Daily Pulse: Blatter and Platini Barred from Soccer, Star Wars Crushes Box Office, Books Are Back

Two of the biggest names in football/soccer are barred from the sport. Sepp Blatter, still president of FIFA until he actually hands in the resignation he promised, and Michel Platini, president of UEFA, European football's governing body, were both suspended for 8 years over ethics violations. While Blatter's downfall is no surprise by now, this also ends Platini's hopes of running for FIFA president in February's special election. Both are expected to appeal. Sepp Blatter explained himself in a news conference that is... edifying.

The Force is even stronger than we knew. No other film even comes close to these numbers: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" netted $238 million in US and Canada ticket sales over the weekend and $517 million worldwide. The second best, Jurassic World, took in $208.8 million and $525 million respectively (that included China, where Star Wars hasn't yet been released.) Disney's investment of $4 billion for the IP sounds like a smart move. 

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It would cost me 40 percent to bring it home. And I don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to do. This is a tax code that was made for the industrial age, not the digital age. It’s backwards. It’s awful for America.

CEO Tim Cook, speaking on 60 Minutes, on the nearly $200 billion in cash Apple keeps overseas

A massive landslide has engulfed 60,000 sq meters in one of China's richest industrial cities, Shenzhen. Mud six meters deep toppled at least 33 buildings, and 91 people were reported missing on Monday. This isn't a natural disaster: it is a mound of construction waste piled too high with angles too steep that collapsed. The cost of unbridled growth. 

Another day, another low oil price record. The Brent crude, at around $35 a barrel, has reached its lowest level since 2004. The market continues to be flooded with supply: 31.5 million barrels per day from OPEC, 10 million from Russia. 

Toshiba unravels. The company will record a loss of $4.5 billion this year and cut nearly 7,000 jobs, including most of its television business, which operates at a loss. It's also looking to sell its healthcare business. Once one of Japan's tech jewels, Toshiba fessed up to overstarting profits for seven years and its CEO stepped down in July. 

Print is back. Book sales in 2015 – 571 million in the US, tallied even before the Christmas season – are up from last year, which was already up from 2013. E-books, meanwhile, are declining. Literary events like the release of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman have helped. What else? Grown-up coloring books... 

Martin Shkreli's Twitter account was hacked. RT'ing will not in fact get you a WU-TANG album. The former Turing Pharmaceutical CEO's last legit tweet was to say the fraud accusations against him were "baseless and without merit." He stepped down from his post on Friday. 

Photo: Excavators and rescuers are seen working at the site of a landslide that hit an industrial park in Shenzhen, China, on December 21, 2015. STR/AFP/Getty Images

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What you may have missed — and really should read:

• Katrina Brooker's profile of a financial fraud reporter who says he’s the last of his kind. 
• Caroline Fairchild's first in a monthly series on the #NewEconomy and the future of work.
• Stan McChrystal explains why Big Data needs human filters. 
• Is the Out of Office email a luxury on its way out? 

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