend isn't 'Barbenheimer,'" but it was "great on its own terms," box office analyst David Gross told The Washington Post. And since Thanksgiving and Black Friday are "two of the biggest moviegoing days of the year," it's possible "Glicked" has "a longer tail." The "feast of ticket sales" is "set to continue next week" with Disney's release of "Moana 2," the Journal said. The second act of "Wicked" comes out next November.