The ability of drones to interfere with airliners — and inconvenience their passengers — has now been demonstrated on two continents, and the problem is likely to get worse as the number of small, unmanned devices multiply. Here are some common questions readers have about these incidents and brief answers.

Asian markets rose Monday on hopes that the Federal Reserve would re-evaluate its hawkish stance at a meeting later this week, following signs of slower global growth. ANALYST'S TAKE: "The 'Santa rally' which had been hoped for has proven to be frustratingly elusive, and now markets are quite happy, if not desperate, for at least a dovish line to be thrown by the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee)," Vishnu Varathan of Mizuho Bank said in a market commentary. Markets are "grasping straws led by hopes that there will be a material dial back of hawkish bias," he added.

Europe’s largest security organization said Friday that it has drastically scaled back plans to send as many as 500 observers to the U.S. to monitor the Nov. 3 presidential election and now will deploy just 30 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — which has observed U.S. elections since 2002 but is better known for monitoring voting in countries such as Belarus or Kyrgyzstan — has spent months trying to figure out how to safely keep tabs on an election it worries will be “the most challenging in recent decades” as Americans pick a president in the throes of a global health crisis.