Chronopin: upcoming release dates, events and other important dates

Shops and bars in Thailand may sell alcohol through the afternoon for the first time since 1972, under a Royal Gazette notice that scraps the 2pm-5pm ban for a 180-day trial and gives pub customers until 1am to finish drinks.

The 'Shoe Oscars' moved to Cipriani 25 Broadway, where Pharrell Williams and Adidas took Shoe of the Year, Tommy Hilfiger the Lifetime Achievement Award and Kith's Ronnie Fieg Person of the Year.

Salmonella was found in a batch of All Seasons 8 Kräuter frozen herbs sold in Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd stores in all 16 German states and online, and the producer called it back.

The presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda signed the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity at a ceremony hosted by Donald Trump, recommitting to the June 2025 peace agreement and a regional minerals-and-economy framework; the M23 rebels were not party to it.

Germany's parliament voted 323 to 272 for the Military Service Modernisation Act: service stays voluntary, but 18-year-old men must fill in a questionnaire, medical screening becomes compulsory again for men born from 2008, and conscription can follow if recruiting falls short.

The nearly 8-mile extension runs south from Angle Lake along I-5 and adds Kent Des Moines, Star Lake and Federal Way Downtown stations. Sound Transit moved the $2.5 billion project's opening up from an earlier target of March 2026.

Babcock & Wilcox received a limited notice to proceed on engineering and long-lead purchasing for a SolveBright CO2-capture system at an unnamed existing US power plant, sized to capture more than 550,000 tons a year. The full contract, expected by March 2026, is worth an estimated $80 million; the plant is not named, so the pin sits at B&W's Akron headquarters.

OpenAI hired Slack chief executive Denise Dresser, a Salesforce executive for more than 14 years, as chief revenue officer; Slack product chief Rob Seaman stepped in as interim CEO.

Routine checks after new equipment went into a line at Nestlé's Dutch infant-formula plant found traces of the toxin cereulide, so Nestlé recalled every batch made since - 25 batches, including NAN formula, in 16 European countries.

Qualcomm bought Ventana Micro Systems, the Cupertino designer of high-performance RISC-V server CPU chiplets, to build RISC-V CPUs alongside its custom Arm-based Oryon cores.

Diageo opened the £73 million Guinness Open Gate Brewery London, a working microbrewery and visitor experience in Covent Garden's Old Brewer's Yard, to the public on 11 December 2025, returning brewing to a site first used for beer over 300 years ago.

International revenue jumped 33% while the Americas slipped 2%; Lululemon raised its full-year outlook and added $1.0 billion to its buyback, and the shares rose more than 9% the next day.

Mayor Daniel Lurie signed the Family Zoning Plan, which allows taller, denser housing along transit and commercial corridors, mostly in the north and west of the city, to plan for about 36,000 more homes ahead of a 31 January 2026 state deadline.

Disney+ premiered The End of an Era, a six-episode docuseries on the making of the Eras Tour, alongside The Final Show, a concert film of the tour's last night in Vancouver with the full Tortured Poets Department set.

EU fisheries ministers set 2026 catch limits for the Atlantic, North Sea, Mediterranean and Black Sea, raising anchovy and Norway lobster but cutting sole in the Skagerrak-Kattegat by 44%, while mackerel was left without an agreed total catch.

Chubby Group brought its all-you-can-eat wagyu shabu-shabu chain to San Diego's Convoy District, taking over the former Shancheng Lameizi Hot Pot space. Four tiers run about $45 to $98 a head across 90-minute seatings.

The two sections of the International Boundary and Water Commission committed Mexico to a new Tijuana treatment plant by December 2028 and a Smuggler’s Gulch sediment basin before the 2026-27 rains, on top of the Minute 328 projects.

Oregon opened its commercial Dungeness crab season on 16 December 2025 from Cape Falcon to the California border, 15 days after its 1 December target, while the north coast waited for Washington crab to fill out.

California's DMV adopted a judge's finding that Tesla broke state law by marketing its driver-assist features as 'Autopilot' and 'Full Self-Driving Capability', staying the factory-licence suspension and giving Tesla 60 days to fix its marketing or lose its dealer licence for 30 days.

TI began production at SM1, the first 300mm wafer fab on its site off US-75 at Shepherd Road in Sherman, three and a half years after breaking ground. The site is laid out for up to four connected fabs and is meant to support as many as 3,000 direct jobs; TI is spending more than $60 billion across seven fabs in Texas and Utah.

Penfolds owner Treasury Wine Estates forecast first-half EBITS of A$225-235 million, cancelled its A$200 million buyback and launched a A$100 million-a-year cost programme as weaker US and China demand left distributors overstocked.

The FY2026 NDAA (S. 1071) became Public Law 119-60, setting Pentagon policy and authorising funds for fiscal year 2026; it repealed the Caesar Act sanctions on Syria and the 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorisations and made draft registration automatic.

ByteDance and TikTok signed binding agreements to form TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX holding 15% each and ByteDance keeping 19.9%, due to close on 22 January 2026.

Vietnam marked a ceremonial 'technical opening' of its US$4.6 billion first phase at Long Thanh International Airport near Ho Chi Minh City with the first landings, while most of Phase 1 was still under construction.

Alo's first store in Italy, a two-level sanctuary on Via del Babuino near the Spanish Steps with original brick walls and friezes.

The Kaiju No. 8 anime will adapt the manga's ending in a Final Chapter, announced with a teaser promo on the franchise's Jump Festa 2026 stage.

MAPPA's follow-up to the Reze Arc film was unveiled at Jump Festa '26, confirming that Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man would continue on screen with an adaptation of the manga's Assassins arc.

Bones Film's adaptation of Kei Urana's grimy fantasy Gachiakuta was renewed for a second season the moment its first season's finale finished airing.

A Baltimore City jury awarded Cherie Craft $59.84 million in compensatory and $1.5 billion in punitive damages, finding J&J's talc baby powder exposed her to the asbestos behind her peritoneal mesothelioma - the largest talc verdict for a single plaintiff. J&J said it would appeal.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Nike's lead independent director, bought 50,000 Nike Class B shares at a weighted average $58.97 on 22 December 2025, days after Nike's second-quarter report sent the shares down, taking his holding to 105,480 shares.