Nickel Dimed: Indonesia’s islands are some of the most biodiverse areas of the world. They are filled with dense jungle and teeming with wildlife. They’re also home to some of the planet’s largest reserves of nickel — a key component in many electric vehicle batteries.” Welcome to the dirty side of the electric vehicle revolution. Rest of World: The dirty road to clean energy: how China’s electric vehicle boom is ravaging the environment.

+ Tramplers Like Us: There weren’t as many scenes of people getting trampled entering big box stores on Black Friday. But that’s only because we were trampling each other online. The Hustle with a look at the numbers, including the fact that plumbers have the biggest Black Friday of all. Another thing that was popular over the holiday weekend: Football. Giants-Cowboys most-watched NFL regular-season game on record.

+ AshTag: “USGS warned on Sunday that ‘residents at risk from Mauna Loa lava flows should review preparedness.'” World’s largest active volcano starts to erupt in Hawaii.

+ Telles, Like It Is: “Robert Telles isn’t willing to discuss how his DNA ended up under the fingernails of Jeff German. Or why his wife’s car was spotted near the sixty-nine-year-old investigative reporter’s house on a warm Friday morning in early September, a day before a neighbor discovered German’s lifeless body at the side of his Las Vegas home. Or how an outfit matching the one worn by the suspect captured on security-cam footage wound up in Telles’s home.” But other than that, he’s pretty chatty. Zoë Bernard in Esquire with the insane story of how an investigative piece on a small time politician led to murder. Murder and Loathing in Las Vegas.

+ Nose Ring: “A super-cartel that controlled one-third of the cocaine trade in Europe has been taken down in six countries.” How super? Authorities seized 30 tons of cocaine. (That was a weeknight at Studio 54.)

+ Send a Raven if This Works: “The pigeons — Skinner had determined that they worked best as a trio — would be placed in the nose cone of a missile, which was dubbed the ‘Pelican.’ Each pigeon would be looking at a small electronic screen that would display the ground ahead of the missile. As the pigeons would peck away at the target, small pulleys attached to their heads would steer the missile. Unfortunately for the pigeons, they would be along for the ride up until the moment of impact.” That time the Army tried to develop a missile guided by pigeons.

+ Lighting Bolt: Merriam-Webster says ‘gaslighting‘ is the word of the year. (Unless they’re just trying to mislead or manipulate us.)