The Wall Street Journal
Winter Storm Threatens Much of the Nation
A store employee restocks bags of ice melt Friday in Bethesda, Md., ahead of a massive weekend storm expected to bring snow, sleet, ice and frigid cold from Texas to New England, affecting about half the U.S. population.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Jan. 6 Prosecutor Smith: ‘I Will Not Be Intimidated’
CAPITOL CONFRONTATION: Former special counsel Jack Smith said at a House hearing Thursday he expects the Trump administration will seek to prosecute him for investigating the president. Afterward, Trump said he wants to do just that.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Trump, With Deal in Sight, Backs Off Greenland Threats
DAVOS, Switzerland—President Trump said Wednesday that he wouldn’t deploy the military to take control of Greenland and called off promised tariffs on European nations, a head-spinning U-turn as he said he “formed the framework of a future deal”...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Trump’s Threats to Allies Stir Worry U.S. Has Lost Its Way
DAVOS, Switzerland—President Trump is showing up for an annual gathering of the global elite here in the Swiss Alps, swinging a wrecking ball at the international order. Trump insists he will take possession of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark—by...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Canada Warms to China After U.S. Trade Spat
China and Canada agreed to lower tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles and Canadian canola oil as a part of what their leaders called a “new strategic partnership,” with U.S. trade frictions looming. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, after...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Iran Suspends Plans to Execute Detained Protesters, Trump Says
President Trump said he was told Iran suspended plans to move forward with executions of antigovernment protesters, hours after Tehran signaled it was preparing swift trials and executions in defiance of a warning from Trump and the threat of U.S....
Read Full Story (Page 1)U.S. Tries Fresh Tack on Regime Change
In the aftermath of the U.S. raid to seize Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, Washington is trying a new approach to regime change: Keep the regime—and try to change its behavior. Having removed Maduro from power, the Trump administration has kept...
Read Full Story (Page 1)As Turmoil Rocks Tehran, Regime Vows Crackdown
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Friday that the theocratic government won’t back down amid fast-growing protests and threats from President Trump to intervene. Protests erupted again Friday night in Tehran, a day after the largest...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Minneapolis on Edge After Fatal ICE Shooting
DIVIDED: Authorities investigated Wednesday after an ICE officer shot to death a woman in her car during a confrontation with agents in Minneapolis. City and federal officials offered starkly different narratives about what led to the killing.
Read Full Story (Page 1)President’s Greenland Demand Spreads Alarm Among Allies
President Trump’s embrace of military interventionism in Latin America has led to the diplomatic equivalent of embarrassed coughing from the U.S.’s allies in Europe. But his renewed designs on the Danish territory of Greenland are causing growing...
Read Full Story (Page 1)U.S. Raid Leaves Venezuela in Confusion
President Trump ticked off a list of reasons for his decision to capture and arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He talked about the Maduro regime sending illicit drugs and gangs to the U.S. and nationalizing American oil-company assets. One...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Families Desperately Search For Survivors of Swiss Fire
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland—Umberto Marcucci was asleep in this Swiss mountain resort town when the phone rang around 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. A fire had engulfed a local bar popular with teenagers, and his 16-year-old son, Manfredi, was...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Mamdani Takes Oath as NYC Mayor
Zohran Mamdani became the mayor of New York City on Thursday, declaring he will govern “expansively and audaciously” and promising to make good on his pledge to lower the cost of living for New Yorkers. “We may not always succeed, but never will we be...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Stocks Defy Tariff Jitters in ’25
The U.S. stock market is closing out 2025 near an alltime high, with the S&P 500’s 17% gain vaulting the index toward its seventh-best threeyear run on record. The yearslong rally appeared to end abruptly in the spring with the rollout of President...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Trump Cites Progress After Talking to Putin and Zelensky
PALM BEACH, Fla.— Talks on Sunday to end the Ukraine war spurred fresh optimism from President Trump yet no clear signs that the two sides reached a breakthrough as Russia continues to push for land gains and reject a ceasefire. Ukrainian President...
Read Full Story (Page 1)U.S.’s Missile Strikes in Nigeria Wade Into Fractured Landscape
The Christmas Day attack in Nigeria ordered by President Trump targeted two alleged Islamic State camps with more than a dozen missiles fired from a U.S. Navy warship, killing multiple militants, according to a U.S. official and a Pentagon...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Christmas Eve Mass Is Milestone for New Pope
In his first Christmas Day message, Pope Leo XIV urged the faithful to shed indifference in the face of those who have lost everything, such as in Gaza, those who are impoverished, such as in Yemen, and the many migrants who cross the Mediterranean Sea...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Consumers Fuel Surge in Growth
Robust spending by U.S. consumers drove greaterthan-expected economic expansion in the third quarter, and the strongest growth rate in two years. Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced across the economy, rose at a...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Vance Rallies the Right as His Allies Look to ’28
PHOENIX—Before Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, he was readying for JD Vance to become the next president of the United States. Now, Erika Kirk is determined to make that happen. In her kickoff remarks for Turning Point USA’s first major event since his...
Read Full Story (Page 1)In Year-End Q&A, Putin Tries to Rally Russians
HOME THEATER: A woman in St. Petersburg watched a TV broadcast of President Vladimir Putin’s annual press conference on Friday. Putin used the event, which lasted 4½ hours, to try to bolster support for continuing the war in Ukraine.
Read Full Story (Page 1)New York City Catholics Get a New Shepherd
Pope Leo XIV appointed a bishop from Illinois as the new leader of New York’s Catholic archdiocese, succeeding conservative Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is retiring. Leo named Bishop Ronald Hicks, 58 years old, as archbishop on Thursday. Hicks who,...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Australians Pay Tearful Tribute to Jewish Victims
HEARTBREAK: The parents of 10-year-old Matilda Britvan, one of the 15 people killed in a shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration Sunday, mourn at a vigil for the victims in Sydney on Tuesday. The attack has shaken up a tightknit community.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Troubled Son Is Arrested in Reiners’ Killing
SHOCK: The Los Angeles home where actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were slain. Their son Nick, who has battled addiction, was held on suspicion of murder. For video on Rob Reiner’s career, scan the code with the articles on
Read Full Story (Page 1)Terror Attack In Australia Targets Jews
SYDNEY—Two gunmen killed at least 15 people and injured more than three dozen during a Hanukkah event on Sunday on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in what officials called a terrorist attack on Australia’s Jewish community. One suspect was also killed, and the...
Read Full Story (Page 1)‘I Am Alive, Safe and Very Grateful’
BOLD MOVE: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado stood outside the Grand Hotel in Oslo following an audience Friday at the Royal Palace. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate survived a harrowing escape and a rescue at sea to reach Norway.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Floods Bring Evacuation Order in Pacific Northwest
Washington was under a state of emergency Thursday from a barrage of torrential rain that has sent rivers flow- ing over their banks, caused mudslides to crash down on highways and trapped people in floodwaters. Tens of thousands of residents were...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Civilians Flee Renewed Thai, Cambodian Fighting
Cambodia’s powerful Senate President Hun Sen on Tuesday vowed a fierce fight against Thailand as a second day of widespread renewed combat between the Southeast Asian neighbors drove tens of thousands of people to flee border areas. Fighting broke out...
Read Full Story (Page 1)European Leaders Press to Be Heard on Ukraine
European powers are pushing to have a bigger say in the U.S.-led peace process to ensure that Ukraine isn’t forced to accept a deal that leaves it, and the rest of Europe, vulnerable to future Russian aggression. The leaders of the U.K., France and...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Veterans Remember the Pearl Harbor Attack
TRAGIC DAY: World War II veterans Leon Amstead, Robert Hartline and Milton Ripple are pictured before the 84th Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Ceremony on Sunday in Honolulu. None of the dozen remaining survivors of the attack attended.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Ahead of Soccer’s World Cup, Trump Gets a Prize
Few things that happened onstage at the Kennedy Center on Friday afternoon could have overshadowed the official curtain-raiser for the world’s largest sporting event. But ahead of the draw for next summer’s World Cup—to be held across North...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Admiral Defends Killing of Boat-Strike Survivors
WASHINGTON—Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley in a closed-briefing for lawmakers Thursday defended a controversial Sept. 2 attack on a drug boat in the Caribbean. But Democrats found new grounds to question the legality of the strike after viewing a video...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Drums of War Feel Distant in Strapped Caracas
People in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas are maintaining a sense of normalcy even amid punishing inflation and U.S. threats against leader Nicolás Maduro. American pressure is ‘just talk and talk and talk,’ said one holiday shopper.
Read Full Story (Page 1)U.S. Envoys, Putin Discuss Groundwork for Ending War
A five-hour meeting at the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner concluded Tuesday without reaching an agreement to end the war, but the talks were “useful” and “constructive,” said a senior...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Pope Leo Rallies Flock in Cradle of Christianity
ISTANBUL—Pope Leo XIV’s trip to the Middle East is taking him to places where early Christianity flourished, but where that community is struggling. In Turkey, the number of Christians has declined to a historic low, while in Lebanon, where the pope...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Russia Dangles Business Ties To U.S. at Europe’s Expense
Three powerful businessmen—two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine. But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people...
Read Full Story (Page 1)S&P 500 And Dow Eke Out Monthly Gains
A late November rally propelled stocks near record highs, with investor optimism over a potential Federal Reserve interest-rate cut in December helping reverse the effects of an earlier midmonth market slump. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% on Friday, in an...
Read Full Story (Page 1)As Small Investors Crave Risk, Robinhood Amps Up Offerings
The chief executive of Robinhood Markets took the stage at the online brokerage’s annual summit in Las Vegas this fall decked out in a race-car driver’s jumpsuit and customized Nikes. Vlad Tenev told the hundreds of cheering traders in the audience...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Economy Is Now Addicted to AI Spending
The turbulence that hit stocks tied to artificial intelligence last week highlights a broader risk to the economy. Growth has become so dependent on AI-related investment and wealth that if the boom turns to bust, it could take the broader economy with...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Israeli Strike Kills a Hezbollah Leader in Beirut
TARGET: People gathered Sunday below a residential building in Beirut where a strike left five people dead and injured 28, Lebanese authorities said. Israel said the attack killed a leader of the militant group Hezbollah’s rearmament effort.
Read Full Story (Page 1)After 232 Years, U.S. Is Down to the Last Penny
CENTS AND SENSIBILITY: The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia struck the last pennies Wednesday. The coin, produced since 1793, now costs 3.7 cents to make and is being eliminated to save money. Above, the blank coins and the die for the last batch.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Flags Wave, Military Parades on Veterans Day
Alicia Blevins’s husband, Nathaniel, brings home $3,200 a month as a Marine corporal at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. By the time the couple is done making their car payment, plus dealing with credit cards, phones, gas, insurance and other bills,...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Syrian Leader Warms to Trump, U.S. Partnership
REALIGNMENT: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, once designated by Washington as a terrorist, waves after meeting President Trump at the White House on Monday. U.S. officials said Syria is joining the effort against Islamic State.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Deal on Shutdown Clears Hurdle
WASHINGTON—The Senate late Sunday cleared a critical procedural hurdle in its drive to end the record-long government shutdown, after Democrats provided enough votes to advance a measure designed to end the more than monthlong impasse. The vote was...
Read Full Story (Page 1)More Cancellations Loom for Frustrated Fliers
Flight cancellations across the U.S. could rise to 15%—or even 20%—if the government shutdown continues, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “If this shutdown doesn’t end relatively soon, the consequence is that more controllers don’t come to...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Teacher Shot by 6-Year-Old Awarded $10 Million
TRIAL: Abigail Zwerner, who was shot by a 6-year-old boy at a Newport News, Va., school in 2023, is embraced by her mother, Julie Zwerner, after jurors found school administrators failed to take action despite repeated warnings that the boy had a gun.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Wall Street Braces for Mayor Mamdani
Wall Street heavyweights failed to stop New York City voters from electing a democratic socialist mayor. Now what? There was an air of defeat on Tuesday evening in New York’s upper echelons as it became clear that Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s race....
Read Full Story (Page 1)Mamdani Leads Democratic Wins
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race Tuesday on a big night for his party, cementing the democratic socialist’s meteoric rise in the epicenter of global capitalism and making him the first Muslim to lead the U.S.’s most...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Travel Industry Sounds Alarm Over Shutdown
WASHINGTON—Hundreds of travel businesses, including casinos, hotels and convention bureaus, are asking Congress to end the monthlong government shutdown by immediately passing a straightforward spending bill, in a letter citing worries about the...
Read Full Story (Page 1)U.S. Employers Are Becoming More Comfortable With Layoffs
Corporate America has ended its firing freeze. Companies scrambled for years after the pandemic to build back their workforces, learning a simple lesson along the way: Keep the workers you’ve got, because if you lose them you will have a hard time...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Companies’ AI Spending Surges As Investors Send Mixed Signals
Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are already planning to pour $400 billion into artificial intelligence efforts this year. They all say it’s nowhere near enough. Meta Platforms said it is still running up against capacity constraints as it tries to...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Trump Cuts China Tariffs After Xi Talks
BUSAN, South Korea—President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping emerged from their first face-to-face meeting in six years with a temporary detente in the bruising trade fight between the two superpowers. The U.S. agreed to lower a fentanyl-related...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Israel Strikes Gaza, but It Says Truce Is Back On
ELUSIVE PEACE: Palestinians survey damage in Gaza City on Wednesday after airstrikes by Israel, which said Hamas broke a cease-fire. The group denied attacking Israeli troops. Palestinian officials said more than 100 people were killed.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Killer Storm Slams Jamaica, Takes Aim at Cuba
EVACUATION: Cubans fled their homes amid heavy rain Tuesday in Santiago de Cuba, which is in the expected path of Hurricane Melissa after the Category 5 storm struck Jamaica. The hurricane was blamed for several deaths even before making landfall.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Life-Threatening Storm Bears Down on Jamaica
BRACING FOR IMPACT: Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, was expected to strike the Caribbean island Monday and Tuesday, bringing 160 mph winds and dumping as much as 40 inches of rain on parts of the country.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Argentina Election Win Gives Milei a Mandate for Austerity
his position in Argentina’s Congress and securing a lifeline for his audacious freemarket revolution backed by President Trump. With nearly 99% of votes counted, Milei’s Freedom Advances party won almost 41% of the national vote, more than doubling...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Putting the World in World Series
INTERNATIONAL PASTIME: Blue Jay Vladimir Guerrero Jr. warms up Friday before Game 1 in Toronto against the Los Angeles Dodgers. A Canadian village claims to be baseball’s birthplace.
Read Full Story (Page 1)China Party Meets, Its Ranks Thinned by Xi Purges
YES MEN: Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, and other members of the Communist Party’s Central Committee at Thursday’s plenary meeting. After mass firings, participation at the gathering has dropped to its lowest rate since the late 1970s.
Read Full Story (Page 1)U.S. Eases Curb on Missile Use By Kyiv, Plans Russia Sanctions
WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has lifted a key restriction on Ukraine’s use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies for attacks inside Russia, as the U.S. plans to impose substantial new sanctions on Moscow, officials said on...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Japan Makes History With First Female Leader
FRESH START: Sanae Takachi was applauded Tuesday after being chosen Japan's first female prime minister in a narrow parliamentary vote. The 64-year-old conservative favors closer ties to the U.S. and a hawkish stance toward China.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Heist Offers Window on France’s Broken Finances
PARIS—The morning after thieves broke into the Louvre Museum in broad daylight, making off with its crown jewels, an embarrassed nation is asking itself a question: How could France let this happen? The answer partly lies in strained public finances...
Read Full Story (Page 1)In Daylight Raid, Thieves Steal Jewels at Louvre
QUICK HIT: A portable furniture elevator remained outside the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday, after thieves burst in through a window of a second-floor gilded gallery and made off with priceless royal jewels in broad daylight, all in just minutes.
Read Full Story (Page 1)President Leans Into Diplomacy To Try to Break Ukraine Logjam
WASHINGTON—President Trump is betting that one more round of personal diplomacy will deliver a breakthrough in the more-than-three-year-long war in Ukraine after months of failed peace negotiations. Behind the scenes, his team is working to back up...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Violence Mars Mourning for Kenyan Politician
Police opened fire on Thursday, killing two people as they tried to control a crowd of mourners gathered for a public viewing of the body of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, an influential politician who died a day earlier in India, officials...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Israelis Bury a Hostage as Pace of Handover Stalls
Israel and Hamas began negotiating the second phase of a plan outlined by President Trump to end the war in Gaza, as debates continued about the militant group’s failure to return all the bodies of dead hostages as required in the first phase. Hamas...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Military Steps In After Madagascar Leader Flees
Its president is in hiding, an army unit has taken control and crowds of protesters are demanding sweeping social change. The wave of protests mushrooming around the world has now forced a change of leadership in Madagascar. After weeks of...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Trump Hails ‘New Middle East’
President Trump declared an end to the Gaza war Monday after more than two years and vowed to extend peacemaking to the wider Middle East, taking a victory lap in a region still facing deep divisions and numerous unresolved conflicts. “This isn’t only...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Israel Readies To Welcome Hostages Home
Israeli authorities prepared to welcome home the last hostages still alive in Gaza on Monday morning, after Hamas told mediators on Sunday it had 20 living captives in its custody and was ready to begin setting them free. The message, which the...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Deadly Blast Levels Tennessee Explosives Plant
DEVASTATION: Debris litters the ground Friday after a powerful explosion at a defense contractor about 60 miles west of Nashville. Authorities said there were fatalities in the explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems and 19 people were missing.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Trump’s Upside-Down Strategy Delivers Foreign Policy Victory
President Trump’s announcement that he ended the two-year war in Gaza rested on an unorthodox strategy of declaring victory first and forcing others to fill in the details to make it a reality. He turned upside-down the traditional playbook for...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Macron Struggles to Maintain Grip in French Crisis
REPRIEVE: President Emmanuel Macron of France, with his wife, Brigitte, outside the Elysée Palace on Wednesday, said he plans to name a new prime minister, shelving his threat of calling new elections to break a fiscal stalemate.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Israelis Mark Anniversary of Hamas Massacre
REMEMBERING: An Israel soldier mourned Tuesday at a memorial for a friend killed at the Nova music festival during the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Negotiators arrived in Egypt for talks on freeing the remaining hostages taken that day.
Read Full Story (Page 1)Latest French Prime Minister Quits Tout Suite
FIN: Sébastien Lecornu resigned Monday after a month in office, the fourth prime minister President Emmanuel Macron has lost in just over a year. The exit shows how a political system that was once a cornerstone of stability in Europe has fallen into...
Read Full Story (Page 1)Meetings Aimed at Cease-Fire In Gaza Set to Start in Egypt
Delegations from the U.S., Israel, Hamas and Middle Eastern countries are set to meet on Monday in Egypt for highly anticipated talks that could pave the way for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages. But ending the nearly two-year-old war...
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