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The Seattle Sounders and Columbus Crew will contest the Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup Final at 8:30 PM ET tonight on FOX. Seattle seems to have all the momentum after a stunning comeback in the semifinals. With only 15 minutes left in the match, the Sounders trailed Minnesota United, 0–2. Three goals later, including an 89th-minute putback and an injury-time header, they had advanced to the Cup Final. Moreover, two of Columbus’ strongest midfielders have been declared “not medically cleared to play” after testing positive for Coronavirus. ...

On Sunday November 15, China and fourteen other countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free-trade agreement that is the result of eight years of negotiation. The RCEP is, according to The New York Times, “one of the world’s largest regional free trade agreements,” and may actually be the largest, covering more people - roughly 2.2 billion - than any previous deal. The agreement was created as a response to American influence in the region and comes after the United States has pulled out of many trade deals across the world. ...

No novel has been quite as polarizing in the 21st-century literary world as Donna Tartt’s 2014 novel The Goldfinch. Both celebrated and disparaged, it nonetheless won Tartt the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The New York Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani, who herself holds a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, lauded it as a “glorious, Dickensian novel … a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading. ...

Phony reporter Borat Sagdiyev first captured the nation’s attention in 2006, when Sacha Baron Cohen’s movie “Borat” hit theaters. Fourteen years later, weeks before the national election, Borat has appeared again. The first film featured hilarious interviews with unsuspecting people, startling many with their not-so-subtle racism, sexism, homophobia, and other prejudices. Now, Cohen argues, these issues no longer need to be revealed; they are overt, showcased daily by President Trump. ...

All DCPS high schools require that graduating students complete at least 100 hours of community service. Split over four years of high school, 100 hours does not seem so daunting of a task. Not only does volunteering help your admissions chances (and sometimes fulfill an admissions requirement) when applying to colleges, but it also allows you to connect with your community and contribute to a cause you care about. Some non-profits are still allowing people to volunteer in person, so long as they are properly masked and remain socially distanced. ...

President Xi Jinping of China announced at an annual United Nations General Assembly meeting that the country would be carbon-neutral by 2060. “Humankind can no longer afford to ignore the repeated warnings of nature,” Xi said in a speech to the General Assembly on September 22. For a country that produces about 28% of the Earth’s carbon emissions, it’s an important pledge that could have a huge impact on climate change. ...